Millionaire Challenge

Diggs.

Thanks for the warm welcome guys!! It's nice to know our grand plan doesn't seem totally ridiculous. Karmacat - I totally agree re planning around what you both want and like. That's the aim anyway. I think there's no point in making a financial plan that doesn't factor in all the other things that, when it boils down to it, matter more.

Anyway, being the massive geek that I am, I've sat down and played with some figures to see whether our plan is actually viable in the time frame we've set. We've agreed some figures and decided that we'd like to put £350 pcm into savings and £500 pcm into overpayments on the mortgage. This seems realistic and leaves each of us with a very respectable monthly disposable income to do what we wish with.

I figure (well, my spreadsheet figures!) that, on that basis, by the end of 5 years in our current property we would have c85k equity and 23k savings. If we kept 25% in the current house (so, took a 75% LTV BTL mortgage), this would give us just under 47k to put down on a new place for us to live in.

Seems very possible!

Obviously, this is based on a lot of assumptions. Most or which are unrealistic. This assumes our mortgage rate doesn't change, that savings are kept in a 1% ISA, that we don't spend any of our savings and that we don't lose our jobs! It also ignores pay rises, bonuses and the extra cash that will be freed up once I pay off my loans, as well as the impact of life change (like having a baby/maternity leave etc). Nonetheless, not a bad starting point. And the fact that the phase 1 goal is actually achieveable (on current figures) is a massive motivator!!

We've set some short term goals too. Firstly, we want our "net worth" to be nil by the end of the year. On current projections it looks like we'd be there by August at the latest :jMid-term, I want my debts cleared by my 30th birthday. Student loan will be long gone by then but the post-grad will require some work. Oh well, it's not a challenge if it's easy!

Thanks again all. I look forward to getting to know you all and following your progress. Let's hope we can keep this thread going for another 3 years!!

lessonlearned

Diggs. wrote: »

Thanks again all. I look forward to getting to know you all and following your progress. Let's hope we can keep this thread going for another 3 years!!

Let's hope we are all a bit richer in another 3 years.:rotfl:

Diggs - it's good to have you aboard. You plans sound good. The one thing I have found helpful is that I do review my situation regularly.

The best tip I can give you is to watch the cash flow.

I go through my accounts once a month - just to check that I've not missed anything, to plan my expenditure, to check that I don't go overdrawn or that I don't miss any payments. I check my current account at least once a week just to double check there is enough money in there.

I used to be a bit lazy and I was forever incurring penalties or paying extra interest. That doesn't happen now.

I move money around, transferring it to different accounts to make sure I get the best interest rates, even if it's only for a couple of weeks. I do it all on the internet so it only takes a few minutes.

Then every 3 months or so I go through everything and set a mini budget.

It all sounds a bit nerdy but it works for me. Don't worry about being "geeky" - "Geek is Good" …….

I'm a lot more organised and I've stopped money just "leaking" away. I make my money work much harder now.

I can still spend for England but I'm a lot cannier these days. I've learned how to haggle, and ask for discounts.

I'm not mean and I don't deny myself anything. I live simply and am happy to do so but I still allow myself to buy "stuff" now and again. :rotfl:

Today I'm off out to lunch with a friend. We shall have a mooch around Ikea - I'm on a mission to find some nice light fittings and perhaps some nice accessories and bits and bobs.

Have a great day.

Make lots of money and if you can't - well don't blow it all.;)

Kayalana99

OOO Yesterday was a good day.

My and my OH had a really good talk, I may have mentioned before he is a 'spender' and I was on about repaying more of the mortgage (again)

I don't like to push things to much as he earns most the money we do work on whats mine is his but if it was up to me I'd be saving everything and he'd be spending so got to meet in the middle lol.

Anyway I got a mortgage calculate out and it was round about figure that if we paid an extra £70 a month we'd pay it off 13 years earlier and save 40k....now to me that sounds about right but it really hit him. :rotfl: He was going round saying so if we pay £70 now...we SAVE 40k???? We wouldn't even have 40k if we saved £70!!!! (Not sure about how much we'd have if we saved £70 for 30 years but not going to put him off by working it out haha)

Cue him going round just repeating 40k all night.... :rotfl:

The plan is to move in about 3 years - we love this house but the garden is tiny. We both think that it would be really good for the kids to have a good sized garden and a lot of houses in our area have decent sized ones. At the time when we brought, this was the only one that was half decent that was a 3 bed in our price range so we won't be looking to spend to much extra - but enough so our choices are greatly improved.

