The MFW diary of a procrastinator

mbbetter

Thanks for the encouragement hastie,

I like the idea of some longer term targets. Looking at the good old spreadsheet there are a few more realistic long term targets.

I'd like to get our mortgage below £150k by the end of the year.

A stretch target of below £140k by the London 2012 olympics.

I can then track against these targets and see how it goes. I mights start including some fancy charts, as charts seem to motivate me... I must be a geek.

Here's a snapshot of where we are at...

golfiematt

exellent o.p's there, nice graph! ill have to borrow you to do mine!

mbbetter

Cheers golfie,

I'm a visual kind of person and it helps me put things in perspective.

Would happily create and publish a graph for anyone that wants one. (although its very easy in Google Docs yourself). For the above graph if anyone PM's me 3 columns of info (Month | Mortgage with OP | Mortgage without OP) I'll send them back a link they can insert as an image. Simples.

Anyway in other news, my OH has pledged to match my mortgage payments. I payed £640 she paid £520 (I had been paying more as I earned more - no longer the case) she will now be paying £640 as well that should help massively.

Cheers all,

teameffort

Thanks for posting, it's inspirational! we are currently looking to get our foot on the property ladder but i'm determined to get a deal that allows us to pay it off within 12yrs. found some good ones, so just got to find the house.

following all the posts and tips i know we can do it.

Good luck.

mbbetter

Teameffort, Thanks for taking the time to post, knowing others are reading helps me with the motivation also.

Buying a property was one of the best things we did, so I wish you all the best!

Madly the rent where we live is the same as the mortgage we are on.

Pisces

Keep going, I'm loving your diary :-)

mbbetter

Cheer Pisces

In other news, just got approval for a credit card with 12 month 0% on purchases

My plan is this:

1. Use this card for most monthly outgoings (around £1k)
2. Pay off the minimum of CC each month (1%)
3. Keep what I would have spent in the mortgage offset account - with meticulous records
4. Pay off the full balance at the end of 12 months

Doing this should be worth around £190 for the year in interest savings on our mortgage - nice...

I hope this works out I've been procrastinating about doing this for about 18 months. If it works out the OH is gonna do it too (she is skeptical its worth the effort).

Cheers

SmlSave

let us know how the cc plan goes mbetter, I'm like your OH and am not sure so you could convert two people with this one

mbbetter

Ok so that closes February for overpayments, which came in at £343.

The wife got paid and has immediately payed £500 off the mortgage for March overpayements so we are off to a flier! Have also decided to do quite a big piece of DIY ourself to save on paying a tradesman - this saves in the region of £600

I've also listed 1 item on ebay so quite happy to be clearing more junk.

Cheers!

Froggy-G

Well done Mbbetter!! You are doing great! These OP's will soon make a massive difference!

Froggy