Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

newgirly

Well the horse racing/wanted concert went well yesterday! It was dd's main birthday present, dh put a £2 to win bet on 4 races for the girls and the same for me. I won £45 on the first race and £12 on the second, both with a stake of £2! I did not spend any of mine on more bets , so came home in profit. I have spent a bit of it today on a few hellium ballons for grans 80th party on weds, the rest I would like to op but I will probably end up buying food basics and toiletries for our holiday on friday.

DH has taken the boys to see captain america at the cinema with some of their birthday vouchers, I am supposed to be ironing the HUGE amounts of clothes that are everywhere, ready to start packing, instead I am sat on the sofa with the laptop with dd watching Harry potter again!

Sepa74

Ooh! Congratulations on the win!! What a buzz!

newgirly

I have been playing around with my fav mortgage calculator again, I have worked out that if:

I OP all extra after the 0% card is cleared

DH gets paid weekly , so there are 4 spare weeks a year, 1 for xmas, 1 for holidays, 1 for home/car insurance, 1 will go to the mortgage

2 x council tax free months

If I did all this as well the end date would be feb 2019. Its very optimistic, but something to work towards, the only big change will be if we decide to move before then , or get the loft done, the loft would add on a a couple of years , a move a lot more.

I think it would be very difficult to be careful for the next 7 1/2 years, plus wthl 3 older kids I have no idea how much they will cost to finance, but I don't think it hurts to have a challenging target, and there may be extra money along the way that will help, fingers crossed.

One thing I will do though is start saving money in a tin again, I currently do it with coppers and small change, but I would like to start saving odd £'s here and there, as somewhere along the way I would like to buy maybe an old caravan, or a nicer tent, just for weekends away. We have talked for years about getting a caravan but never done it. I would like to have a shorter term something to aim for , as being MF is still a long way off, and sometimes I feel like I am wishing my life away.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.:D

CathT

It's so difficult to see an end point with a large mortgage isn't it. I think our income is similar to yours (with both of us working) and can't make huge OP's. I set my self smaller targets aswell. I really want a 5 figure mortgage by the end of next year but with baby coming along soon it may not happen. However according to my SS I will achieve it the following April (ish) so it's not a disaster if I don't get there but something to work towards.

I also have a 10/11 year goal of being MF but if there is still say £20k left on the mortgage, again that's not a disaster!

Targets provide great motivation but we need to 'live' in the meantime.

I think a cheap caravan is a great idea, might pay for itself before long anyway.

newgirly

Getting under 100K is something I can't wait for too cath, it's a lot longer away for us though. By my optimistic calculations it won't be until june 2014.

As for the caravan/tent idea its a good one in theory but I'm not sure about the bathroom situation, I need a luxury shower room like those american rv's have and I'm not sure I'll get one in an ancient old tourer, I need to up the budget a lot or get over my fear of campsite toilets.:rotfl:

Bootsale bargins today:

bowl of grapes £1 , huge watermelon £2, large baking spuds about 10 £1, big bowl of vine toms £1.

1 large fruity candle in a jar £3 (same as the ones in centerparcs for about £15. Stocking filler for grans 80th

100M of wide pink ribbon to decorate garden (also for 80th party) £1.75

DH got some 501's in his exact size for £8

6x smaller size tropical dry shampoo for dd £2 (her fav )

Thats it , I have also cleaned out the car, which had an old school packed lunch in the boot which was growing into something quite interesting.:D

newgirly

Emergency to do list required this week or I will never get away on hol friday.

• Buy all toiletries v. cheaply............done
• buy essentials food wise, plus wine...........done
• wash outside of car, done inside already
• fill up petrol :eek:
• try and find charger for my new camera
• help mum tidy garden, then decoate it for grans 80th
• also food for party
• wash and iron everything
• pack
• collect prescription

One thing I'm worried about is my siamese cat, she goes awol sometimes as someone up the road has been feeding her, (I have had words already), the question is, do I keep her shut in our through lounge for a week while we are away, or let her have the run of the house like our other cat,therefore the cat flap as well, and she will move out for the week like she usually does?

