Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

Debsnewbudget

I gave mine £5000 each and they both managed to pay for their weddings from it. Scaling it down and finding some real bargains. The trick is not to tell the venues its for a wedding, until after its booked,  just say its a special event, as venues hike the prices for weddings. 
TBH who needs chair covers and bows :-) 

greent

Congrats to DD - how lovely! 🥂🍾💞💍 x

South_coast

You are a wonderful Mother NG 😍 I'm sure they'll be bowled over with your lovely gift. And congratulations to DD 😀!

Moneyfordreams

congratulations to DD

newgirly

Thanks for all the comments guys 😊 debs that’s a pretty impressive achievement! They have already saved a fair bit towards it and are quite sensible but I think a lot will depend on the house buying as well, hopefully they can stretch to a house instead of a flat now so they won’t go crazy until that’s sorted. Dd has already decided she won’t be trying on wedding dresses as she’s buying online for under £500 odd, apparently that way she won’t get tempted to spend thousands 😆

I’ve spent ages working out different options of how quickly to try and clear the mortgage off today, I think I’ve settled on a plan. The first part of this year has gone exactly to plan (up to this is point!) so I’m very pleased as we have overpaid everything earned and lived of the £1500 pm rent. 

Going forward I’m allowing a bit more for me to use for food/petrol etc. Up from £400 plus a buffer of £165 to £700 in total for everything except bills and mortgage. The small amount of rent the kids pay will go towards paying off the holiday and the £15k for all the kids we are putting by means an empty offset again and no planned mortgage ops until this August 😩

So the new planned end date will be Dec 2025 with monthly ops of £1316 on top of the regular payment of £346 which started with a new 20year term jan 2021, ie. five years. Hopefully we can shave a bit off that as well, but it takes us crucially just before the 25th anniversary of when we bought the house and originally had a 25 year mortgage 😆 it may seem silly, especially as after ten years or so we bumped it up to a 33 years term due to massive debts but it feels like a small victory if we can do that. 

I’ve also set aside £1k to put in premium bonds to go towards the cruise payments after giving so much away to the kids I wanted to do something to help us out 😬 

Mum sent me £42 today as the sold something that was my grans and she split her half with my brother and I, so I’ve chipped in a bit and sent £50 to dd tonight and booked prezz@ so that can celebrate their engagement, they have sworn an oath to not spend a penny they don’t have to for the next three months so their bank statements look ship shape for the mortgage and you can’t not celebrate getting engaged especially when you have not been out for a very long time! 

newgirly

It’s been a busy week again, mostly taken up with wedding discussions 😆 Dd and fiancée went to see a few venues this week and have decided against the posh house /barn with chairs with ribbons etc. (£15k with food for 60 odd) and are going with a very rustic barn in a country park walking distance from our house at probably under £2k for as many as they want, her fiancée says it’s all down to her Martin Lewis upbringing 😬 I think they will probably let loose spending on food and drink now, which personally I think is a good call. 

So finances need re- jigging as I’m going to transfer their money over, I’ll keep the money we are giving the kids this year in our op figures on the mfw challenge as I’ll feel a failure if I don’t 😆

Not much planned for today except of course waiting for the final line of duty 😱

South_coast

That's a whopping difference, sounds like they've made an excellent choice 😀! And one barn surely can't be that different from another anyway....

Loving the snippets of wedding planning I'm reading on the forum at the moment, I can live vicariously through them without the expense or BF having to propose 🤣!

Busy_Mee

We are wedding planning too New Girly and I hope my DD is going to be as sensible as your daughter. 

We too are giving them a fixed amount of money and anything over and above that they will need to fund themselves.

I have also redirected my odds and sods account to pay for DD's wedding dress, so any little bits of money will go towards that.

We were told to watch spending on bridesmaid dresses by my friend who's daughter got married a couple of years ago. The trend at the moment is for a number of adult bridesmaids and she said the cost of the dresses + alterations ran to about £300 each. It was money spent that she regretted.

And I don't blame you treating yourself to a cruise. You should always put your own oxygen mask first 

themadvix

Barn sounds amazing and totally with you on prioritising food and booze! 😊

killerpeaty

5k is remarkably generous.

A friend of mine told me that she found a wedding dress that she loved in tkmaxx for £17. Also I've never had a bridesmaid dress that cost more than £100 with alterations.