Drip drip drip feeding the mortgage

financialbliss

Radish72 wrote: »

You still need
To have loads of spreadsheets

IMHO, you can never have too many spreadsheets!

Welcome tjp70 - any question you need - just ask.

We're a friendly bunch on this mortgage forum. Sooner or later someone wil come along with some answers or a different viewpoint you may not have thought of...

Financial Bliss.

tjp70

Good morning all.
Thank you for yet more warm welcomes.
Dimbo – seeing it in black and white (you wrote that I already overpay by £175.00) sort of brought it home. I am doing something about it already – I am just too impatient. I guess we all are, we want the noose of the mortgages gone from around our necks.
I had a quick chat with DH last night. I didn’t dare mention that I had started an online diary – he would not understand that at all!! I did say that I had set us a target of £3000.00 mortgage overpayment for the year and I could see the panic set in. He said that we already cut back so where were we going to find that extra money. We will – I like a challenge – hehe.
I obviously forgot to mention to you all that I am already totally addicted to spreadsheets. I have a great one that shows the daily interest calculations on the mortgage plus you can tweak it for any overpayments etc. And then I have spreadsheets for savings, holidays, monthly expenditure…….
Anyway, time for the school run. Back later.
tjp70

financialbliss

tjp70 wrote: »

I obviously forgot to mention to you all that I am already totally addicted to spreadsheets. I have a great one that shows the daily interest calculations on the mortgage plus you can tweak it for any overpayments etc. And then I have spreadsheets for savings, holidays, monthly expenditure…….

Hi tjp,
Good news on the spreadsheets front then.

Got a few charts on my diary home page, plus I've a few spreadsheets linked in my signature:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=572849

FB.

Radish72

Thats why it is good to have smaller goals to focus on as I'm just as impatient

My next one is to see £16K at the start off my balance, try and get to £10K by the end of the year but would love to be at £8K

tjp70

Evening everyone.

Financial Bliss – wow, you really have taken spreadsheets to a new level – GRAPHS! I don’t think I could cope with that but it is a great way to see what you have achieved.
Radish – setting smaller goals is a really motivating idea – I certainly need to use that. You are sooo close to the end – it must be a great feeling.

Well today was a good day. I listed one more thing on ebay and did a few hours of bookkeeping work, plus a new customer called enquiring about the dog minding business, so not as gloomy as I thought at 9am this morning.
Last week I sold a bed on ebay and that is being collected tonight so that’s money that can go straight towards an overpayment later in the week.
OS wise, today I baked a cake instead of going to the shops to buy one. I need to scrap a box for the vacuum cleaner that I had to buy (the last one exploded last week, showering my lounge carpet in sparks, but fortunately not damaging anything – my nerves were frayed though!). The box can then go in the recycling tomorrow so that will save a trip to the tip.

One of our biggest money downfalls, as a family, is eating out and takeaways. We all love our food. I use meal planners but sometimes get to the end of the day, and just don’t fancy what we are supposed to be cooking for tea. We spend way too much money on this and it is an area that we have cut back on in recent times, but still there is room for improvement. Tonight was one of those nights – but I resisted the urge, and found something more appetising in the freezer –so a minor ‘win’ in my book.

I hear the doorbell – off now to help move the bed.

financialbliss

tjp70 wrote: »

Financial Bliss – wow, you really have taken spreadsheets to a new level – GRAPHS! I don’t think I could cope with that but it is a great way to see what you have achieved.

The graphs are not at all difficult to achieve if you've got some base data to go off, plus know your way around Excel and paint. I like graphs as you can quickly visually see what progress has been made!

• I create a graph from some data and place this into a blank Excel sheet
• Right click on the graph to copy the image, fire up paint and past the image into a new paint object
• Save the image, eg as a JPEG image
• Find some online storage - I'm using http://www.photobucket.com
• Upload the image to your online storage
• Get the hyperlink to the image (from photobucket) and past into the forums

For online spreadsheets, that's pretty simple too.

• I'm using Google docs - I've created an account there
• Login to google docs - http://spreadsheets.google.com/
• Create an online spreadsheet as you would do "offline"
• Once complete, select share as web page, where you get a link which brings the spreadsheet up
• Get the hyperlink to the sheet and past into the forums

The added bonus in online spreadsheets is like webmail, I can access them from anywhere with an internet connection, plus I don't need to worry about backing them up - that's Google's problem.

FB.

tjp70

Thank you FB, for all of that information. I will have a play with my spreadsheets when I next get the chance.
The last few days have been fairly busy days, but sadly without any contributions to the mortgage fund. Ebay is not proving very successful – I have five items listed and only one watcher. Never mind. The pile of stuff for car booting is growing rapidly. I have several busy weekends coming up looking after dogs, then I will be able to do one. Currently, I am still waiting for M0pay to credit my account for an old mobile phone that I sent them. Once I receive that, I will combine it with funds sat in my Paypal account, plus my £1 in coppers :rotfl:and then make an overpayment.
On a plus side, I have been doing some more bookkeeping so that will help the family finances. I also have had a couple of enquiries about the pet minding business and secured two bookings last night, which I am very pleased about.
I had a read of the Store Cupboard Challenge thread and have had a rummage around, then I made a meal plan for the week. If I can manage not to go into a shop for groceries in the next 7 days, then I will have made a small saving this week. Fingers crossed.

tjp70

Morning all.
Something tells me it is going to be a good weekend (famous last words….?)
DH is at work for a few hours this morning doing some overtime. This will help towards his horrendous commuting costs. He drives a 90 mile round trip for work and the fuel costs are crippling. DS & DD are still snoozing so the house is peaceful.
I have transferred the funds out of the Paypal account so hopefully they will arrive at the same time as the M0pay money. I feel almost desperate to make that overpayment – I am sooo impatient.
Have a good day everyone.

Onecoincloser

Well done on your work so far!!!:T :T I also spend a fortune on food....this month I am not going to spend anything more than a tenner a week on fresh stuff and everything else comes out of the cupboard or freezer;)

BFM

slow cooker seems like a no-brainer, tasty, filling, easy, inexpensive food ready to eat when you are. maybe even get your lunches for the next day out of it as well.

you can pick one up for the cost of a couple of takeaways.