lil_lisa's MF diary.... countdown!

lil_lisa

We'll officially be starting our MF journey in January so we're using this month and next as an opportunity to get ourselves sorted and cut all the deadwood possible.

I've made a spreadsheet outlining our outgoings/income to work out exactly where we stand and we're in a pretty good position by the looks of it. We can just cover the outgoings on my OH's basic pay (with a massive £19 free at the end of the month! ) but we're lucky in the fact that he can earn up to £250 a week extra in bonuses (and it's very rare that he doesn't get any bonus so we shouldn't be struggling). The plan at the moment is to put all of my pay for the month into a savings account so that if we have any unplanned expenditures it's there for us to use but at the end of the month as soon as we know that that money is 'free' then it'll be going straight off the mortage.



We're also going to be taking these steps to get as much money paid off as possible -

• Cash in the 'pig' every month - All of our change will go into our piggy bank which we'll then take into the bank on a month basis (not unusual for us to get £50-200 a month)
• Stick to a £200 'budget' for food each month - We have a Tesco Credit Card which we've requested has the minimum limit on it (£250). ALL groceries go on the card and it's paid off in full each month. If we spend £150pm then the spare £50 is used as an OP, if we spend £199.50 then the spare 50p gets OP'd! Gotta love the clubcard points too.
• Cancel mobile phone - Paying £35 a month for a ridiculously bad priceplan because i've been lazy and not shopped about for a few years. That's now being cancelled and replaced with a £15 a month rolling 30 day contract. The OH will also be doing the same.
• Ebay - Good old ebay... All this 'stuff' finally needs a new home.
• Now this is a biggie - MOVE IN WITH MY PARENTS! - We're doing continuous work to our house to get it up to saleable standard so moving out altogether would mean we can do it at a slower rate and get more work done ourselves in our spare time, plus we can cancel a number of bills and save that money - Sky = £50pm, Phone & Broadband = £30pm, Electricity = £35pm, Gas = £35pm, council tax rebate for unoccupied property around £500pa. My parents are refusing to accept rent from us since their mortgage is already paid off but we'll of course pay towards utilities.

In theory, we could OP between £800 - £1100pm which would mean we could be MF in 6 or 5 years respectively. :beer:

Roll on January!

pawlala

WRT your mobile phone, look around for SIM only deals, for 15 quid a month I get 600 free mins and unlimited texts. If you're cancelling your contract you will already have a handset that you can use

setmefree2

Make sure you've read this

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgages-vs-savings

Good Luck

Smf2

markquinton

Don't mean to be the bearer of bad news but while you're doing the house up how will you power all the tools etc and make drinks\snacks with no electricity\gas? Rather than cancel I'd recommend requesting a much lower monthly payment or simply cancel the direct debit and pay the bills as they come in for your usage. (If you've already thought of this then please ignore me just thought I'd better point it out in case you haven't!)

lil_lisa

markquinton wrote: »

Don't mean to be the bearer of bad news but while you're doing the house up how will you power all the tools etc and make drinks\snacks with no electricity\gas? Rather than cancel I'd recommend requesting a much lower monthly payment or simply cancel the direct debit and pay the bills as they come in for your usage. (If you've already thought of this then please ignore me just thought I'd better point it out in case you haven't!)

We wont be cancelling the electricity/gas altogether but we'll be cancelling the DD.

For the bulk of the works we're planning on using a generator since luckily my OH gets access to free petrol through his work so that'll keeps costs down

markquinton

Thats good to hear then, just thought I'd mention it in case you hadn't realised thats all. Lucky devil regarding the free petrol, will come in very useful!

lil_lisa

So about time I update this I think.

This month and next will be very much a trial run and a chance for us to get all of our contracts changed before we start saving in earnest in Jan.

We've decided however, the rejigg the OP's so that it's split between OPing and saving/paying off debt. My OH has 2 credit cards which he has had for forever, one of which has an interest rate of 24.9% :eek:. Luckily that only has a balance of £400 so it'll be paid off in full in the first month and his second has a rate of £16.9% with a balance of a little under £2000 so he's going to have a look at possible 0% transfers for that. I have a student OD to pay off and 1 CC (both of which however are 0%). In the mean time we'll be OPing £500 a month to the mortgage and putting £450pm towards the debts (prioritising the ones charging interest). So by the end of the next year we will have OP'd £6000 on the mortgage and have paid off £4500 of debt (which is all of our debt other than the mortgage) and we'll have some savings tucked away too.

So far we've been able to make pretty good headway on somethings.

- We cashed in the 'pig' and ended up doing three separate trips to the bank since I couldn't carry all the change in one go! First payment was £35, second was £25 and the final one (when the OH could help me carry it) was for a massive £72! All in loose change!

- Our £200 monthly grocery budget has been slashed to £95 this month so that's £105 going straight to savings.

- Phone has been switched to £15 contract although as it's with a different network i'll be paying for both that and the old £35 contract this month.


We did opt to pay off the rest of the council tax in one go this month (£200) as although we could have saved it and gained a bit of interest this month it was easier in terms of budgeting to have one less payment going out each month, until April at least.

SmlSave

Well done, am very impressed by your reduction of your grocery bill

lil_lisa

SmlSave wrote: »

Well done, am very impressed by your reduction of your grocery bill

It's mainly due to telling the OH that his 'treats' can no longer be included in the grocery shop and has to be bought with his personal spends money instead. Amazing how much that gave him a kick up the rear!

lil_lisa

Well today i've been taking a few steps backwards in order to go forwards. I decided to use some of our savings to pay off one of the OH's credit cards in full and pay off 2/3rds of another of his cards (one with 27.9% int and the other at 16.9%!!!). The remaining 3rd will be paid off at the end of the month when all of the bills have been paid out. The 27.9% card was costing us £10 a month in interest alone compared to the 25p we were gaining in interest in that savings account! (but don't worry we've still got the ISA's for emergency funds). So now we'll only have a 0% CC left to pay off and a 0% student OD, both of which will be cleared by March and then the OP's can really begin!

clearmydebts

lil_lisa wrote: »

Well today i've been taking a few steps backwards in order to go forwards. I decided to use some of our savings to pay off one of the OH's credit cards in full and pay off 2/3rds of another of his cards (one with 27.9% int and the other at 16.9%!!!). The remaining 3rd will be paid off at the end of the month when all of the bills have been paid out. The 27.9% card was costing us £10 a month in interest alone compared to the 25p we were gaining in interest in that savings account! (but don't worry we've still got the ISA's for emergency funds). So now we'll only have a 0% CC left to pay off and a 0% student OD, both of which will be cleared by March and then the OP's can really begin!

Sometimes you have to go backwards so you can go forwards Lisa!

I'd say you are itching to start on the overpayments! I am too but it will be a while before I can do that. Onwards and upwards though!