EconomicSlave's MFW Journey.

EconomicSlave

An update on my 'Matched Betting' experiment, I won 11 of my 13 bets today (a 14th doesnt play until later) - and I ended up with a 14.6% return. The amounts I'm using are very small at the moment, usually £1 or £2 per bet so the returns are small - but this is just an experiment to see if it works. As small as it is, i'm proud of my £4.25 profit.

EconomicSlave

After December's initial success, I'm looking to keep to going, afterall, I want the mortgage to go down to £70,000 this year, a decrease of about £4500!

Another £50 got paid off today by my Monthly Standing Order - I have a £50 overpayment every month - its ideal as I don't notice the money coming out when it comes out with the rest of the bills.

So since the start of December its £540 paid towards the £4500 2011 target. This saves some £688 IN INTEREST! AND COMBINED reduces the mortgage by nearly 3 months.:T
I'm looking forward to receiving my annual mortgage statement in the next few weeks.

I have decided to have a monthly theme to keep myself on track, these are:

January 2011 - Threefold approach:

1. Use some of my savings (particularly as my tax bill was about £75 less than I thought).
2. Rations... no, not quite army boil in the bags... we got a big food hamper at Xmas from the in-laws and loads of chocolate etc from my Aunt - thus my plan is to minimise our supermarket bill for January by using up the hamper etc and generally trying to use up all the old stuff in the cupboards. I'll report back on this at the end of January, but hoping the near-on £70 a week will be reduced to more like £20 a week while I'm eating that tin of chilli - looks like dog food (not that I would inflict it on my lovely Cairn Terrier). This should free up a bit of cash from the Joint account.
3. Purchase a 3 month bus ticket, which will save me over £70 over the 3 months compared to buying the tickets daily or even more compared to driving.

Other potential theme months will include:

• Work silly and really earn the dosh month.
• Ebay month - clearout and sell old stuff.
• Any other ideas folks?

EconomicSlave

EconomicSlave

Hi everyone,
Finally got the mortgage under £74000 today! Went into the building society and they informed me that I currently owe £74000.13 - slightly less than I thought. On hearing that I paid off another £425 (£75 a cheque from tutoring and £350 from my personal savings). This takes me down to 73575.13!!!

Customers paying by cheque has been really useful as I just pay them straight into the mortgage.
Also purchased my 3 month bus ticket today - which should save me a lot over the time period.

Rations not going so well, spending less at the supermarket - but we are bored of hamper tins and xmas chocolate - craving fresh meat and fresh veg.

So having paid another £425, that means I have paid £475 OP in January so far (allowed to OP by upto £499.99 per month). Total OPs since the start of December when I started this current effort is... DRUM ROLL...

£965!!!!!

Not sure how much further this will go for the moment, depends how many customers I have for the January - May period.

The £965 wipes out £1229.58 in interest - and the payments and interest saved combined is £2194.57!

This cuts just over 5 months off the mortgage!:j

gallygirl

EconomicSlave wrote: »

Total overpayment for December 2010: £490! :rotfl:
I'm really pleased with this, particularly as it will save another £624.34 in interest over the remaining term of the mortgage (so in total £1114.34 less to pay).

This cuts about 2.5 months off the term of the mortgage!!!:cool:

EconomicSlave wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies and encouragement so far! This forum does help to show there is support and encouragement out there - mutual support ensures we all keep on task.

Really good point about getting 'her indoors' onboard with this, a topic for discussion I think...:eek:

If you show your OH the stats I am sure she will see what a difference it makes. But don't forget to have some fun along the way - you are in it for the long haul

https://www.quidco.com is a cashback site - there are many others but IMHO quidco is the best. There is info HERE about them - basically when you want to buy something online check to see which sites give cashback. I've received 2.2k in 4 years (though some of the best offers are now gone). You need to be a bit savvy - sites put a cookie on them when you visit and will only pay out if there is a quidco referral cookie. Use either 2 computers, or in my case, 2 different browsers, I use IE and Firefox. If I am looking for house insurance for example I'll do searches on Firefox then see how much cashback is on offer via quidco on IE. Either that or clear your cookies all the time. You will find that the quotes via quidco are a bit dearer but if you're lucky you'll be in profit. Hope this helps.

Oh, :hello: welcome by the way

adwat

It's nice to see you're so motivated & enthusiastic.

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

EconomicSlave wrote: »

The other half is quite unaware of this sum, thinking I have overpaid by about £60, she doesn't approve of the overpayments, feeling instead we should spend it on a better lifestyle.

Oh dear that's a shame, I'm single but I would think that it would be much easier as a couple if both parties looked at the interest repayments and determined together that they were a huge waste of money! Doesn't seem that common unfortunately.

Best of luck!