SeriouslySeekingtoSave strongly strides straight into slaying her mortgage!

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

CathT wrote: »

Glad you have somewhere you can finally call home! Good luck with your OP's

alex_p wrote: »

Wishing you consistency and determination!

I liked your story especially about the mice! :eek:

Wow Alex - so close to the MF Roll of Honour! Good for you.

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

originalmiscellany wrote: »

Most enjoyable read too. I dread to think what the house was like to live in with cockroaches and mice running around. .

It was awful... Just awful... They would climb up onto my bed and scamper around !!!!ing on everything. After living with that, living on my own is paradise!

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

abouttimetoo wrote: »

oops, thought of something else

As Jocktight mentions it's good to have some emergency savings but the other thing you could look into is wagt happens to your overpayments; each lender is different so you will need to speak to your provider but some will give you all the OP's back if necessary, some will give a proportion back, some will not give anything back, and some will let you suspend normal payments until the OPs are used up (if you see what I mean)

Hmm, I don't think HSBC does anything like that but I haven't actually asked. I will check it out because if that is the case that does free up a lot of money from the 'I need to have it just in case' kitty. Thanks a lot for that tip, I'll definately find out.

SJ1

Hi there

I read your thread with interest as I am also thinking about overpaying on the mortgage but I want to do a little work to the house first so was going to put money towards that. Not sure if we can afford to do both. I am limited to repaying £500 per month. We could probably afford more but I didn't think this was too limiting as we completed a big build project last year and that soaked up all our savings big time. So I need to replace them so I have some dosh in the bank and having got my budgeting under control (my food budget was atrocious - well there wasn't a budget just me buying exactly what I wanted without thinking much about it!) things are settling down and I actually have a reasonable amount left over.

So let me have your top tips - do you really not budget? I find it impossible to keep track if I don't and really carefully. I write everything down and keep the same amount of cash out each week which I limit myself too. Our main spends apart from food and clothes for me (I too LOVE the clothes) are cars:mad: which I sort of love and hate. I love driving them but hate the expense! OH would dearly love a little two seater to add to the collection.

Would love to hear from you on how you do it!! Oh! And consistency and determination to you!!

SJ

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

abouttimetoo wrote: »

Hi SStS and welcome to the MFW board :hello:

You sound very determind and that's half the knack here, along with - as you say - consistency. Well done on what you have achieved so far, there are lots of us on here who wished we'd started making overpayments the second we got our first mortgage so it's great to see that you have instantly latched on to it as it makes all the difference.


You sound very organised so forgive me if you have already thought of these things but some other things you may want to condider doing are:

• use of credit cards to ontain rewards/cashbacks etc
• use of 0% interest credit cards whereby you save the money you would have used to pay the monthly bills, earn interest on this money, then repay the full balance at the end of the 0% term
• investigate sites such as quidco and topcashback before you by anything at all as it's amazing how much money you can generate by doing this
• join one of the MFW challenges e.g. cake21 is running the 2011 one
• regularly review your standing orders and direct debits
• keep an eye on savings rates as there may be times that you can earn more interest than the interest rate you are paying on your mortgage

Good luck with your plans, I look forward to reading about your progress
Regards
ATT






Ps, i love all the S alliteration in your thread title :rotfl:

Thank you! I've been reading for a while and I've been learning from the advice of others. These forums are fantastic and Martin is a wonderful man for the way he so obviously cares about the finances of people and how making your money work harder and smarter can improve your life so much. Martin, here's to you mate! :money::beer:

I am trying to get organised with my finances but it really isn't a natural state of being shall we say... That is why I've started this Diary and I'm sticking to this forum. The advice and just the push that you all give each other, to keep saving, keep working at it even when it gets a little tough, it's just amazing. I'm in a fortunate position of never having been in debt (other than a student loan). My parents taught me that but they've never been financial wizards and I didn't learn how to really make my money work for me rather than banks. So, I'm starting a bit from scratch and soaking up info like a sponge.

I am definately investigating the 0% credit cards; I'm just trying to build up a good credit rating. They say 6 months into your mortgage and if you haven't had any problems your credit rating gains some good solid points.

For the rest of your suggestions I want to ask you, or anyone else out there about them in greater detail, but I'm running out of time now. I'll post again when I have some time. Thank you for the suggestions, they are all things I want to become second nature to me; it's my goal for this year! 'determined face'

LilacPixie

first direct could be your friend... http://www1.firstdirect.com/1/2/savings/regular-saver-account/overview

cha97michelle

I totally love the name of your diary. It really stood out and dragged it in.

Your original circumstances sound horrible. I freaked out at one mouse in our student house that was on the ground floor and my bedroom was on the 2nd floor. A whole army of them would have had me screaming. Sounds like you stuck it out a bit too.

I can offer some advice on the food side of things. A number of us from this board are doing the grocery challenge over on the old style board. There are lots of recipes over there. My budget this month is £190 for me, DH, 2 kiddies and a cat. I have been hanging around on these boards for 5 years and there is always someone telling me something new.

One of the links on the first page of the grocery challenge is to a webpage about cheap family meals, made by one of the members here Weezl. I would say she is an expert on feeding people cheaply and well. She looks at nutritional needs as well as just being very cheap.

My top tip for consistency is come here often. Ask if you want to know something. And also, even the littlest of savings can add up to one mighty big overpayment if you keep on keeping on.

Welcome. Can't wait to hear more.

RosieTiger

You seem very organised and lots of good advice already offered to you so good luck.
I would certainly get most of the Three thousand you have in a normal bank account into an ISA straight away as you can still withdraw form it if you really have to.
Given your comments about spending the one piece of advice from me is when you make your OP do it bt standing order as soon as your paid that way it will be made and you won't dwindle it away! But get a reserve fund clear first!

XSpender

:eek: at the state of your old flatshare. I once lived in a student house where if you wanted a wee or a bath you had to lift the door and lean it over the doorway as it wasn't attatched to the door frame and a mouse once ran over my duvet and up the curtains but I would have run screaming from the cockroaches:eek::eek:

I can second Michelle's recommendation on the grocery challenge thread, although I have never once achieved my target:o our shopping bill has probably halved and I have picked up lots of tips and recipes.

The Sunshine Scones on Weezel's site are a lovely savoury addition to a lunch box:)

Wishing you consistency and detrmination in achieving your goals

museumworker

Just popping in to wish you consistency and determination! I think if you put up with that old flat, you can deal with anything! Well done on OPs to date, I think at this rate your mortgage will be gone in no time.

Food shopping is a really good area to save money on - I do a meal plan for the week before shopping, try and batch cook every now and again (and freeze in take away containers I get 10 for a £1 from the pound shop, they can be reused too but are a good size to stack and portionwise.), use a slow cooker, buy meat and fish reduced and freeze, use local markets and fantastic (but cheap) local butcher, shop at Lidl.. all of these tactics mean we spend around £220-250 a month for me, OH and DD including lunches. I'm sure there are many who do it even cheaper, but considering how well we eat and the fact that the OH is a bit of a foodie, I'm happy with that! Was more like £450 when we moved in together 2 years ago.