Ambitious MFW

katsu

Congrats for posting this. Hope some of the below suggestions show you places you might be able to reduce your spends.

AnnaBeth wrote: »

Have joint monthly income of £3,449.89 and the following monthly budget:
Mobile phones: £15 - this is good for two phones
TV Licence:12.12
Cleaning products: £1
Internet inc home phone: £25 have you checked if you can get this cheaper?
Gas & Elec:£52 - will be going up next month on estimated bills or actuals? ever switched?
Water: £20.24 have you looked to see if you would save money on a meter?
C.Tax: £122.70 if you pay over 10 months then save or OP your free months
Home Ins: £13.39 use cashback websites to get cash for a quote at renewal time and see about cashback on your next policy.
Mortgage repayments: £853.39
Mortgage Protection Ins: £24.34
Food: £250 the OS board people will help save you money here.
Window Cleaner: £8
Diesel: £110 use petrolprices website to find cheapest locations and use morrisons miles, tesco points etc to get extra benefits
Car Tax: £15.42
Car Ins: £41.67 again use comparison and cashback sites
Car Maintenance: £41.67 Do you have breakdown cover? I recommend Autoaid - £37pa for cover for your and DH.
dh's Car loan: £186.79 how long left?
Wedding credit card debt: £303 (0% Interest) how long left and how long at 0%?
Mortgage shortfall: £190 (used to pay £190 more a month this is going into savings account to poss end up paying off mortgage in fixed rate of 4% for 12 mths)
Dry cleaning: £4.17
Cash withdrawal: £100
Cinema: £8
Hobbies: £20.83 (dh's and non-negotiable I've tried!)
Love Film: £3.99
Contact Lenses: £15 there are some cheap online places - no idea if they are suitable or if this is a good price
Haircuts: £8.33
Dentist: £10
Gym for two of us: £66.16
Clothes: £33.33
Uni Fees: £91.67 (Doing my masters)
Prof Subs for both: £50.15 check if you can reclaim the tax on these - contact HMRC for advice
Birthdays: £10
Holidays: £41.67
Christmas: £16.67
Lunches at work: £5

Underspend is £674 a month according to budget brain.

This seems really possible when look at it like that but where does our money go????

Welcome. I recommend that if you get your bank statements for a few months you will see where else the money is running away to.

Good luck with the MF journey.

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Hello Annabeth - stick with it! It is so worth it to overpay even a little at a time. It is absolutely shocking how much interest you pay over the years. On one of my previous houses, in days of high interest rates,where we lived for 16 years, we paid 96.000 in interest - money that we worked hard to earn and paid tax on. I understand that it is fair to pay interest on money that you borrow, but it is never really made clear how much you pay at the end of the day. And at the time we bought they were pushing us to borrow the max, and like idiots we took it because we wanted the nice things. Not realising how much they were really costing..... And of course we never know when they will arbitrarily put the rates up again and screw up our lives without a thought.

Sorry to be so cynical - but it is true!

Squirrel - stroppy squirrel today!

AnnaBeth

thanks everyone your support is very appreciated :j
I think I will try Sara to make OPs before babies as probably at my highest earning point now and will fall drastically with children/stop!
You sound like you've managed well all things considered.:T
Deleted_User- yes I also need to figure out six monthly goals the DH thinks £1000 every three months making £4,000 a year, does anyone think that sounds low or high, I tend to think a bit low but then I am struggling a bit now so tend to go from this is hopeless to unrealistic figures, will sit down and work it out properly;)
Thank you squirrel the rates are a pain and the banks happily take it all in, it does feel like a fight against the system, good luck.
Katsu I'm going to try a clever quote thing thanks for your comments:)