My 2 cats don't get on , so she will not stay alone in the house with him when we are not there. I think I should keep her shut in, but I know she will be climbing the walls to get out, as she is out most days. We will have a friend in everyday to feed them both. mY mum thinks its cruel to keep her in, but I really don't want het to move out permenantly.

newgirly

A very early start today, woke up when dh went to work at 4.30, so got on with a bit more ironing. I might do this a bit more often as its nice having a cup of tea and some silence before they all get up.

I have had some tcb track, plus added a couple of pounds extra and op'd £16.97 this morning. I will ring the bs today to check what ops I have made last month, so I can enter it on cakes mf challenge update. Yesterday I found an online spending diary that one of the new mfw's had put a link up for, so as I am pretty ignorant about spreadsheets I shall start filling that in everyday instead, even if I only do it for a couple of months it might be the shock I need to cut down on spending on wine and takeaways for the kids.;) Oops I meant wine for me , takeaways for the kids.:D

newgirly

I have been on the calculator AGAIN . This time to see how many months a loft conversion would add on.

If I upped the mortgage next year to £164K, that would give us £14,700 and if I stopped oping until oct2012 and saved instead we should have around another £15K

If I started afresh with the oping in nov2012 our new end date would be nov2020, insead of our current hopeful end date of feb2019, a difference of 21 months.

Not too bad, I should start saving instead of oping I know, incase of a move or loft work, its just the temptation to spend it ! Plus I like updating what I am paying off all the time and don't want to lose momentum, Hmm.

never_too_old

I have been married for 25 years this year and things are tougher than ever for us, this is the 3rd recession we have endured and this has been by far the worse. dh and i are both self employed. He works damed hard for every penny he brings in and sometimes we go for very long periods with no money.
I have 3 children 2 of which no longer live at home and left home in there teens.I have 4 bedrooms huge garden which we dont technically need any more but we would prob pay more to downsize than to stay here.This may seem like a long story but im getting there...
My aim is to pay off all loans, debts and mortgage so we can have a life and when a recession hits again coz it will take some of the pressure will be off my dh.
he suffered from depression about 5 years ago and was off work for a considerable amount of time,No money came in and no help finacially was available.
Moral of tale anyone can get ill god forbid it does happen anyone can have a change in circumstances..Your mortgage to me sounds huge and i wouldnt feel comfortable upping it more and putting more strain on your budget. My children have good memories they dont remember the size of bedrooms colour of bathroom etc, they do remember how upsetting it was when dad was ill and that he missed out going to so many things because he was at work and we needed the money.
It sounds like you have a lovely house with things in it that i would love to have so enjoy it , enjoy your family because they grow up and leave you too quickly.:D

newgirly

Thanks I am hart, I am sorry you have had such a difficult time of it.
I do know exactly where you are coming from, my oh works very long hours, and always has done, and thats a big part of wanting to be rid of the mortgage, although saying that he is so attatched to his firm as he has been there since he was 15, I don't think I will ever get him to retire.
Circumstances do change though, you are right, we have had had times in our married life that we have had to borrow to pay the mortgage. In fact when we bought the house 10 yrs ago the mortgage was to be paid from dh's share dividends, as the house was so expensive for us we put that years dividends into the purchase so had to borrow the first years mortgage payments :eek:, which is where the problem started.

Last year dh's best friend (also boss) died of a brain tumor at 53, which has the effect of making you want to plan to be mf and enjoy life , but also makes you think you don't want to miss out on the here and now.

I hope we are well and truly over being quite so reckless with money, but i still have my moments.:o Big difference now is we used to pay the mortage with dh's share dividends but now he does'nt have them, and we have still paid off instead of borrowed more so its not all bad, thanks to this site I think.

I swing between thinking that paying off the mortgage is the no.1 priority to thinking we should improve the house or move and enjoy it with the kids rather than when they are gone.Its difficult getting the balance right.
A bit of both is probably best, and I need to be able to save to do that.

As you had been posting i had been working out how long it would take to save up instead, another year or so, not long really.
I am going round in circles again, back where i started at the beginning of the year, thinking of saving for a loft room.:D