Zeddy's MFW diary

Zeddy

Hi Everyone and a Happy New Year to you all.

Firstly, apologies on the uninspiring name to this thread, but everything I tried seemed too corny or a copy of someone elses, so I've gone for a 'what it does on the tin' approach!

Secondly, here's a brief intro:

We, (MrZ, MissZ and me) are due to move house in January, so far we haven't a date, but I'm hoping it will be sometime in the middle of Jan. We currently have a tiny 2 bed house, it's really only 1.5 bed house and we're moving to a lovely 3 bed house, contracts are signed on each side, there's only 3 of us in the chain, so fingers crossed, touch wood etc, etc, we'll be on our way soonish.

With this comes a change in finances. Currently we owe about £135k on our mortgage, our monthly repayment is £1,000 and we overpay the maximum amount of £200 each month.

We are porting this mortgage and have a second mortgage with the same provider for the extra mortgage, which is another £74k and the repayments on this are going to be about £400on top of the £1,000. I will correct with the actual figures later, but currently have a sleeping MissZ on me and don't want to move her, as the days where she falls asleep on me a few a far between these days so I'm savouring it, well while multitasking obviously.

I was a little concerned about the increase in mortgage, mainly as I'm pretty risk adverse, love saving and value the security, but accept that we need a bigger house and I would like to move to a house where we can stay for another 10 or so years, not just three years like we have always done in the past.

The good news is that in my end of year pay review I received a 20% payrise, which will more than cover the increase in mortgage. However, I also know that with a bigger house comes bigger bills and with a new house comes new furniture and decorating, which I would like to be able to do as well as overpaying on the mortgage as well as finally enjoying life and not always just saving money.

We have a few holidays planned for 2011, as we haven't had a full on holiday for a few years and also it's my 30th and my Dad's 60th this year, so we'll also need to factor in these.

Anyhow, there's the basics, which I'll return to later to give exact amounts.

I'm going to have a few reads of some other diaries now and will be back later to put down my goals for 2011. :beer:

yukkibear

Good luck with your journey

Zeddy

yukkibear wrote: »

Good luck with your journey

Thanks yukkibear :beer:

Zeddy

2011 - goals

When we start on our new mortgage I will set up an over payment of £100 per month
For 2011 I also hope to over pay an additional £1,200 in the year, this will make the overpayments as the same amount as that which we have been making each year to date, but takes the pressure off at the beginning of the year when we will have extra expenses relating to the house.

I would like to get our mortgage down as low as possible so that in 10 years time we can move to a new house, which will be our forever house and have a small mortgage which will be repaid by the time MissZ is 18, which will lead to all sorts of lovely options in our lives.

I struggle with budgets, I'm not sure I make them realistic, my problem is I always seem to live within my means and have some money left over in savings. I know that I should be able to meet the different budgets in my life, such as grocery, but struggle with it, and as in the past I've still managed to overpay the mortgage and put some money into savings, it has never really bothered me. So, I'm hoping that with this new mortgage, it being much harder to overpay, maybe I will be able to stick to the budgets.

My other issue is the debate I constantly have with myself over doing enjoyable things, versus saving. A good example is yesterday a friend asked if me and MissZ wanted to go to the zoo with her family, the zoo is about 45 minute drive, so there's the petrol and the entry was about £15 part of me thought if I didn't go we wouldn't spend any money, but the other part of me thought MissZ would love it and I would enjoy it too, so we went. I have these debates all the time, and 99% it's the same outcome, that we go. So I guess although I am a MFW, I'm afraid I'm not going to be one with fantastic figures each month.

To the same end, we've just booked a 11 night trip to Morocco for the three of us in April for £2,000, but it's the first family holiday we will have had abroad together and it's been fitted in for before MissZ turns 2 as she is free, so we have tried to be a little sensible. I'm slightly baulking at the cost though as we've never spent this much on a holiday, but then we've never been away for that length of time together. This will have to be paid for out of our savings.

Talking of savings, at the moment I don't see much point in listing these hear, as a lot of them will be going into our new house, leaving us with a few thousand to pay for this holiday, so some work on the house and some to keep in savings for the future.

As I think I've said previously, I'm fairly risk advere, and I worry about our financial future a lot, hence why we have always been on fixed rate mortgages, something which is hard to take at the moment, but I do like the security of it. This week I've called my pension provider and upped my monthly payments to £130 net, which I still am not sure that this is enough. My H has one of the fantastic NHS pensions, providing they don't make any changes to that his will definitly be enough for us to survive on, but who knows what the future holds and in my retirement I would love to be able to do more than survive. So I'm feeling a bit more relaxed about the future from a pension perspective.

dimbo61

As someone with a " fantastic " NHS pension I can tell you there are many changes already in the pipeline.
The rate your OH will be paying will go up from 6% to 9% with no increase in the benefits now thats a 50% increase in his contributions !!!!
Is your OH on a pay freeze for the next 2 years?
The age when you could have taken the pension has gone up to 55 from this april ( was 50)
If I complete 40 years service in the NHS I will then get a pension equal to 50% of my basic salary.
Its still a very good pension ( if the government dont decide to tax the lump sum) my todays standard but also way below many of the Gold plated deals high up government staff ( including MP.s) get.
Good luck with the house move and take the refurb one step at a time

twinklie

Welcome to the boards...I'm 30 this year too. I love reading new peoples threads so I look forward to following you. We also OP by about £120 per month. We could be twins....:rotfl:

originalmiscellany

I'm 30, coming up to 31 in a few weeks, and have been overpaying as much as possible.

