The MFW diary of a procrastinator

tootallulah

You are going great guns. I need to pay £2000 per month capital off my mortgage for it to end in seven years time. After January I am going to follow your lead and try and make it at least £2k plus all the other bits I can do. It is great to see someone young being so focused but still living life well. The balance is important but mortgage free is freedom.

mbbetter

Right, we are now into the November accounting.

The month has got off to a pretty good start. I had a few funds left over from the month +£268 and put a bit of matched betting profit into the overpayment +£97. This is all good as it brings the Mortgage total down to £169,999k which is a good feeling but I still high enough to be very motivating! Looking forward to getting it into the 150's but that looks someway off - possibly April next year if we stick to target.

In other news:

Overpayed the cash from a few small ebay items +£6

I have around £300 tied-up in work expenses, which is a little annoying as I'd just rather have it off the mortgage.

There will be some nasty costs this month. Just been quoted an extortinate amount by a couple of tradesmen for electrics and plastering of kitchen. Plus we will have to buy appliances so its gonna hurt, but at least that is most of the house sorted.

Was thinking of a cheap getaway to the sun before Christmas (I have £375 in the holiday fund kitty - offset), but think this will now go on hold until next year. Went for a nice walk with the OH yesterday, which cost nothing more than a round of drinks, but was a very nice afternoon indeed.

Keep hitting low points when I do think if its worth the effort. I'm sure everyone has these regardless of how much they owe/save/earn its all relative I guess. Looking at the price of the type of house we would love around where we live, they seem totally out of reach - compromises will need to made somewhere...:cool:

mbbetter

More good overpayments the OH transferred +£90, so that nicely brings the OP's up to £522 for the month.

I now have 2 full months of recording my spend I can see my budget a little clearer. Its a long post - sorry:

All my fixed cost are already catered for, so this is what I actually have control over:

September (Budget/Actual)

Supermarket £200 / £188
Petrol £200 / £151
Train £15 /£30
DIY £50 / £35
Going Out £30 / £20
Clothes & Fun Spend £20 / £10
Booze £10 / £21 (plus supermarket)
Work Lunch £0 / £0
Taxis £0 / £0
Total £525 / £454

Summary - back from honeymoon - didn't really go out.

October

Supermarket £200 / £101
Petrol £200 / £173
Taxis £15 / £0
Train £0 / £7
DIY £500 / £312
Going Out £0 / £101
Clothes & Fun Spend £0 / £0
Booze £0 / £10 (plus supermarket)
Work Lunch £ 0.00
Other £ 0.00
Coal £100 / £110
Car Maintenance £200 / £20.39
Total: £1215 / £833

Summary - meal planning & sainsbury's basics really cut down supermarket spend (plus some time away with work). DIY project started.

Here is my budget for November:

Supermarket £200
Petrol £170
Taxis £0
Train £25
DIY £900
Going Out £50
Clothes & Fun Spend £0
Booze £30
Work Lunch £0
Car Maintenance £100
Total £1475

Got to look to have some cheap meals this month to counter the rather large DIY bill heading our way.

Cheers all,

SmlSave

Corr, welldone for keeping so well in your budget!

mbbetter

Cheers!

The budgets did get tweaked slightly a week or so into the month when I knew certain things were coming up - so this is cheating a little. For example the garden centre sent me a 20% voucher, so I quickly added a £100 budget item for coal - this was after the October budget was set

Certainly doing a budget has helped me cut a few areas of spend such as:

Lunch at work - M&S must think I dropped off the planet, I used to buy a sarnie & snack each day for around £3.50 (£70 a month!). I just eat cereal (plus free fruit).

Discovered Sainsbury's basics range. I love food and cooking, and I'm keen on quality food and great ingredients. But for certain things this range is seriously cheap, so far I like the brown sauce, tin foil, vinegar, rice (OH not sure), larger . I continue to shop in Waitrose for most things and have for years bought reduced items to stock the freezer. In fact just bought a weeks food - Swordfish steak £2.60 > £1.45 | Gourmet Sausages £3.50 > £1.77 | Fresh Salmon £3.99 > £1.99 (x2) | Shepherds Pie £5.99 > £3.49 | Large fishcakes £2.99 > £1.50

Buying stuff (normally gadgets) I don't need off ebay. Stopped this and started selling all my old stuff. I also don't buy CD's DVD's or Games which I rekon saves quite a bit.

In other news printed off a free £5 Debenhams voucher:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2815026
Which I will use to surprise the OH with something nice.

mbbetter

Off to another week and we are looking in pretty good shape.

Had a nice cheap weekend and only spent £10 on going out yet still had a cracking time.

OH overpayed an extra +£200 as she got some expenses back
Sold the MOT failed car +£60 (with tax refund pending)
Did pretty well on Matched Betting last week +£40 (1/2 week profits)

Getting pretty close to this months target and currently sitting at overpayements of £825. I'm doing a bit of work for a friend later this week which will be a rather nice £90 cash, so with a bit of luck we should make the £1k target again.

mbbetter

Another day another dollar... well £25,

Quidco paid £20 for some cashback - no idea why but I'll take it.
Halifax paid me £5 reward - in the past that would have just disappeared into general spends, now its a great feeling to pay it straight off the mortgage.

Now stand at £850 overpayment for the month

Other things I must stop procrastinating on:
List another couple of items on ebay
Finish my application for Santandar current account

katastrophy

Hi Mbbetter,

I'm new to the MFW quest and read through your diary. Nice to see another matched bettor on here. I'm impressed with the amount you've made this way to put towards your mortgage. Now I've done most of the SUBs I'm finding it hard to make more than about £100 a month but it all adds up. I'll be making my first OP with MB funds this month and I'm glad something that started as a hobby and a bit of fun will be able to help me this way.

Anyway just wanted to wish you luck, you've motivated me to have another trawl of the GIOL board and see if I can't squeeze a few more pennies out!

Kat

mbbetter

Thanks Kat,

I the matched betting did slow down for me as I wasn't really motivated to do it. I was just building my float and not doing anything nice or fun with the profits. Now that I am putting the profits to work I feel a bit more motivated to try and hit more of the offers.

Go for it I'd say and if you want any tips on matched betting just PM me.

In other news I decided to transfer 80% of my current account balance over to the offset. Once Halifax pay me the £5 reward they certainly aren't going to pay any interest. However I've calculated that offset against the mortgage this should add up to around £35 a year in saved interest. Therefore get paid > receive £5 award > transfer to offset > transfer back to current as needed.

I also have around £3k in my matched betting float which I could really put to better use in the offset - by my calculations this would be another £100 saving in interest per year.

I wonder, do banks every get a bit narky if you are constantly pushing money back and forth, it must cost them.

Cheers!

mbbetter

Nice one, just got back from a few hours work for a friend which was rewarded with £90 cash in hand. This is very nicely received indeed and takes the November total to £840.

Just another £60 to go to hit target for the month. :T

Cheers all,