Five years for Spigs to be Mortgage Free!

drewwa

Good luck Spigs! I'm hoping to clear mine by the end of 2014 too. Fingers crossed!

Cheers,

Drew.

RosieTiger

That looks like an excellent plan to allow you to move on. As others have said, there is no benefit in beating yourself up about mistakes in the past the only mistake would be to not learn from it!
Good luck.

Spiggle

Thanks Drew and RosieTiger,

I appreciate your kind comments. And I'm not beating myself up anymore but have truly learnt from past mistakes!

Well, we've got real snow this morning something that happens very rarely here. Usually it doesn't stick because of the sea air but we got up this morning to about four inches. Amazing!

I've been out to give the birds in the garden some food and water and now need to have a nice cuppa to warm up. :cool:

Not a great deal happening at the moment with OP as the next is scheduled for the start of January. OH pay hit the bank today so it looks very healthy in there. But I'm being extrememly watchful 'cos mine will hit the account next Thursday but the big OP won't go until the beginning of January so have to reign in any urge to splurge.

I think that's another thing I've learnt from here; a budget means just that and credit balances have to last throughout the month!

It's going to be a long time before the next salaries come in but I do have around £60 of MrT vouchers and a similar amount for N*ct*r so that should help a great deal with shopping in January.

Right off to make that cuppa!

Take care,
Spigs

Spiggle

Right, time for an update. :wave:

I've been trying to do this since Tuesday but the Grocery challenge thread is proving very very popular this month and I've ended up running out of time to post on here 'cos I've been reading there. All good stuff though when others want to save money too. :cool:

So, first OP of the year went out on Tuesday! :j The OP amount was £424 whilst the total payment made to the mortgage was £839. This equates to a payment against capital of approx. £800. :T

Now I've managed to confuse myself a fair amount with OP versus actual capital pay down. So I'm only going to post my approx balance on here and keep my signature reflecting purely OP. That's also the way that the MFW 2011 records for me will work - only reflecting pure OP not total capital pay down. I think that makes sense and I've promised Cake21 that I won't change my target, now £5700, again!

Tuesday also saw the £230 payment go out against the CC.

So the stats now are:

Total payment made = £839 of which:
Total mortgage OP made = £424
Total mortgage capital pay down made = £800
Approximate mortgage outstanding = £50,284

Total CC payment made = £230
Total CC outstanding = £1,930

Therefore, total outstanding debt = £52,175

There was a negative side to my b*llsing up my figures :doh:as I discovered I'd incorrectly entered the figure for OP against the 2nd mortgage on the mortgage analyser and this extended :eek: the period before that one is paid off to Jun/July 2012. I was sad but I'm getting over it slowly and am just angry at myself now. :mad:

I have a plan though! :think: I think that in Feb and / or March I can squeeze some extra money out of our budget and so I'll try to make an extra payment or two to the 2nd mortgage and hope that it starts to right itself back to where it was. IF I can find an extra £200 per month it would get me back to May 2012 to finish it off. And if I could do that for more than just two months then I could get back to my Mar/Apr 2012 end date for the 2nd mortgage. :undecided It's got to be worth trying!

Ok, that's enough of an essay for the moment - I'm sure there was something else but it's not coming to mind :huh: - but I may be back later.

Take care and all the best,
Spigs

gallygirl

Spiggle wrote: »

There was a negative side to my b*llsing up my figures :doh:as I discovered I'd incorrectly entered the figure for OP against the 2nd mortgage on the mortgage analyser and this extended :eek: the period before that one is paid off to Jun/July 2012. I was sad but I'm getting over it slowly and am just angry at myself now. :mad:

I have a plan though! :think: I think that in Feb and / or March I can squeeze some extra money out of our budget and so I'll try to make an extra payment or two to the 2nd mortgage and hope that it starts to right itself back to where it was. IF I can find an extra £200 per month it would get me back to May 2012 to finish it off. And if I could do that for more than just two months then I could get back to my Mar/Apr 2012 end date for the 2nd mortgage. :undecided It's got to be worth trying!

That's what I love about paying the mortgage off - never mind being competitive with others, you spend 1/2 your time being competitive with yourself (I was going to say playing with your own figures but thought it was too early in the day for that :rotfl:).

Spiggle

gallygirl wrote: »

That's what I love about paying the mortgage off - never mind being competitive with others, you spend 1/2 your time being competitive with yourself (I was going to say playing with your own figures but thought it was too early in the day for that :rotfl:).

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: Yep definitely too early! Much too easy to type the wrong thing. Cheers gallygirl for giving me a right chuckle! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

LilacPixie

hehe being a MFW turns us all nuts

CathT

Cheers for the reminder about the grocery challenge thread. Shopping is an area we really need to make savings!

Sunnyday

Hi Spigs :wave:

just popping by to say good luck, and wish you all the best with your plan,
i don`t get as much time to read all the diaries these days but try to dip my toe in here and there for a catch up.

I do know what you mean about the GC thread this month :rotfl: i`ve spent far too much time on there the last couple of days.

SD

Spiggle

Time for a bit of an update I think. :think:

I just read my post from earlier in the month and my, how positive I was! Unfortunately, that positivity got up and bit me on the bum!

OH and I rarely get each other a prezzie at Xmas these days but tend to get a joint something that we need in the Jan sales. So that's what we did this year. Needed a new music system that would bring us into the digital age and after much research I went ahead and ordered a lovely Denon (obvioulsy at cheapest price and through Quidco for the cashback ) and paid with the Amex (for the miniscule cashback). What I miscalculated was the date my Amex statement got made up :doh:and as a result the whole lot got put on there along with the petrol and other spends from before and during Christmas, aaaaarrrrrggggghhhh! :eek:

Now I refuse to pay interest on a credit card and only use Amex to keep petrol costs in one place and get a little bit of cashback on it. So my whole balance gets cleared every month. With January being painfully long (I don't get paid until last working day and was paid on 23rd December 'cos of Xmas shutdown) this was always going to be the tightest month of the year. _pale_ So the Amex balance has really shifted the scales in the debit direction. As a result and after a year of not using my arranged overdraft I am in the red until next Monday. :mad:

So I was going to reduce my OP for Feb which goes out next Tuesday and posted this on the MFW 2011 thread. As was pointed out to me there, the od is arranged so it'll only cost me around a fiver so I shouldn't worry about that too much. The real issue is when rates are going to rise and the effect it'll have on the ability to OP as much.

I had a little think about this. :think: The 0% CC that I'm currently OPing at £230 per month is scheduled to end in October with a final payment of £90. So instead of reducing the mortgage OP I'm gonna reduce the CC OP to £90 for Feb thus gaining £140 towards steadying the ship.

Don't get me wrong, my wage on Monday will more than cover the overdraft and the OPs but it would make Feb that bit tighter if I want to continue being in the black in the current account. That £140 will be a cushion and go some way toward balancing the extra payment that Amex have taken. And Feb is thankfully a much shorter month so I'll feel more able to breathe a bit more iyswim.

Right, now the SO is amended for the CC and the mortgage OP will remain the same. As for any extra OP, well we'll have to see how the next month or so go before I can decide on that. I'm very aware of needing to keep on living and not stretch ourselves to the point where this becomes a demotivating struggle rather than something to celebrate :dance: and be proud of.

Ok, I'll update again next week once the next OPs have gone out.

Take care,
Spigs