Keep up the good work, I'm sure you'll reap the benefits once you're in a new bigger house with your family.

Have you done an SOA (Statement of Accounts (Is that right?)) that itemises your income and expenditure?

It could highlight a few areas where you can make savings; Even a few small savings in a few areas could result in a decent saving over 12 months.

I'll enjoy following your progress this year too. All the best.

katsu

originalmiscellany wrote: »

Have you done an SOA (Statement of Accounts (Is that right?))

Statement of Affairs.

Welcome to the Z family. There is nothing wrong with being a slower paced MFW. We are all unitied in wanting an MF future faster than our alloted contracts and it is personal choice and circumstances that dictate how fast we go.

Will look forward to seeing you settle in here.

All the best.

Zeddy

dimbo61 wrote: »

As someone with a " fantastic " NHS pension I can tell you there are many changes already in the pipeline.
The rate your OH will be paying will go up from 6% to 9% with no increase in the benefits now thats a 50% increase in his contributions !!!!
Is your OH on a pay freeze for the next 2 years?
The age when you could have taken the pension has gone up to 55 from this april ( was 50)
If I complete 40 years service in the NHS I will then get a pension equal to 50% of my basic salary.
Its still a very good pension ( if the government dont decide to tax the lump sum) my todays standard but also way below many of the Gold plated deals high up government staff ( including MP.s) get.
Good luck with the house move and take the refurb one step at a time

Hi Dimbo61
I know it's not as good as it was, nor as good as some others, but as someone who gets no employer contributions into their pension and even when the new pension rules come in the company that I work for is of a size where they probably will not have to bring in their contributions as soon as larger companies, it still looks pretty fantastic.

It's actually one of my tasks over the holiday to review his pension info as he came home from work just before Christmas with a load of literature on it. I work in accountancy and we have a medical specialism so I was hoping one of the consultants good give me their opinion on it, but it's been one of those things that no doubt I'll leave until the last minute.

Luckily MrZ has a new job within the same trust so has gone up a band and as far as I'm aware he'll still be getting increments each year, so I think he's lucky in that the pay freeze wont effect him directly, although I may be wrong about that. The freeze on training and external courses though, that's another matter......

Zeddy

originalmiscellany wrote: »

I'm 30, coming up to 31 in a few weeks, and have been overpaying as much as possible.

Keep up the good work, I'm sure you'll reap the benefits once you're in a new bigger house with your family.

Have you done an SOA (Statement of Accounts (Is that right?)) that itemises your income and expenditure?

It could highlight a few areas where you can make savings; Even a few small savings in a few areas could result in a decent saving over 12 months.

I'll enjoy following your progress this year too. All the best.

Thanks for your comments and kind words. I haven't done a formal SOA yet, I have a budget, but this is broad in that there's usually around £200 for extras and £200 for leisure, which I should be able to cut back on.

I think I'll do one once we've moved into the new house and have an idea on gas, electric etc. At the moment we're in a terraced built in the 1980s whereas we're moving to a detached house build in the 1920s so I've no idea what an impact this will make.

Zeddy

Right, final post for today, before I start to bore myself, let alone everyone else!

Today has been a good start, I haven't been out so haven't spent any money at all.

MrZ was on call and has worked around 6 hours to date, so at the moment he stands to earn about £100 and still another 10 hours to go. We share all money and don't really have any of our own money - so I really like this sort of extra money as I don't do anything to get it! Well having said that I was left to put MissZ to bed on my own, which took an hour of me lying by her got holding her hand before she drifted off - so I haven't had it too easy!

I also had an email from Sainsburys saying they had put £5 worth of nectar points on my card as I had emailed them complaining that I had picked up without realising it yesterday a pack of ham, which went out of date on the 29th - I will transfer that £5 over to my first overpayment fund - I just need to sort a signature out to track this.

Made macaroni and cheese with the out of date ham for dinner, which I have costed at £2.92, which is pretty good for us.

I sold a DVD on amazon, although I'm not going to count this money as it was a DVD I bought yesterday to watch on NYE, so it goes against the cost to give me a cheaper rental figure of 51p!

Roll on tomorrow for some more money making/saving!