Pavlovs_dog starting as she means to go on...

[Deleted User]

Wow thats a productive weekend indeed Pavlovs!! Well done!!

My snow days are slightly less productive lots of tv, cuppa's and much less work - very impressed!

pavlovs_dog

Thanks TYO :beer: Can I get a gold star for doing my homework?

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

By the end of January I hope to

1) have completed new life assurance application

processing. Aviva are contacting my Dr for a medical report.

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

2) cancel old life assurance policy & DD

Cannot do until 1) complete

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

3) complete worst case scenario doc

Virtually done and ready to print

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

4) complete calendar and address book to go with 3)

will do once 3) is complete

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

5) investigate most competitive savings rate and transfer funds

ongoing. We've realised that we have good and bad habits in relation to savings. We are very good at the out of sight, out of mind mentality, not so good at tracking how much money is in each pot. We need to agree how we are going to divvy current savings into pots before we can plan how best to proceed on the savings front.

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

6) take final decision on closing dormant accounts

letters written to 2 different banks requesting close of accounts and transfer of funds. Just a few more to go, but am hanging on to those until we've fully finalised step 5)

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

7) work out our bottom line giving recent change in circs

reassuring to see that my wage will cover our bottom line with a bit of wiggle room to spare. For clarification, by 'bottom line' I mean the mortgage and all bills but no money into savings or pocket money for personal spends.

If we take a payment holiday from the mortgage (which would be an option thanks to our OPs), even OH's reduced wage would just about cover the bottom line bills without one of us having to sell a kidney or start racking up CC debt :eek:

My job is more secure than OH's, so I'm especially grateful that the figures balance the way they do. On this basis, an emergency fund (EF) of £5k would offer 3 months of my wage or 6 of his.

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

8) work out how much savings is in each pot (pension, new car etc)

quite a bit of discussion to be done here, on account of reasons given for 5). This will also have a knock on effect for 11)

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

9) investigate best option for phone & broadband

completed. phoned o2 to negotiate 50% discount for signing up to new 12 month contract. Have taken out BT line rental saver which will save about £5/month.

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

10) get paperwork in order (streamline my share, get OH to establish filing system for his)
11) savings/OP plan for rest for 2013
12) investigate cost of having a basic will written

ongoing

pavlovs_dog

today would normally be groceries day, but we have enough of everything to see us through a few more days, don't even need to leave for the fresh stuff like bread, milk, fruit so will stay snuggled up indoors. A small shop midweek to top up the milk and fruit and we'll have survived month one of the grocery challenge well under budget.

Aim for feb is try menu planning a fortnight of meals. Need to build in stock rotation and feeding the freezers with HM ready meals. Low spends won't continue without that balance. This will take us nicely from pay day on 28th (start of Feb challenge for us) to half term, just before we go away. Another two week plan for our return will then take us to payday again.

moneycurious

Good luck Pav, hope the snow has been ok with you. I love searching my freezer now to get teh best meals i can from it!! anything i dont like i leave for mr mc when i am on nights!!!

pavlovs_dog

*geeky number joy alert*

had the 2012 mortgage statement through today. As of 31st December our mortgage was in advance by £3814.83.

As a result they want to drop our monthly payment to £689.14 (Although we are on a fixed rate they recalculate our monthly payment once a year to keep the end date (June 2035) the same). We will, of course, be keeping our monthly payment at its current level, resulting in a 'free' OP of just over £263 over the course of the year.



Now to get a bit geekier still....

This bonus OP alongside our forecasted OPs for the year suggests we should have no difficult having our balance in advance by £6k in a year.

:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

Better still, if I can find £35 a month (which I think I can squeeze out of the groceries and/or petrol budget) Then we can actually hit £6.5k.

:dance::dance::dance::dance::dance:

Calfuray

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

*geeky number joy alert*

Loving the smilies! And people think it's just moneysaving I learn on this website

In all seriousness though, well done on the figures, looking nice and healthy

nattypants

Brilliant news Pavlov :T between that AND a snow day, I'm well jel:D

*Jellie*

Joining in the geeky number joy dance! :j:j:j:j:j
Great news- I really need to follow your lead!
I see I'm not the only one who counts down reports done. I usually have to use a timer and work on them for 45minutes followed by 45 minutes of something more fun (and lets face it that could be housework, cleaning the drains, washing the car, doing paperwork, counting paperclips....even marking counts as more fun than reports )

pavlovs_dog

geekiness continues.... We've reduced the capital just shy of £11k from Sept 2010's starting balance. Our OPs account for 35% of the sum paid off.

My crude estimations suggest we've currently shaved 1 year 3 months worth of capital off of the balance. By crude I mean I have looked at a debt snowball document I saved when we first begun the mortgage to see when it says we SHOULD have reached our current balance. Dividing the total amount overpaid by the 15 months we've saved suggests £254.32 is one month off of our debt, which wasn't too far out from the actual figure of £279.10 (monthly mortgage payment - monthly interest).

In approx. March this year we should enter a new 10k bracket, and my mortgage calculator suggests we'll be half way through it by December. If this comes to pass we'll have reduced the life of the mortgage by two years.

Progress is slow (#in it for the long haul), but clearing 10,00K brackets is becoming swifter, as is the fall of daily interest. Thinking about OPs in terms of monthly cost is also eye opening and thought provoking.

*goes off to ponder budget*

pavlovs_dog

nattypants wrote: »

Brilliant news Pavlov :T between that AND a snow day, I'm well jel:D

after staff and pupils had a brush-with-death commute on Tuesday we had another one yesterday.

I quite like 4 day working weeks as it happens