The MFW diary of a procrastinator

romylou_2

Hi mbb

I would love to be mortagage free, however, need to tackle the debt first. I hope to start getting to grips with everything at the start olf 2011.

I do bits and pieces at the moment, but I have my hols (Whoo whooo) coming up in 4 weeks. Then theres xmas and I just want to get all of that out of the way before I make a proper start in the new year.

Good luck on your journey, I hope you don't mind me following your postings.

adwat

Good luck with your mortgage free journey. I'm hoping to reach the end in 11 more payments, believe me when I tell you it's gone by really quickly. The worst bit is starting - figuring out your finances and making the first few overpayments. You've already started that process, so best wishes going forward!

wynnvegas

Hi mbbetter,

Sounds like a great start to married life. Congratulations. Having both of you (just about) fully on board will make the process a whole lot easier to manage as you can motivate each other as you go.

I would recommend (if you haven't done so already) looking to move a load of those bills away from monthly payments as you'll pay a wee bit more going month by month rather than annually. We are looking to make April our big month where we pay off all the annual bills (and any gas / electricity shortfalls) and we'll include the council tax bill from 2011. That should then give us 11 months of the year where all we need to bother about is the tiddly expenses to allow for better budget planning.

Your SOA doesn't need much adjusting in my opinion. Ensuring a holiday fund (and holidays, naturally), an allowance for going out and a gift allowance is a smart move but keeping a spending diary is a great way to work out exactly what all the incidental purchases add up to. I would certainly agree that it's best not to be cheap with friends and family as you never know what's round the corner and you don't want to be thought of as tight for the sake of £30-£60 per person per year. We've given out loans and bought every person in my family (over 130) a birthday present this year (normally between £10-20) and we've still managed to chip away at the mortgage.

As for the games, one of my favourites was to have a picture showing the remaining weeks / months of the mortgage as sections of the house and colouring one in as each period elapses. We were too close to the home stretch to start it but I can imagine it being great fun as the colour starts to spread onto the picture,

Cheers,

Billy

CathT

Hi there,

Great OP's this week! You will find lots of brilliant advice on this forum.

Is the other way round in my house, trying to get DH completely on board!!

mbbetter

Thank you for the kind words everyone!

I found some more currency in the house - Kenyan Shillings - got these changed +£4.60
I guess this all adds up. (I refuse to use Tescos's tag line... every little....) what was a little annoying was the woman in the post office actually laughed at the £4.60, like I shouldn't have bothered... I guess that probably was my attitude 2-3 months ago, amazing when you have some goals £4.60 seems like quite a result!

In other fantastic news, I have been chasing an airline for a refund on some canceled flights, I wasn't that hopeful that I'd get the money back - but it hit my account today! +£362.24 I think that will go into September overpayments as it was refunded to my CC - which is now in credit, converting that into overpayment cash means using my CC to spend, I don't know if you can transfer a positive balance from a CC card.

However car failed its MOT yesterday - going back in on Friday, needs a new thermostat to cure overheating (hopefully). It failed on the emissions test, so may need a new catalytic converter. The rear brakes need adjusting or replacing. I have -£350 in the budget for this, but it could cost a bit more. If not it may be time for a new car (considering a Ford Puma - always liked them and get decent reliability reviews)

All in all things going pretty well so far - and many thanks again for the support an tips.

LilacPixie

some cards allow you to get a refund but I think you should maybe just use the card for the likes of fuel and yur food shopping which would be £400 if your budget is accurate and then pay the residual balance to your CC.

mbbetter

Cheers Lilacpixie,

Phoned the bank today and they are crediting it back to my current account (same provider, otherwise cheque). Sweet, as I can get it off the mortgage straight away.

Speaking to the OH, our mortgage actually runs from the 19th - 19th each month. She would rather match-up with the statement they provide, so we are now actually into October's overpayment (confusing). However I set up the spreadsheet today - and got the figures for from Aug 19 -Sept 19. We overpayed £1,284. This is great as it means the recent transactions are already into the October overpayement (£118 so far). - yeah I know juggling numbers on a spreadsheet - but it works for me.

Looking at the spreadsheet and the budget we are going to aim for a £1000 a month overpayment which will be tight but possibly dooable. As the mortgage seems to me like a huge number, I'm setting a short term goal of 21 months (which is when our 2 year fixed ends).

What I havn't been able to calculate yet (and I haven't seen a spreadsheet that deals with this), is that we are offsetting around £30,000 against the mortgage, where as all of my calculations are based on the full £172k.

In other news we are about to get a new kitchen (not very MSE, but our existing one is from 1970 - needs doing). In the past we would have ignored the 0% interest credit, but now figure it is worth about £200 in offset in the first year alone.

Sorry for the long post!

mbbetter

Not too much to add on the overpayment front, but I have picked up a supply of logs for the winter. I have to collect these myself, but its £30 for 200 logs, which I rekon would be £80-£90 delivered. Also my neighbour saw me and has offered a tree that the had chopped down last year - free heat, nice.

I'd love a wood burning stove one day as I rekon it would heat the whole house, but the open fire as it is is pretty nice and the OH prefers the look of an open fire.

So far this month I have come in budget on pretty much everything. Car back in the garage today, so that could scupper things a bit.

mbbetter

Last weekend was painful - the car failed the MOT in a big way. So much so that it is pretty terminal and time to list it on Ebay. Consequently we now have a new car in which we had to part £1100 + new insurance. Oh well these things happen and fingers crossed this car may be a little better, certainly has a better reputation.

The wedding venue let us off the remainder of our bill (£115) as they messed a couple of minor things up.

We have still managed to smash this months target already. Got some major DIY to do so next month could be painful

tootallulah

I am enjoying your diary, you are both doing so well. I have a wood burning stove and it is good but more on the taking the chill off rather than heating the whole house. I often get offered free wood from neighbours etc people are kind.