Due to be MF by 45, but want it sooner!

cat04

Hi there, I've been a member of MSE for ages, mainly absorbing all the fab info and tips, but not posting much. I've been MF before under different circumstances (at age 22) but now I need to do it all over again! Hopefully this time with help and encouragement from you lovely people on MSE.

A bit of background info:

I got my first mortgage at 18 with my new (older) husband of £40,000 over 10 years. He was a careful (tight fisted!) Yorkshire man who saved every penny he could which meant by the end of the 2yr fixed rate we paid off a lump sum and had £20,000 left to pay. New mortgage over 5 years fixed for 2yrs. Again, at the end of the 2yrs we paid it off and were MF which tied in nicely with me finishing Uni.

We repeated this process again with a property we bought for his parents to rent from us (yep, fell for that one hook line and sinker, not a penny rent whilst my wages went on paying off a home for them that was better than the one I lived in! - I was still young and naive and under the thumb...). This time the mortgage was about £60,000 and we paid it off at the end of the 2yr fixed period. I know, looking back I have no idea now we did it, but with 2 wages plus extras and no life we managed it.

DD1 was born a couple of months later, and nearly 3 years later DD2 came along. It was then that I realised I was in the wrong place and wanted out.

Anyway, to get back to the current situation: I got talked into staying for another 6 months, then finally left and stayed with my mum and dad for 6 months. I am now with my utterly wonderful OH, who earns a whole lot less than my ex, so I am poorer finacially (well, not really, as I didn't actually benefit from the money I had before, even when we were MF) but I am so much richer in terms of personal happiness - and so are my girls

So, after renting for over a year whilst my ex dragged his heels over every aspect of the divorce and financial settlement we were finally able to buy our lovely new home on my 30th birthday (I'll never forget that day :T )

We're on a 2 year fixed rate of 4.19% with Halifax with a mortgage of £63,240 over 15 years (currently £62,252.46) paying £471.76 per month.

Apart from the fact it would be lovely to have the money in our pockets rather than in Halifax's we would love to try to reduce our mortgage as much as possible as my OH is going to bite the bullet and become self-employed within the next 6 months.

Apart from over paying where we can (10% of outstanding balance each year - not that we can pay this amount in a year) what else can we do?? I'll post some more details in another post as I realise that this one is getting rather long..... one of my many weaknesses, I love to waffle on!

Catherine

SmlSave

Welcome to the MFW board Catherine!

I live in envy of people who can pay 10% of their mortgage in a year! I stay happy with little OP's when I can

How about posting your SOA up? Then we can see if there are any easy trimmings that can be made.

cat04

With my settlement we managed to put a very sizable deposit down and buy a much needed replacement car. We have some left over, and I'm about to put £5,100 into a cash ISA as the start of our 6 months wages back up. My OH will also start one with the remainder of this and we intend to build it up a bit more over time so we've got some healthy savings.

I'm not into high risk investments, and would need quick access to at least some of this 6 months back up if things go pear shape at any point in the next year, so don't know what else to do with regards to investing some of our surplus money. I'm talking a couple of thousand pounds, not a bad amount, but not big money.

For years and years I've had a regular savings account with Yorkshire BS and Britannia BS, and in the last few years with Scarborough, now Skipton BS. When I left my ex I had to drop the payments to £10 and £20 a month as I just couldn't afford it. I've stuck with the same monthly payments for now and have almost £1000 saved up between them.

I have my 'old' current account with Nationwide which only has the child maintenance paid into it, which I found our recently has dropped it's interest rate to 0%...lovely. I also have an e-savings account with Nationwide, which as also lowered it's interest rate with about £1200 in it. I used to tranfer most of the maintenance into the e-savings when the rate was higher until I needed it. At the moment it's unused as we have enough in our joint current account left from my settlement.

Apart from the joint current account (Halifax Reward) that's it for financial products.

My OH isn't what I would call financially astute, that's my job But then I'm no money expert, so if anyone has any ideas how I could make the money work best for us...???

I have started, but need to do a budget and trawl through everything to see what we are spending. When I was with my ex I had a basic excel spreadsheet with different categories of income and out goings, with monthly and annual balances etc. I've been doing this for us for the past year and I can't believe how much more money we spend then I did then. I know energy bills etc have risen, and we have a 2 and a 5 year old, but I can't get over how much we spend (waste!) on food, take aways, car parking, and bits of nothing! I think the fact I am now 'allowed' to spend money has had an affect, although I'm still stingy with myself, but not the kids.

cat04

SmlSave wrote: »

Welcome to the MFW board Catherine!

I live in envy of people who can pay 10% of their mortgage in a year! I stay happy with little OP's when I can

How about posting your SOA up? Then we can see if there are any easy trimmings that can be made.

Thank you SmlSave I'm hoping to set up a SO for £100 a month as OP, but need to double check I'm allowed to as the T&C's of my mortgage are confusing me!

Doing an SOA is one of my next tasks on the agenda, may have to wait until this evening when the kiddies are in bed. I bet this months mortgage payment they'll be lots of easy trimmings to be made....

greent

Hello and welcome! Can't offer much advice, I'm afraid - but have you seen the Grocery Challenge on the Old Style board? - lots of ideas/ help on there on reducing food spends.......

SmlSave

I redo my SOA every couple of months and there's always something I could save on! But since it generally comes under the form of alchol it never seems to get sorted

greent

Hmm - think I need to do one..... am out tonight.... maybe tomorrow (isn't that always the way? )

cat04

greent wrote: »

Hello and welcome! Can't offer much advice, I'm afraid - but have you seen the Grocery Challenge on the Old Style board? - lots of ideas/ help on there on reducing food spends.......

