stingebag versus a fool and his money

stingebag

Good morning!:o

Having been a lurker for a while I have decided join the merry band of mortgage wannabees:T.

I have chosen the name stingebag as it best describes my attitude to money at the moment (rather stingey). My other half is "a fool and his money" (AFAHM) as that best describes my darling husbands attitude;). We have first born (FB) who is a beautiful stroppy teenager with MASSIVE attitude:D and baby boy(BB) who is a gorgeous 8 year old boy who still loves his mummy millions:).

I earn 15k per year and AFAHM earns a basic of £30k per year plus upto another £10k per year depending on overtime, bonus etc. Tax credits have just been taken away from me (boo hoo) and we get £134 per month in child benefit.

We have a fixed rate mortgage of 4.09% with Northern Rock with 4yrs 9 mth left on the fix and a total of 13yrs 9mth remaining on the term. House is valued at £185k, mortgage has £100900 left to pay:eek:. We pay £804 per month on repayment and I have worked out I can pay an extra £600 per month to hopefully lower the term. I aim to have the mortgage below £40k for when the fixed rate has expired in little under 5 years:rotfl:

This is a one woman mission as AFAHM has no interest what so ever of paying this debt off early so thats why I need a bit of motivation;).

Wish me luck:)

lincoln-potter

Hello there SB,

Welcome to the forum, it sounds like you have your handsfull with AFAHM!

So I wish you all the very best.

edinburgher

Think you're going to have to come up with a snappier acronym for your OH, any more than two letters and the diary set will come after you with flaming torches

The only exception I can think of is SAHM...

stingebag

Hi lincoln potter and edinburgher:)

Thanks for the tip! Would'nt want to upset anybody this early in the game;). Think I will refer to my hubby as AF short for " a fool and his money". Love him dearly but he admits he has been a bit of a plonker with his spare cash in the past:mad:

edinburgher

he admits he has been a bit of a plonker with his spare cash in the past

Me too - and now I'm getting ready to buy a house, just about understand investing and overpay my pension - there's hope for him yet

SmlSave

Hi hun, welcome to the board

By the way AF generally means on this board Alchol Free and on another board something completely different! (Female time of month)
SAHM means Stay At Home Mum

Think the most difficult thing for you to start with is thinking of an acronym for your OH (Other Half) or just stick to DH (Dear Husband)

Have we scared you off yet? :rotfl:

Lots of luck with your mission!

dimbo61

If you aim to clear £60K over 5 years while on a fix you may need to check out the terms and conditions of the mortgage deal and see if you can reduce the term! hence avoiding ERC,s
Thats a great long term fixed rate you have !!! but you have already been hit by one of the many cuts which will hit most people over the next 12/24 months so build up savings in cash ISA,s as well as overpaying
GO GIRL GO

Tesco_points_addict

You call your hubby what ever you like! We are not that scary on here...are we?

Besides I quite like it!

When I met my now hubby he had very little in savings, was not in debt, but had a reasonably good job, still lived at home with his parents but had nothing to show for it. If he had it, he spent it..no more no less!

He is now tighter than i am! Our offset mortgage really got him motivated, seeing how the savings saved us ££ against the mortgage interest did a much better job of stopping him spending than my nagging ever could!

We are well on our way to being MF by the time i'm 40 next year, which considering I did not buy my first home until I was 30 years old (just before I met hubby), is not bad going. 5 years ago we moved into our first home together, along with a mortgage of £100,000, we had some money in savings and approx. £50,000 equity from my previous house. this house cost us £177,500, even so a mortgage of £100,000 was/is still :eek:.

We are lucky enough to be on a tracker mortgage of just 0.59 above base rate; which has obviously helped enormously.

We are down to around £17,000 outstanding now - which is amazing. We have done quiet a lot of work on the house during this time, new bathroom, kitchen (with ridiculously expensive granite work tops ) windows, door, fascias and soffits to name but a few things. We also had a fabulous holiday at the end of last year to Las Vegas. It’s not all about never spending, but getting the balance right, which I have to say at times I struggle with.


I work four days a week, occasional weekends as they pay well:o and do mystery shopping to add to the coffers. I am also lucky enough to be able to teach in my field of work one night per week, however this is going to stop come May - oh well the money was nice whilst it lasted.

Hubby works full time plus some! He gets a nice basic wage but doesn't get overtime and often does 55 plus hours per week, if we worked out his hourly rate it would proabably be pants!:(

Anyway, goodness me where did all that waffling come from, I only came on to wish you good luck!:D

TPAx

PS watch out for GallyGirl, she is a bit a of a spread sheet addict, I prefer good old pen and paper myself!!

stingebag

Hey thanks for the warm welcome:)

Have decided to call my lovely fool DH...makes it nice and simple;)

As with the fixed rate deal I just wanted a bit of security knowing my payments wouldn't go up for the forseeable future as life these days can be quite unpredictable. Also my beautiful but quite demanding daughter is getting to the age where I can't fob her off with carboot gear and Primani anymore:(

I have confirmed that Northern Rock will allow me to overpay by 10% per year then I will ISA the rest.

As I say its a one woman mission as DH isn't feeling the love of overpaying and believes life is for living....right here, right now!

lincoln-potter

Would he not be convinced even if you showed him the interest savings you would gain?

edinburgher

Also my beautiful but quite demanding daughter is getting to the age where I can't fob her off with carboot gear and Primani anymore

Is she too young to get a part-time job? Because if you love her, feed her and don't have her looking like a total bag lady she can't really ask for much more

As I say its a one woman mission as DH isn't feeling the love of overpaying and believes life is for living....right here, right now!

You might find it difficult to explain your new financial plans to your DD (common acronym for daughters on here!) if dad is pulling in the opposite direction?

Would he not be convinced even if you showed him the interest savings you would gain?

That's actually a really good idea. A lot of guys like visual aids (no sniggering) like graphs and charts - you could always sell it as 'if we save x extra for 5 years we'll have y extra to spend for the rest of our careers'?