I worked out *if* we could overpay £120 a month...we'd have 25% equality in this house at 3 year mark...which means we could turn it into a B2L but then that also means we would need to get the deposit together for another house... so I'd only need less then 12k or so instead of the 27k to get the first B2L.

BUT that's alot of things that doesn't seem possible...we'd have to be paying the extra off without fail + be saving more to get the deposit so either we stay here longer or just sell up and move and keep some of the capital to one side towards the B2L.

I *suppose* I could consider borrowing another 10k off my Grandad as he is quite happy having money coming in every month rather then capital sitting in the bank for the deposit.

lessonlearned

Kayalana99 wrote: »

Cue him going round just repeating 40k all night.... :rotfl:

Sounds like you've made a convert.;) Well done.

You've planted the seed, now all you need to do is just sit back and watch it grow.

If he's anything like my OH or my sons the next thing you know it was all his idea :rotfl:

It's a male thing…...;)

Who cares - all that matters is they get "on message".

Had a fab day - mooching round IKEA and picked up a few bits and some great ideas.

Was very restrained with my spending.

lessonlearned

OK Guys - it's a new month so what's new!!!

I've done my usual end of the month financial round up and budget projections for March:eek::eek:

The renovations on both properties are going well but needless to say they always cost more than you hope for and the budget is taking a hammering.

DS2 house will go over budget. We needed more electrical work than I had hoped for and we've found some rotten joists on the ground floor. Never mind. We also decided to go for a complete new bathroom rather than trying to jazz up the existing one.

It looks fab-u-lous - all limestone tiles, fancy illuminated mirror and designer radiator. We shopped very carefully though so not too bad. It definitely adds the "wow" factor.

We've managed to economise in other areas saving money on the fireplaces and light fittings. If I can move in by the end of April then the money I'm saving in rent can go towards refilling the coffers so it should all balance out in the end.

AS the saying goes - you have to speculate to accummulate.

Speaking of speculation I have not managed to do any matched betting. Tbh my heart's not it in but I will give it one more try.

We've had some glorious weather here - have managed quite a bit of gardening on both properties. Also bought some more plants yesterday - all bargains of course;)

Right time to get cracking - OH's birthday today so a nice little family gathering is planned.

Karmacat

Aw, LL, hope your OH had a good family birthday, thats lovely. Rotten joists! I'm seeing a lot of that in Homes Under The Hammer at the mo.

Building my cat website has stopped the last few weeks - I found I really couldn't write for it while I was in pain with the shingles tho I *have* just done the draft of a post on King Tut and cats ... got the photos web-ready and everything. Need to do a news post, I haven't done that in a bit, and a blog post too - for the blog, while I can't think properly, I was thinking about a photo post of cat-themed stuff that I own (there's a lot!!!!) .

While things are like that, what I *have* managed to do is almost completely clear the kitchen table, ready for craft activities connected to the website - whether its a colouring in book, or greetings cards, or cat collars. I need a clear space to be able to do that, and even tho all of my little house is available to me, I'm only just getting there. This week will do it.

I need to think about priorities. More later about that, offline thinking first, probably.

Looking forward to other peoples updates.

lessonlearned

OH had a lovely day. DS1 bought him a DVD of the film "Rush".

I can thoroughly recommend it - very exciting and I just so happen to think that Chris Hemsworth is one gorgeous piece of eye candy - but that's by the by.

The film is about Niki Lauda and James Hunt - 70's racing drivers who were rivals for the world championship.

Their story is fascinating of course but what really struck me was just how dedicated and committed they were. Neither of them would let anything stop them from achieving their goals.

Hunt was of course a playboy but when it was crunch time boy did he deliver. Brave to the point of being foolhardy - a real risk taker.