AnnaBeth

Have joint monthly income of £3,449.89 and the following monthly budget:
Mobile phones: £15 - this is good for two phones - PAYG think maybe less diary will tell all!
TV Licence:12.12
Cleaning products: £1have taken this out now
Internet inc home phone: £25 have you checked if you can get this cheaper?cheapest at time we got it prob need to check again
Gas & Elec:£52 - will be going up next month on estimated bills or actuals? ever switched?now it's £67 month, have looked at switching app cheapest we can get? not sure I believe the comparison sites, may have just checked when £52 not £67 will check again!
Water: £20.24 have you looked to see if you would save money on a meter? this i an average think some of our water is metered already have one in the path in the street that think is ours found when moved in
C.Tax: £122.70 if you pay over 10 months then save or OP your free monthsgood point we do pay 10 mths so this is an over year average
Home Ins: £13.39 use cashback websites to get cash for a quote at renewal time and see about cashback on your next policy. DH did this last time it was best he could get at time
Mortgage repayments: £853.39
Mortgage Protection Ins: £24.34
Food: £250 the OS board people will help save you money here. trying to use these at the moment think food already going down took £200 cash out this month to try that method
Window Cleaner: £8
Diesel: £110 use petrolprices website to find cheapest locations and use morrisons miles, tesco points etc to get extra benefits love petrol prices website haven't used for while though!
Car Tax: £15.42
Car Ins: £41.67 again use comparison and cashback sites:)
Car Maintenance: £41.67 Do you have breakdown cover? I recommend Autoaid - £37pa for cover for your and DH. sounds v good DH has I don't
dh's Car loan: £186.79 how long left?about 21 mths left
Wedding credit card debt: £303 (0% Interest) how long left and how long at 0%?0%until May 2011, worked out how much need to pay monthly to make full payment before rate changes and so far so good, worst case scenario will have to move to another card maybe worth me opening now just in case!
Mortgage shortfall: £190 (used to pay £190 more a month this is going into savings account to poss end up paying off mortgage in fixed rate of 4% for 12 mths)
Dry cleaning: £4.17
Cash withdrawal: £100
Cinema: £8
Hobbies: £20.83 (dh's and non-negotiable I've tried!)
Love Film: £3.99
Contact Lenses: £15 there are some cheap online places - no idea if they are suitable or if this is a good price this is much cheaper than previous provider plus laser eye assessment beg dec so may not need for much longer:j
Haircuts: £8.33
Dentist: £10
Gym for two of us: £66.16
Clothes: £33.33
Uni Fees: £91.67 (Doing my masters)
Prof Subs for both: £50.15 check if you can reclaim the tax on these - contact HMRC for advice we can but I haven't for a few yrs and don't think DH ever has so will sort today thanks for reminder!!!
Birthdays: £10
Holidays: £41.67
Christmas: £16.67
Lunches at work: £5


Thank you so much for all your comments they were really helpful and where I've done what you suggested it was very reassuring so v helpful thank you :j

tootallulah

Hi, you are doing the right thing and there are plenty of people like me on his board who started doing this much later in life so the mortgage will be paid off before we retire! Every little helps to save 1000s. Even for me paying off this mortgage 4 years early will save me £40,000 in interest. Do what you can whilst you are both earning but make sure you also live your life well. £4000 a year is a big overpayment and will really make a difference, have you used an overpayment calculator? It's a great motivator.

CathT

I think your target of £4000 a year is fab! I have just put that amount into a spreadsheet and a monthly OP of £333 would mean i would pay my mortgage by june 2022 (month after my 40th!) and would have knocked 90 months off the term. That kind of OP is not possible for me but it just goes to show the difference it makes!

gallygirl

Good luck Anna, don't be downhearted by blips along the way, they are bound to happen! As for your SOA, well done on the progress made. There are some things I wouldn't cut though - £8 a month for windowcleaning is one of them!

AnnaBeth

I've spent a lot of my morning thinking about this.
I've sorted out claiming tax back thanks again Katsu.
Found out my DH who's a teacher gets one of his subs paid by his employer which was new to me and explains the weird entry on one of his payslips a while ago that I thought might have been this sub.
Have letters ready to send to either claim or find out how much need to be claiming for.
Tried to work out a target and think for the next six months because of still putting money towards wedding credit card and possible laser eye surgery coming up going to aim for £1,200 over next 6 months. Which is only £5 a month more than the difference between old and new mortgage agreement.
Have put aside £100 extra already although think it may need to be called on soon, so won't take that as a given until actually paid off.
We can only overpay by 10% but minimum payment is £1,000 a month so won't be able to make that regularly!
So will re-evaltaute mortgage OPs in March 2011 (six months starting from last month when put aside £190)
Just think if I could have overpaid what we used to pay when we had one month off between mortgages we would have already paid off £1040 (old rate)
but we do have an amazing new computer so can't complain really!

Thanks everyone for your support the new enthusiasm is almost certainly from you guys!!!

Overpayment calculator shows me if I overpay by £190 month for life of mortgage will be MF at 44 which is amazing, would like to aim higher if overpay £400 month can be MF by 40! Not sure if it will happen but after first six months will OP as much more as possible to bring payments down!

Have a good day everyone xxx

cha97michelle

I found your thread, after you popped into mine.

It is so hard starting on this journey, and you have had some excellent pointers so far. It is definitely easier paying before kids come along, but it is also important in the pre-kids time to have some fun yourselves, particularly as newlyweds. I sometimes wish we had travelled a bit more before kids as it is not possible now.

The £4k target per year sounded very reallistic, and it can be quite fun doing all the stuff that leads to you having that spare. I am at about £2.5k for the year, and after reading my diary you will know we are on one not particularly high income. This is down to my hard work clicking, selling, surveying, mystery shopping, and keeping a hold of the budget so it does not run away from us.

I loved the idea of having shorter targets. It must be a lot more motivating doing this way, and makes me think that there are a lot of us that might benefit from approaching it this way.

Good luck on your journey.

AnnaBeth

Thanks michelle.
Your right about fun before kids DH would love to go to america and think it might be something we should aim for before children if not america then definitely a few holidays not so far away.
2.5k is impressive, I'm going to go back to your diary to read it more fully I'm not up to date with clicking etc need to find out more, if could combine that as well could make even bigger over payments or have more fun!
I think I need shorter targets as otherwise it feels too much like a pipe dream.
Good luck with your journey as well thanks for the advice