2010 MF Wannabes

cha97michelle

Evening everyone.

I've just done my final update on the 2009 thread so as far as i am concerned, any overpayments now class towards this thread. So i am technically off the starting grid.

Further to the point on using the 2 council tax free months, i am a bit daft and regularly transfer silly amounts over. I'll give some examples so you can see what i mean.

• phone/broadband/TV subscription i budget £25 per month to, and when it comes in at £20-22 i transfer the remainder across.
• I budget £1.25 per week for our window cleaner so on the weeks where they don't come (raining/snowing or whatever), that gets transferred across
• I make sure i immediately update child tax credits if they think they are not giving me the right amount. I've just got them to increase my payment by £20 per month through an extra phone call
• I try to take my kids to all free events i can such as groups at the library so we can meet some other people and we get out and about without spending.
• I transfer my interest paid on my current account to my mortgage on the 1st of each month. Only 8p last month.
• If i get a voucher from a survey i transfer that amount across when i use the voucher.
• When i had union subscription i had 2 free months for that too, so that went across, now i am not working i cancelled it and saved £9 per month.

Don't know if that will help anyone but the more ideas we share has got to be good i reckon.

LilacPixie

good ideas there Cha97michelle. how about when switching utilities, insurances general shopping use cashback sites and pay over any cashback earned.

cake21

Welcome to the latest new sign-ups: :T
105. prudence41
106. amberene
107. Gargola
108. k2tog

Needhelpsaving

cha97michelle wrote: »

Evening everyone.

I've just done my final update on the 2009 thread so as far as i am concerned, any overpayments now class towards this thread. So i am technically off the starting grid.


Further to the point on using the 2 council tax free months, i am a bit daft and regularly transfer silly amounts over. I'll give some examples so you can see what i mean.

• phone/broadband/TV subscription i budget £25 per month to, and when it comes in at £20-22 i transfer the remainder across.
• I budget £1.25 per week for our window cleaner so on the weeks where they don't come (raining/snowing or whatever), that gets transferred across
• I make sure i immediately update child tax credits if they think they are not giving me the right amount. I've just got them to increase my payment by £20 per month through an extra phone call
• I try to take my kids to all free events i can such as groups at the library so we can meet some other people and we get out and about without spending.
• I transfer my interest paid on my current account to my mortgage on the 1st of each month. Only 8p last month.
• If i get a voucher from a survey i transfer that amount across when i use the voucher.
• When i had union subscription i had 2 free months for that too, so that went across, now i am not working i cancelled it and saved £9 per month.

Don't know if that will help anyone but the more ideas we share has got to be good i reckon.

Some great ideas - I thought you had to transfer a minimum amount of £1 (don't know where I got that from!), but if you can do pennies too then I can round down my current account and use this towards my mortgage. :j

Am I really sad that I am looking forward to this challenge?? lol. :rotfl:

rsdiscos

Hi All - Just a quick update - since 2/12/09 we have made op of over £70 from silly savings that we have made - really excited to be paying off the fees part of our mortgage - £1035 when we took mortgage out 2 or so years ago - and the balance was just under £1000 at the start of Dec! Our first goal is to pay this off by 14/07/10 (DS1 Birthday) and then plough the £12 or so monthly payment to this part into the main mortgage!

belfastgirl23

Hi everyone, it's amazing how busy this thread has been already and December isn't even over!

My mortgage stands at £197,061 at the minute. Managed to pay off £4070 extra last year and hoping to pay more this year. At the minute my target is £7,500 extra or £625 a month. Overpaying by this amount is only possible because of the Nationwide's excellent base rate at the minute so if that changes then I'll have to revise my totals. We're currently on a rate of 2.5% which is down from 5.47% so that does make a big difference

I would love to see us get the mortgage down below £180k by this time next year. I think we can do it too with a bit of care. Fingers crossed.

Good luck everyone!

elantan

hi all, i didnt disappear this year i just got caught up with various things i did manage to complete this years challange and even managed a sneeky £250 extra alot of that is thanks to zav's thread ...i would be ready to go and spend money but then i would think ..el what about the mortgage do you wanna get rid of it ...do you wanna save money and give less to the banks ...then i would quickly transfer it over before i had a chance to spend it ...so big thanks to zav in my head even when she didnt know it lol

this year (2010) i dont think i will manage as much as i really want to get debt free (yes i know you are sposed to pay off debts first but a) they are interest free and b) i need the psychological boost) and if i can manage that then hopefully in 2011 i will be ready to start paying alot more off of the mortgage ...

cake i have filled a form in but incase i didnt do it right (i aint too good on comps) i am looking to pay off £1500 in 2010

cheers ...and best of luck everyone

wilsons

LilacPixie wrote: »

I am also looking immensly forward to this challenge. First OP cheque will be posted on 1st Jan 2010. Don't know about everyone else but we pay council tax over 10 months not 12 so we have Jan and feb council tax free so i plan to pay that to the mortgage too.

Great idea; one I'm gonna pencil in...

Our electricity DD is reducing by £12/mt so gonna use that as an additional OP too!

Bring it on!!!

Lo-Lo

Right, I've wanted to do this for ages! I've been overpaying regularly (£110 DD) and paying more in when I remember. I'm with Nationwide so £500 a month is our max over payment. I'm waiting for my statement to see exactly where I'm up to, but I think I'm going to aim for £5000 overpaid in 2010 and add the full £3600 into my ISA (I know this runs on the financial year, not the tax year but I've not put it all in this year). Then, anything that goes into the ISA stays in the ISA for a big scale overpayment in a couple of years.

I might change the figures slightly when I know the exact situation but this will encourage me to keep track of what I'm doing and remember to make the overpayment when the money's there!

It's a bit scary because this is nearly a third of our household income and I'm also still quite new to this mortgage lark (halfway through the 2nd year) and a bit worried about my options when the rates start going up again, so it will be good to have a better (insert the name of that % thingy of how much of your house you own vs what you are borrowing here) and also some people to get advice from!! Good luck everyone!

LilacPixie

Right I have also joined 2 other challenges. One is turn £100 to 10k in 2010 and the other is frugal living in 2010. The second challenge has made me face up to exactly how much money our household is haemorraging. Time for a new plan me thinks. Our mortgage payment is £404.76 a month at the moment. It should drop in June depending on LIBOR. to around £300-320 I plan to up my payment to a round £500 per month thereby overpaying somewhere between 96 and £200 per month this year. Even while doing this if i stick to current expenditure (which i plan to reduce) I still have 6k to spare to attack debts, save and give a cushion based on the ultimate plan of moving at some point is 2010 if we can sell and find something suitable to buy within our price/deposit range.