Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

CathT

Well done on the new budget. I noticed you didn't include your income from working for DH. Is it because it is coming to an end/not consistent?

Also, your £900 OP, does that meet your repayments or include an OP in that aswell? Well done on being so organised. I really wish from a survey/cashback point of view I had kept a running total. I think I have made a note in my diary so could add up if I found the time but it would be motivating to see it in signature or something. A few other MFW's have done this.

I miss Michelle posting too and I really hope she is ok. There is a lot to be said for a online community and good friendships can be made. I think the forum was very quiet the day Michelle 'left'.

Newgirly, what survey sites do you do? I have earned £100 this year from GTM so I quite like that one, Onepoll is quick and easy, Mysurvey is good too. I am just getting back into Newvista, Rewarded Opinions and Ip505 after realising all my invites were going to my spam box and I was missing them. Have you done the Lovefilm free trials, myself and DH have both done them and enjoyed the films with good cashback.

newgirly

Hi cath, no income from dh included, but has only been £50 in the last few weeks unfortunatly.

The mortgage is IO at the moment as we were saving for the loft to be done, then built the log cabin/did the bathroom instead.

the embarrassing run down is:

• 2001 ................bought house for £120K with 93K mortgage
• remortgage due to debts don't know how many times:o
• 2008...............remortage for £165K over about 33 years
• 2010...............join mse and remortgage £160,936 over 12 years.
• jan2010..........switch to IO, but still op

At the moment we pay £434.81 interest, I will probably keep it IO until the 10% allowance is up and then switch back to repayment.
I need to pay £1434 per month to finish the mortgage at the planned april 2022 date, so will need to up the op's somewhere along the way to do this, as we will only be paying £1343 from jan.

Survey sites I use are onepoll, valued opinions and I used to do the one on tcb for 70p, have registered to a few others but have been to lazy to do them.

newgirly

I have been good and done some surveys today, £1.50 so far, plus I did'nt spend much yesterday just some sliced meat and posh pate in jl food court.I resisted the urge to buy some georgeous stripey socks for dd at £14 a pair!

Today I have to go and get a birthday present for my friends son , however ds1 is at home "feeling sick", he actually got to the gate and then came home. I think it may be more that he is tired as he was up late mucking about with his brother, he has just eaten something so i am going to drop him back in 10 mins or so, tough love.:D

lulabelle1

Hi there, I have been lurking for a while and today have finally set up my owns diary and become a MFW!
I've read through some of the pages of your diary and have found it very inspirational.
Having just read your budget, I am really impressed and would love to get some tips from you. The first area where I believe I can and must save some money is from the weekly shop. I am currently spending in excess of £500 per month which is shocking compared to what you manage on. So, if you have any tips for me, I would be really grateful...

Keep up the great work and congrats on what you have achieved so far....

newgirly

Hi Lulabelle1, thanks for the comments. The grocery budget is sometimes boosted by my dh buying the odd carton of milk or loaf at the local shop.

I am veggie so tend to batch cook curries or chilli made with quorn and freeze which is also because I'm lazy as well as moneysaving.
My dh eats most things without complaining, its just my kids that are a bit awkard. I shop at the orange supermarket and get a lot of their basics which i find much better quality than the red and blue one.

But the main difference is that I use stuff up , I know it sounds simple but I used to chuck lots of out of date stuff away, usually ready meals/salad etc. but now nearly everything gets used and i don't feel the need to have a trolley that looks balanced with a bit of everything. I sometimes get veg from the farm shop, or freezer store and just buy storecupboard bits on the big shop.

Things like crisps and wrapped biscuits do go in packed lunches sometimes but otherwise are a treat. we used to get through literally tons of w*lkers before, now they eat less junk. Fruit and veg is seasonal/whats on offer so no more stawberries in winter!

There is a forum member that has a website on how to feed 4 for £100 per month, the members name is weezl74, the website might be called cheap family receipes , sorry i don't know how to do links.
But there a some good ideas, I make the bean curry all the time and freeze.

Best of luck with your new diary I shall pop in and have a look.

lulabelle1

Thanks for this, I'm really impressed at what you are managing to achieve, I have a lot of respect for you and the others who are doing so well. It really makes me look at what I spend and I'm certainly now questioning things much more than I ever did.
Do you tend to do a weekly shop or shop for a few days at a time?
I will see if I can find the cheap family recipes website, thanks for this.

never_too_old

Hi newgirly
links.... copy the web address of the page you want to share,click on the little button above of the world with what looks like binoculas on it .Paste the web address in and add and voula you have a clickable link.
x

newgirly

im hart, thanks for posting that I shall give it a go!

Lulabelle I have no routine with shopping, its very as and when plus we have a row or local shops just round the corner so I buy bits there most days, I really need to get more organised though.

newgirly

I have spent all day going through my budget for next year, the direct debits normally come out before the cash has gone in, and I wanted to start the year on a even keel and not overdrawn. I also might stop putting the spending on the cc as although I can earn points for vouchers , sometimes its hard work to keep track plus I alawys put stuff on there that I should'nt. So need to start using cash again.

So I have cancelled the 0% cc overpayments to fund this, and will just pay £50 instead for nov/dec.

Only problem is I've cancelled the £403 payment which is supposed to come out tomorrow online and in the branch who confirmed the money will not be taken , but when I rang up to double check they said its 50/50 as to whether it will come out or not.:mad: By which point I had already paid £90 so it would not bounce. Fingers crossed it cancels before they take the cash, or its back to the overdraft.





I have tweaked the new soa and added the £10 pm I get from my halifax reward acct, and scarily my budget is the same as the £10 a day one i'm on now.

• grocery...........230
• clothes............25
• petrol..............10

total.....................£305 pm which is my £10 a day.:( not sure how realistic this will be long term, oh well.

Any extra money I earn will be spent on the kids I expect, with maybe the odd pound or two going to the mortgage. Oh and some needs saving for dh's 40th , he has decided to try and hire a london bus to take us and lots of friends to carwash retro club in london, I have no idea how much that will all cost.

lulabelle1

Hey Newgirly, I think it's a great move to stop doing the spending on the cc. I had a pretty decent cash back cc which I used for a few years. The problem I had is that i could spend all month long without any consequence. I could always pay the balance when the bill came in but it would mean that all of my salary was going on the cc rather than being able to allocate spare cash to savings or mortgage op's etc.

At least when using my debit card for all of my spending, I only spend what is in the flex account as I move savings and mortgage op' s out as soon as I have been paid.

The problem I had when I decided to change my ways is that it meant I had to find a full months worth of spending money as with the cc I was always a month in arrears if that makes sense.

Good luck, I hope you can find more ways to increase the money coming in so that it makes things a bit easier....