Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

newgirly

Hee hee what a daft bunch.

After reding gg's very sensible advice and doing a bit of googling on on the 7 steps to financial freedom, I have decided to:

1). Not get so hung up on fitting in targets with certain timescales that are tidy ie. I have to pay off x amount in exactly 1 year. This often leads to disappointment as they are quite long term timescales and things change.

2). Focus on the balance between having fun and being sensible and realising the fluctuations during the year and trying to properly plan for them. Ie. I always really want to be frugal in January after all the excess, but July - kids birthdays , October - Halloween , the kids love a big party or a couple of days at a theme park. Possibly I may plan for differing amounts of fun money pm through the year.

So stealing some ideas from the seven step plan , I shall

3). Put by a small safety net of savings of £500 ( may up it a bit though when I can)

4). Start clearing the 0% cc's - the one which deal finishes first to start, then snowballing the rest to card no 2 then then snowballing to the loan debt

5). By this time we will be debt free :beer: so will start to save for a proper safety net of a recommended 3-6 months wages, knowing me it more likely to be 3 months!

6). Start to op the mortgage finally or possibly start to save for a deposit for a BTL , once the loft is done we should have around 50% equity in the house, plus a safety net. It will depend on how well the business is doing by then

One thing I have not allowed for is a college fund for the kids , at 13,13 and 16 its a bit late for that , so we will have to deal with that if and when the time comes as none of them know what they want to do yet.

Also I am hoping to fairly soon after starting work to be able to get a small work pension going and add to it myself.

yukkibear

Always good to have a new plan. Motivation is a big part of this journey and we have to stay fresh. We didn't have a college fund for our now 18 year old. We managed, as you do I think.

newgirly

Hi yukkibear thanks for popping in

I am really struggling to keep track on the £10 a day budget, I have done it in previous years, and although its not easy I managed it. This time is REALLY hard I am not sure if I have chosen the best time to try and do this again really, we have so many bits and pieces to pay out for in the loft and not really any budget left t pay for it , I think I am going to have a look at all the options over a cup of tea this afternoon.

mouche

Targets are good; beating yourself up about not meeting them are not good. As my boss said during my annual review this year while marking me down for not meeting my targets - 'it's not that you're bad at meeting your targets, you're bad at setting them.' Go easy on yourself - you're doing great.

brizzledfw

Nice comment mouche. Will remember that one!

I may try the £10 a day challenge..how do you find it NG?

Brizzle

greent

newgirly wrote: »

I think I will do a bit of painting today but as we need to do the loft, 3x bedrooms and the hallway /stairs /landing I don't know where to start. The bedrooms will be difficult as it means painting whilst everything is in the way, but if I start in the loft hallway and the builders turn up i will be I the way, decisions decisions!

Sorry to butt in yet again with what we did on ours, but it may be helpful! We decorated the loft conversion first (our new rooms) and moved into it. Our old room and ensuite were then empty - so we redecorated them and then moved DD into it. We then redecorated DD's room for DS1 and moved him into it. DS1's room was then redecorated for DS2 and he moved into it. DS2's room was redecorated for DS3 (born a month or so after loft conversion finished) That way we could decorate each room when it was empty/ relatively empty, which was much easier for us (we were lucky in that DS3 obviously didn't *need* his room whilst this was going on, as he was in our room, being a newborn) It did mean that people had to wait to move into their new rooms, but then they moved in to a completed room, rather than one which was then decorated around them/ their stuff

newgirly wrote: »

I have just read the meters :eek: I we an extra £184 on top of the £150 pm I have been paying. It's so frustrating as we have not had the heating on, I don't use the tumble, we have energy saving bulbs everywhere (plus they we tend to have most lights off in the evening anyway) why is it so high?

It must be the stupidly long showers the kids have daily, and the xboxes and mobiles left on standby, the only thing I use a lot is the washing machine, even that's on a quick 39min wash usually.

Eon said I can leave the dd as it is for a few more months then they will re evaluate , but I think that's a bad idea as it won't get any cheaper as it gets colder. It would be nice to plan to be super frugal with the energy use but in reality with teenagers and dh that leaves everything on charge it will be an uphill struggle. So I have upped the dd from £150 to £220 pm:(.

Our dd with Eon is £227 per month . We have mainly A rated appliances, cavity wall insulation, energy bulbs, loft insulation in our other loft etc etc - but the pc/ laptops and tvs are all plugged in constantly/ on standby, 4 phone chargers are always on overnight - and it's a fair sized (detached) house and most of the time we seem to be in different rooms - so there are a lot of lights on. I do around 10 -12 washing loads a week, I guess, but only use the TD for fluffing towels (20 mins and I always make sure I wash min 2 (or more - depending on size) towels . I have however, just changed my supplier and given them my usage for the last year - and managed to reduce my DD to £170ish/ month - yeay!:T Still hellishly expensive, though

x

greent

gallygirl wrote: »

Personally I'm looking for a wife :rotfl:.

What a damn fine idea! But can I have a sugar-wife so she has shedloads of money?;)

tootoo

NG - I often think of college funds for my girls. Then my dh reminds me what happened when he was at uni (pot noodles and £1 pint nights!).
For me I will help as I can when the time comes. In the meantime I am saving for them towards a house deposit in the future. Its in my name though after someone suggested that.
They also have their own little bank accounts too and when old enough that can be their tester to see how they are with pennies

newgirly

Oh dear, not sure how to multi quote and have quite a few people to reply to

Thank to everyone for popping into my diary, the target set to live of £1000 for 100 days is hard this year. To tell the truth I've not been doing it long and we have had quite a few homemade freezer meals , so not sure how well it will all go when those have run out!

The problem lies with the fact that if I want to buy new carpet for the loft room and staircase I HAVE to stick to the £10 a day budget so although I'm tempted to start spending more if I do I will have to get the carpet on credit or go without until next year (not an option as we are all desperate to move into our new rooms ) so I am going to continue with what I am doing at the moment, tomorrow we are going to mum and dad's for dinner so that's one meal sorted :rotfl:

The builders are back hanging doors today, lovely shiny new ones with handles that work and no gaps at the bottom :T can you tell we tend to do all DIY ourselves normally.

Greent , your idea to get the rooms sorted is more or less what we will probably do, however I think it will be just a lick of paint this year and proper work next year as we have run out of money now. Well done on getting your dd down to £170 pm that's good for a large family, we are tied in on a fairly good deal until next year so its Definatly over usage rather than wrong plan sadly!

southerndave

mouche wrote: »

Targets are good; beating yourself up about not meeting them are not good. As my boss said during my annual review this year while marking me down for not meeting my targets - 'it's not that you're bad at meeting your targets, you're bad at setting them.' Go easy on yourself - you're doing great.

Correct. I have lowered all my standards to meet expectations....:D