The MFW diary of a procrastinator
mbbetter
Forumite 187 Posts
Hello all, firstly thank you for the inspirational threads and diaries.
I have been aspiring to be mortgage free for a while and we have been regularly overpaying. We bought our house 3 ½ years ago and with things like DIY and a recent wedding any serious thoughts of clearing it kept being put on hold. However through chipping away and upping the payments we have reduced the term or the mortgage from 30 years to 17. I’m pretty happy with that now, but that certain things are out of the way (wedding) its time to up the anti a little.
My aim is to clear as much of the mortgage as possible before we move house again (around 3 years from now).
I will do this through saving cash and earning a little extra where I can. I am a procrastinator when it comes to a lot of areas in which I can save (switching, cashback etc) and where I can earn (matched betting mainly).
I only have a feel for how much I’ll overpay as my outgoings have tended to fluctuate quite a bit, This month I have returned from honeymoon and have been seriously tight on the ol' spending to clear the CC back to £0. My rough estimates of my monthly expenditure are as follows:
Mortage £640
Car:
Car Insurance £20
Car Maintenance £50
Car Tax £16
AA £9
House Bills:
(This is my 1/2 as the Wife and I split the bills)
Council Tax £65
House Insurance £10
TV License £6
Gas £21
Water £15
Electricity £33
Other:
Holidays £150
Gifts £55
Supermarket £250
Petrol £150
Internet/Phone £17
Train £20
Taxis £10
Fun Spending £30
Going Out £80
DIY £100
Gym £41
Total £1,788
I expect I actually spend much more than this so its time to record what I do spend.
As of this morning the mortgage stood at £173,205
I felt the need to get it below £173k so overpaid £204. The OH kindly matched the overpayment so it now stands at £172,759
We have an offset mortgage with no restrictions on overpaying so I will try and pay something each week. I’m going to try and use this diary to stop me procrastinating…
Cheers
I have been aspiring to be mortgage free for a while and we have been regularly overpaying. We bought our house 3 ½ years ago and with things like DIY and a recent wedding any serious thoughts of clearing it kept being put on hold. However through chipping away and upping the payments we have reduced the term or the mortgage from 30 years to 17. I’m pretty happy with that now, but that certain things are out of the way (wedding) its time to up the anti a little.
My aim is to clear as much of the mortgage as possible before we move house again (around 3 years from now).
I will do this through saving cash and earning a little extra where I can. I am a procrastinator when it comes to a lot of areas in which I can save (switching, cashback etc) and where I can earn (matched betting mainly).
I only have a feel for how much I’ll overpay as my outgoings have tended to fluctuate quite a bit, This month I have returned from honeymoon and have been seriously tight on the ol' spending to clear the CC back to £0. My rough estimates of my monthly expenditure are as follows:
Mortage £640
Car:
Car Insurance £20
Car Maintenance £50
Car Tax £16
AA £9
House Bills:
(This is my 1/2 as the Wife and I split the bills)
Council Tax £65
House Insurance £10
TV License £6
Gas £21
Water £15
Electricity £33
Other:
Holidays £150
Gifts £55
Supermarket £250
Petrol £150
Internet/Phone £17
Train £20
Taxis £10
Fun Spending £30
Going Out £80
DIY £100
Gym £41
Total £1,788
I expect I actually spend much more than this so its time to record what I do spend.
As of this morning the mortgage stood at £173,205
I felt the need to get it below £173k so overpaid £204. The OH kindly matched the overpayment so it now stands at £172,759
We have an offset mortgage with no restrictions on overpaying so I will try and pay something each week. I’m going to try and use this diary to stop me procrastinating…
Cheers
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Tonight I have just done the following off my todo list:
Sorted through the "penny" jar - taking this to Sainsbury's tomorrow cash into one of their machines (yes I know they will charge me, but hey its better than having it sitting at home.
The pennies weigh about 1.5KG and there is a lot of silver and quite a few 50p's so we shall see.
Also alongside the penny jar sits the foreign currency - doing nothing! Looks like I have around
38 Euros
20 $US
580 Swedish Krona
This works out around £85
Other job was print out the PPI reclaim form and covering letter - job done, whack it in the post tomorrow.
Todo:
Explore opening a Santandar Account for the 100notes +cashback
Change energy supplier - with cashback (haven't changed since moved in)
Look into changing credit card for either halifax reward or 0% to slow stooze
Cheers!
