Starting my Journey

The_Goatreich

Wow, and I thought my spreadsheet was all-encompassing. Well done, this is a great diary to follow.

The_Goatreich

As an aside, do you calculate your mortgage balance yourself, or does your mortgage company offer an online banking service? I'd love to know where I stand on a monthly basis with my mortgage...or maybe I wouldn't just yet .

Ashamed_2

The_Goatreich wrote: »

As an aside, do you calculate your mortgage balance yourself, or does your mortgage company offer an online banking service? I'd love to know where I stand on a monthly basis with my mortgage...or maybe I wouldn't just yet .

I use online banking to check the balance. It's a bit scary as the interest for the month is added on before the payment is taken out 5 days later. So for me it works out I pay around £290 a month off of a mortgage that costs me £1087. I'm locked in at 6.5% for another 3 years. Been on that rate for 7 years so far so I've been laughing for the first 4 years of it and crying for the last 3 lol. I have worked it all out and it will not be financially viable to buy out of it.

I also check all my accounts, credit cards, mortgage, isa's etc on a daily basis and track any changes in the spreadsheet. I've got the complete process down to 10 minutes now.

If you get online access to all your accounts, cards and mortgage I find it's so much easier to monitor and control.

The_Goatreich

Oh yes I agree, and do exactly the same with all my accounts, but I don't think my mortgage provider gives an online service, so I may have to work something out myself.

chevalier

Ashamed wrote: »

Monthly Results:

Had a bad month as the car insurance was due. £1000 . Dam ripp off and that's the cheapest I could get.

Paid Off this month...
Credit Cards & Loans - -£103.95
Mortgage - £294.13
Total Debt Paid Off this Month = £190.18
Total Debt Paid Off so far = £13,088.58

If your insurance is this much, then perhaps you need to think about down grading your car? That is a lot of money to spend on insurance.

Well done on the debt busting, you have done really well so far. And I am very impressed also with the weight loss too.

Ref the food budget it is really a case of meal planning and then shopping list planning from the meal plan. It saved us a fortune! We now spend £250 a month on two adults to children and up till recently 2 cats aswell. It depends on whether you have the time betwwen you to cook from scratch as this does work out cheaper....
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Ashamed_2

chevalier wrote: »

If your insurance is this much, then perhaps you need to think about down grading your car? That is a lot of money to spend on insurance.

It's a case of two people insured on 2 cars. It's not like they are sports cars or high insurance cars, it's just that my wife has only been driving for just over a year. 4 lots of insurance (doesn't work like that but you know what I mean).

chevalier wrote: »

Ref the food budget it is really a case of meal planning and then shopping list planning from the meal plan. It saved us a fortune! We now spend £250 a month on two adults to children and up till recently 2 cats aswell. It depends on whether you have the time betwwen you to cook from scratch as this does work out cheaper....

Yeah, I know what you mean, we started doing this a little jsut by writing a shopping list. Ok, we haven't stuck to it to the letter but we have somehow reduced our food shopping by about £150 last month and it's looking like a £200 reduction this month.

Ashamed_2

After looking at many ideas for bathrooms. We have decided jsut to plan for now and wait for a better finacial situation before we decide to change.

For now I've spend £6.99 on some silicone and resealed the bath

Ashamed_2

We've started the Ebay drive again this week.

Some old stuff that we never used and probably never would. Also the amount of mobile phones my wife is hording is unreal, we could open our own shop with that lot.

£80 cleard so far this week. more to be put up on the weekend.

If anyone is interested in paintball. I have lots of paintball gear but Markers (Guns) are not allowed to be sold on ebay so not sure how to sell this one.

Ashamed_2

Monthly Results:

Paid Off this month...
Credit Cards & Loans - -£869.59
Mortgage - £371.67
Total Debt Paid Off this Month = £1,241.26
Total Debt Paid Off so far = £14,330.47

Ashamed_2

Monthly Results:

Paid Off this month...
Credit Cards & Loans - -£881.33
Mortgage - £500.69
Total Debt Paid Off this Month = £1,382.02
Total Debt Paid Off so far = £15,712.38