Lovethymini's Offset MFW Diary

lovethymini

Having read many of your inspiring diaries, I'm going to start writing a diary myself. I need to keep my motivation up as it feels like a difficult task ...

We bought our house in April 2010 & have an offset mortgage at 3.75%.
Including the £15k 0% loan borrowed from in-laws (to increase our deposit for a better interest rate) the mortgage was £215,924.92 in April '10 and is £215,162.71 in Oct '10 - hence this diary

Household consists of DH (works in water industry), myself (professional sock picker-upper, household accounts minder and ex Project manager) , DS aged 3, (likes sausages and motorbikes), and the Cat (likes a chat)

Luckily it's our forever house (she says, having never stayed put in the same house for longer than 3 years), we've just finished paying off a loan and have no more nursery fees to pay now our son's turned 3.

So far I have done...
Sold loads of things on ebay, made £200, so replaced broken greasy 25yr old brown oven which we inherited with the house with lovely shiny, working 2nd hand oven off ebay
Sold loads of things at a local NCT sale and made £? - waiting for a cheque, hoping for £50...
Bought winter clothes and shoes with my birthday money from last month
Changed Vodafone contract from £25 to £10 per month
Started doing more homecooking (I'm pants at cooking and frankly would rather a mountain of ironing, but it makes such a difference financially)
Resisted the urge to replace my car for something with power steering, five gears and 4 doors!
Started using internet for grocery shopping to avoid 20 mile round trip and impulse buying (I'm a self-confessed chocoholic and compulsive clothes purchaser)
SORN'D DH motobike (do I cancel insurance?)
Waiting to hear if we've been chosen for free solar panel heating via DH's work
Received money from PureProfile, OnePoll & Valued Opinions.
Fitted door curtain to draughty, knackered front door
Fitted thermal roller blind to bathroom window (which is very old and it's already very cold in there in the morning!)

This summer I did a SOA and there isn't much spare cash so every little helps.

Obviously the long term goal is to pay off the mortgage but short term I just want to get it below £200k, which feels like a HUGE task right now. We've had 6 expensive months, spent £600 on fuel last month, £100 on feeding a large family last night, oh and christmas is looming...

Tips ideas and encouragement gratefully received!

Lovethymini x

lovethymini

My Mission for this week...

Not to use car on Monday or Thursday done - also tue, wed & fri
No big shop - just milk, bread and fresh fruit/veg purchased locally.done, plus hardly ate anything at home
Collect freecycle cooking apples not done, hardly left house thanks to being poorly
Sell mobile phone done
Pay cheques into offset account (£90) done
Sort the fading sunflowers out in front garden for birdseeds done!

aprilshower

Hi and welcome,

I have only just started on my MF journey and I am doing similar things to you. At the moment I am clearing the house of any junk and wither putting it on ebay or I am going to do a car boot sale in the next few weeks.

This week I am also going to look at food shopping to try and reduce the amount we spend, the kids are really going to hate me when I reduce the junk. Keep going it really will be worth it. Up to now I have reduced my mortgage from 16 years to 8 years in a matter of about two months.

Take care

aprilshower

lovethymini

Thanks aprilshower - I shall look your diary up, especially to see how you made such a fantastic reduction to your mortgage!

I keep an excel spreadsheet of our spendings and we spent £500 on food shopping last month so there's definitely room for improvement here!

aprilshower

Hi

I have increased our monthly payment by £200 per month and also changed the mortgage which reduced the interested rate. It was only two small things that reduced the term so much.

Now I am trying to make over payments as well. So ebay here I come again.

I think you could save alot on food to reduce the amount you are spending and the difference could be paid off the mortgage. Just think if you saved £100 a month on food that would be £1200 overpayment a year. It is worth doing believe me.

Take care

Aprilshower

lovethymini

I was so shocked by the food bill it's one of the reasons I started my diary.
I'm doing the downshift challenge, making laundry gloop, chopping and freezing vegetables if they're going off rather than chucking them, cooking twice as much and freezing. I think we'll be having more hm soups this month.

Now I just need to make DH put on a jumper instead of just having a t-shirt and persuading DS that slippers are a good idea...I wish there was a thermostat which needed a pin number to change the temperature!

*Jellie*

That thermostat idea is great! Have you been over to the OS board to help cut grocery spending?

Brallaqueen

Good luck lovethymini, it's lovely to have more new MFW's around.
Try padlocking the thermostat? LOL

lovethymini

*Jellie* wrote: »

That thermostat idea is great! Have you been over to the OS board to help cut grocery spending?

Hi Jellie, yes, I've been on the OS board (lurking, mostly) but fell off the wagon big time last month thanks to the entire household's birthdays falling within 6 weeks of each other (DH 40th was the most expensive, it'll probably take at least 3 binmen to empty our glass recycling box) On the plus side, I'm so sick of eating chocolate that's one less thing to buy (and why I felt the need to buy such a huge chocolate birthday cake for DH I'll never know. 14 guests later and we still had enough for pudding today)

Before starting my diary today I didn't know we've only reduced mortgage by about £700 over the last 6 months, so this diary will keep me on the straight and narrow.

lovethymini

Brallaqueen wrote: »

Good luck lovethymini, it's lovely to have more new MFW's around.
Try padlocking the thermostat? LOL

LOL That would be funny, although the next thing would be "sweetheart have you seen my jumper..."
Thank goodness ds is still too short to reach the thermostat - the cat would be giving herself a number 1 shave and sitting in the fridge otherwise.

lovethymini

What a week - have come down with a miserable cold and ds was poorly as well. On the plus side that means;-

Less petrol used on staying at home, less food consumed as we didn't have much of an appetite (although appetite is now returning and asking for biscuits).
Heating is on but thermostat quite low. Have noticed a big difference in the bathroom now the energy saving roller blind is up, and the front door has a curtain in front of it.
New (well, 2nd hand) oven is a bit of a mystery, the thermometer I've stuck in it is telling me it's at least 15% cooler than the dial is set at. Hmmm.
DH expenses got paid so that's knocked £200 off the fuel spending from last month, and we've paid his birthday cheques in too, so an extra £90. Managing so far not to do a grocery shop, just living off what we've got. DS has been watching Milkshake on Ch5 and has decided he wants a Stinky the Rubbish Truck (oh the joys of marketing to 3 year olds, doesn't it start early).
Just remembered that I opened a £5.00 pack of chicken Monday night and almost heaved at the smell. Straight in the bin - what a waste
Must say - this diary - although still very new - is really making me focus, the amount of things I didn't buy this week cost a fortune! :rotfl:
Must be time for bed - I'm babbling.