I have heard about it, but not been on it yet, but will make it my mission to learn what I can as our food/grocery/bits and bobs spend is too high. After the school run this afternoon I made a fortnightly meal plan and wrote shopping lists to match. This will hopefully help stop us buying extra bits from the supermarket

When I lived on the other side of town in a village we only had a Spar which was too expensive for day to day bits and had a small and yet again expensive selection of fresh fruit and veg, so it meant I went to Tesco twice a week and ended up picking up more than I went for.

Now we've moved and we have a decent sized Co-op which is cheaper, so I can manage with only one supermarket shop a week which is to Sainsbury's after Sunday dinner at OH's Nanna's

I 'advised' OH after tea tonight that we really do need to cut back on shopping expenses of all kinds...think it went down ok

cat04

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household...........2
Number of children in household........ 2
Number of cars owned.....................2
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ ...86.68 I mark exam papers once a year, so monthly average
Partners monthly income after tax.... 1066.77
Benefits................................ ........559.6 Child Tax Credit/Working Tax Credit/CB
Other income................................. 300 Maintenance from ex
Total monthly income.................. 2013.05

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 471.76
Secured/HP loan repayments......... 0
Rent......................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 108
Electricity................................ 30
Gas........................................ 33
Oil........................................... 0
Water rates.............................. 0 We are paying DD 6 monthly so I have no idea how much it will be
Telephone (land line)................. 10 This is combined with TV and Internet with Virgin £30 package
Mobile phone............................ 35 £25 me, £10 OH
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 40 £10 Virgin, £30 Sky (I know!!)
Internet Services....................... 40 £10 Virgin £30 mobile internet/laptop (carried from last address)
Groceries etc. ......................... 380
Clothing................................ 15 For all of us
Petrol/diesel........................... 100 OH's car uses the premium stuff...
Road tax................................ 30
Car Insurance........................... 42
Car maintenance (including MOT).. 27
Car parking............................. 10
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0 This included in with groceries, no clubs etc yet
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0 We have free prescriptions/eye tests etc for the moment
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 16.44 Don't know individual prices so split payment in half
Contents insurance...................... 16.44
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 44.83 This is the mortgage insurance thing to cover death/ c. illness
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 45 Includes xmas, all bdays of family/friends/kid's friends etc
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 25 I included take aways here too
Holiday................................. 30
Emergency fund.......................... 10
Total monthly expenses.................. 1581.53

Assets
Cash.................................... 14700
House value (Gross)................132500
Shares and bonds...................... 150
Car(s).................................. 6000
Other assets............................. . 0
Total Assets....................... 153350

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 63240....(471.7)....4.19
Total secured & HP debts...... 63240.....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income........................... 2,013.05
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,581.53
Available for debt repayments.................. 431.52
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments................ 0
Amount left after debt repayments...... 431.52
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 153,350
Total HP & Secured debt................ . -63,240
Total Unsecured debt................... .......... -0
Net Assets.................................... 90,110

cat04

The Home insurance is through Halifax, we took it out at the same time as the mortgage (maybe not the best deal but hey ho) and we got a 'thank you' payment of £100 into our account last month, so effectively we are only paying £16.44 each for buildings and contents. (I used these figures in the SOA)

Went through Quidco for Npower and got £130 cashback, plus after 12 months we will get £100 credited to our energy account from Npower. Therefore only paying £46.83 per month for both, but put pre-discounted price in SOA.

Long story about the phone line being connected with BT, so ended up going with Virgin for phone, internet and TV for £30 a month. Got £100 through Quidco (due to be paid at the end of the month ) so therefore effectively paying £21.67 per month.

OH really wanted Sky, and as we could get £120 back through Quidco we decided to go for it as we can afford it. Will sort out Virgin and get the TV removed at some point, although OH wants to keep it for the bedroom... I digress, Sky is therefore now only £20 a month.

I really need to sort my mobile phone out. Never had a contract when I was with my ex, but I needed one and Phones4U gave me £120 cashback for taking a £25 per month contract. Upgraded in Oct as my Nokia was being rather tempremental and I cancelled the insurance to save money. Tied in for 18 months, but will add it to my list of jobs to do to call Vodafone and see if I can get it reduced at all. OH has reduced his expensive contract to £10.

Last year I needed a decent PC to mark GCSE papers online (I used to be a teacher in a former life pre-kids) and as we couldn't afford one (before settlement came through) OH got one of those mobile internet dongle thingies through his mobile phone company as you get a laptop with it. Think that's 18 months too, which isn't until Oct sometime. Don't know if we can reduce that at all.

cat04

One last thing (sorry for the long posts). The cars. Before we moved in together, when my ex had the girls every weekend and most of the school holidays (that was a killer) me and OH would dream about one day having a lovely family car and a sporty number for us to zip around in on child-free weekends. A year ago my brother needed to sell his gorgeous 1998 white MR2. He couldn't get a seller (t'was a bad time to sell) and needed to cash to fund his plumbing course, so I used the most part of my savings (£2000) to buy it from him. We managed to get cheap insurance, but it drinks permium petrol. The sad thing is, now my ex's maintenance payment is fixed at £300 until Oct as per the court order he has suddenly stopped seeing them, only twice since Xmas, and not since we moved (12th Feb)...but that's a whole different thread! So now we have our dream car, but we haven't been out in it together since the beginning of Feb

Just before Xmas we bought our family car, the old one was really on it's last legs. Anyway, OH's insurance is up for renewal this month, and mine in July, so now we are on the Quidco band wagon we should get some savings there.