I'm not sure the protocol for the number of posts per day or week in diaries, so apologies if I'm posting too much,
Operation Mortgage activities:
- Changed back all of the currency (also quite a few Euros in the copper pot) = +£100
- Got a refund from a hotel that ripped us off on honeymoon= +£117
Overpayment Total = +£277Mortgage now: £172,482
HSBC often do £50+ thru cash back sites for opening a current account, when i did it there was no need to transfer any DD's or wages over either so it might be something to consider if you are going to save alot of change.
One thing i meant to ask was how is the whole OPing thing working with your wife?? Is she 100% on board with it?
Good question (& still a bit strange hearing her called the wife). I guess I should ask her to register on the forum and post, rather than try and answer for her.
Reasons she is onboard:
Reasons she isn't
- She likes her savings - often prefers to see these building than the mortgage dropping
- Earns the same as me, but has slightly more expenditure than I do (basically I'm happy to look a little rough around the edges (it suits me) - she looks great on a modest budget)
- Manages her budgets differently to me (1 month save zero, next month save £2K)
- Wants us to contribute to the house 50/50 and would rather overpay the same. Preferring me to stick any extra into my savings pot.
- Thinks my goals are unachievable (paying off so quickly & not changing lifestyle too much - we need our holidays)
Its going to be interesting - my plan is to keep overpaying and keep tracking the drops and see what happens...I like the advice from people that say treat it like a game and just keep chipping away.
Hi MBbetter! :j
Good luck on your journey! All I would say is that your OH will slowly get on board, don't worry, when she sees the future mortgage statements showing the figures tumbling down, she will be completely on board...
A few magic figures (ie interest saved, terms reduced) thrown at her from time to time and a few examples of what she will be able to do when mortgage is paid off (ie, 2 weeks trip to the Maldives, new car, shopping spree), she will soon get the message...
There are loads of lurkers on these forums, but few people posts.. This "blog" will motivate you... Get yourself a signature, so each time you post, you can see your progress so far..
Have a great weekend!
Froggy G :rotfl:
It seems like a looong way to go before we clear it, en-route we are likely to face a choice of taking another mortgage to buy somewhere bigger or moving out of the SE and keeping the mortgage down - but I'm not thinking about that just yet! Its gonna be a long journey and a long blog!
Any good calculators out there to help with stats? I've used this one in the past: http://www.whatmortgage.co.uk/calculators/fleximortgage.html but its not really that good on a month-by-month basis or seeing what that extra £100 does for a month. Signiature added,
Cheers!
Welcome to MFW - I agree your diary feels like talking to yourself but we are all sharing tips here - it is amazing what you'll pick up.
On your SOA in your first post - are your other expenses like food split 50-50? If so £500 for two people can be significantly reduced (although I spend around that TBH and am working on getting better
Your AA jumped out at me - Look at Martin's motoring tab for cheaper options. I pay £37 for Autoaid which is an insurance policy (so you pay if you breakdown - hello CC - and then send Autoaid the receipt and they refund you) offering the equivalent level of cover to the £180-ish AA/RAC. It covers you and your spouse, so is a really good deal.
What are the £55 gifts? We have a big family and I spent £180 on 23 people for Christmas, so I think you can save a bit here.
Check your utility bills via a comparison site and try to reduce consumption.
We have a water meter - they work well if you don't take loads of long baths and if you put one in you can get it taken out if it isn't cheaper, I believe.
Re calculators - I use the one on this site to show how many years £100pcm (etc) will save.
Hope some of this helps and all the best.
The supermarket food isn't split - currently I pay for the food, as I do 90% of the meal planning and cooking - so £250 is the full budget. I'm pretty good with buying reduced meats/fish and bunging in the freezer.
Thanks for the advice on the AA - I'll look into it. Our car is 10+ years old so will have to see what they can do.
£55 gifts works out at:
6 people birthdays @ £30 each
6 people Christmas @ £30 each
wife birthday/christmas/anniversary @ £300 total
I'll see if I can get creative, but don't want to get too tight with pressies (also have mothers and fathers day etc).
Cheers again!
1/2 my matched betting profits from last week +£84
OH had a nit of money floating in her account +£101
OH found a bit of money in an old "bills" account +£30
The car is currently getting its MOT, so depending on how that goes may have a big impact on any further overpayments this month...