As for Lauda well what can you say - the word courageous doesn't cut it. The man was either nuts or a hero - probably both.

Although they were such diverse characters they both shared the same drive, ambition and sheer determination to succeed. They both became world champions.

Are you a Lauda or a Hunt. :rotfl:

droopsnoot

lessonlearned wrote: »

Speaking of speculation I have not managed to do any matched betting. Tbh my heart's not it in but I will give it one more try.

If it is something you're thinking of having a go at, I believe (from last year) that the soon-to-start Cheltenham Festival offers a lot of opportunities.

I should probably add that I'm not encouraging anyone to take up gambling, lose their houses, or whatever.

Karmacat

I just did the football offers, when I did it - I found that the horse racing was really complicated, because of differing rules about non-starters and falls and whatnot. It wasn't just a case of matching the bets. For a beginner, I'd honestly advise sticking to the footie.

Kayalana99

Hi guys,

How is everyone?

Business is steady but no where near what it was like in pre Feb...got a good idea for my next listing though in which it could go up to about 50 options in it and I am *hoping* that if I leave it running so when I sell a few it will climb the ranks of eBay - and give me a good profit as these are £1 a profit item so the hope is I'll be the top listing for this particular listing/design.

It's really hit me that my maternity pay is finishing in two months, my partner really wants me to quit my job - it makes sense to go back for 1 day instead of 3 as childcare is free for 1 day(his Mum) but we could afford for me not to go back to work but ofc this means I would be living off his wage + semi reliant on tax credits.. I really don't want to go back but I am also thinking it would be really good for me to get out the house even if its just one day a week as I am becoming a bit of a hermit but the management are rubbish their and will try and walk all over you (That said it doesn't make sense to go back for 3 days so if they say I can't do 1 day then I will have to quit childcare costs more then the wage I would be receiving so ball would be in their court about that. I'd be due a nice pay packet of holiday pay though as I havn't used any from last year.)

I've had a decent idea for youtube videos - some people seem to be making a lot in this area. I am a bit camera shy and I worry that people I know will see my videos to be honest but I guess it's all part and parcel! Plus the time is needed...I am thinking if I can just make one video a week when the kids are being baby sat it would be a very slow progress but then once one video is up its their forever bringing in the £££ so it must be worth a shot! Already got my account set up but no videos as yet... I need to think more about how to present it more then anything this is not my area of expertise...but the content should be good in itself.

We are having a mass sale as well, I have actually no idea what I will use the money for but my pram is going (probably about £150-£220 as its well used) (erm yea that was pretty expensive...not sure what came over me with that purchase as I am usally pretty savvy...), ps3 is going which has dropped dramitcly in price!!! but when games are all sold hoping that will be around £120-£140, I *plan* on going through my shoes this week and sorting them out but hey ho I plan that quite a lot and their still their... I might just stick it in emergency savings considering the above.

Trying to sort myself out a bit - extremely lazy to extremely active...who cares if people say it can't be done I don't want to be lazy - and I get to choose who I want to be. (Don't get me wrong I love ME just not LAZY ME )

I love my OH sometimes.... he said in his serious voice like it was really important information.... you know what you need to do? You need to sell something that you can sell for a lot - but buy in really cheap. :rotfl:

Well that should keep me going till the end of March.

Also - Figure out HOW to over pay a mortgage and get £150 paid off by the 26th of this month.

Karmacat wrote: »

Building my cat website has stopped the last few weeks - I found I really couldn't write for it while I was in pain with the shingles tho I *have* just done the draft of a post on King Tut and cats ... got the photos web-ready and everything. Need to do a news post, I haven't done that in a bit, and a blog post too - for the blog, while I can't think properly, I was thinking about a photo post of cat-themed stuff that I own (there's a lot!!!!) .

Just a thought KC with you seeming to have this on and off would it be worth having one of those mini voice tape recorders for notes/ideas? I know it doesn't solve the problem by far of not being able to do something when you want to but at least its a way of putting any ideas down at the push of a button so you can come back to it.

I'm going to PM you my website (FYI its one page /shabby I put it together myself on photoshop but gives the basics) in case they are any use to you as I noticed your starting to put products together now. :-)