ShadyBrady is a mortgage free wannabe !

shadybrady

Very inspiring thread this one, I am desperate to get the mortgage gone and its my number one target after clearing existing debts.

Bit of background info on me, I am 34 and am married with 3 children (son aged 4, daughter aged 2 and newly arrived son aged 2 weeks).

Both myself and my wife consider ourselves to be in the fortunate situation of having a reasonable mortgage (£64,000) to deal with and reasonable other debts (£8,000)

My wife moved over to the island to work when house prices were reasonable and purchased her first house ,and then when we got together she sold her house and we pooled our resources to be in the house we are in now.

Now I am all about getting the mortgage paid off, we were on a 4.5% tracker for the first five years and with the favourable loan to value rate when we renewed the mortgage, we managed to get 0.27% above base rate as a lifetime tracker before the big financial meltdown hit, so with base rates being at an all time low I am trying to put as much money on the mortgage that I can as well as covering other debts etc to be paid off.

This website has helped massively in me being a bit more eagle eyed over our finances - i wasnt too bad before but it always helps to improve your financial awareness.

The missus is a stay at home mum for the moment until the first 2 children are at school, so it does get a bit tight on budget from time to time surviving on one salary but we tend to follow others on these forums in trying to get extra money from ebay sales, trimming grocery bills and other bits and bobs.

However, I do believe that there are situations when spending a bit of money can save you money in the long run. We plan to be in our current house for at least another 5 - 10 years so at the moment I am on a big 'economy' drive with regards to the house in respect of lowering utility bills.

Recently I have replaced almost all bulbs in the house with energy savers (60W bulb to a 7W bulb) and all the halogen downlighters with led bulbs (50W to a 4W). The difference is noticeable already in our electricity usage and with utility prices on a one way journey up the scale then its all a saving in my eyes even if the initial outlay seems expensive.

One tip I would give for other people wanting to reduce their electricity bills via lighting is to try the trade electrical places (Edmunsons / City Electrical Factors / Walsall) whilst B&Q and the usual outlets have energy bulbs etc, a lot of the trade places can do you a better deal on bulk buys and also have sell offs where they get a new range of bulbs in and sell the 'old range' for half he original price or even more.

This of course is a long term thing as replacement halogen bulbs are about £14 but should last about 25 years !!

I am also improving the house insulation - rockwoll from b&q for £3 is a no brainer in my eyes as topping up the loft insulation saves on your heating bills !!

The utility savings will then add to the pot to pay off debts etc and eventually help to pay off the mortagage !!

Shady

yukkibear

congrats on your new arrival and welcome to the boards. Good luck with your journey

CathT

Good luck, have you set yourself any targets or timescales?

shadybrady

No specific timescales as such but if I can get the debts cleared by this time next year then I can increase the mortgage payment dramatically.

I pay about £500 a month at the moment and that is about £200 more than I need to, I hope to up this to over £1000 a month next year which reduces the mortgage term to about 5 years.

In theory I would like to be mortgage free by the time I am forty, that would be great.

Of course expensive times ahead with school uniforms / school dinners / school trips / sporting clubs etc... !!

Shady

shadybrady

Not much to update over the last month a half, trying to trim the outgoings where I can but there seems to be so much money going out !!!

My oldest has started school now so all uniforms bought, school meals paid for, snack money paid for etc etc... which came to a fair amount of money!
But at least the school is closer than his pre-school, so fuel costs should decrease and my wife is attempting to walk him home from school with the other 2 children at least once a week, but as we creep towards winter and shorter days we will see how that pans out.

We got a decent tax rebate but most of it is going to pay off my trade accounts as I am paying for all the materials for the house refurb - well at least the labour is free !!

We also had the water pipe supplying the understairs toliet burst which ruined the hall flooring (solid oak), so an insurance claim is being processed - but this means more work to buy and then fit a replacement floor !!

The gas board have estimated a 15% increase in the gas price over the next few months so that will have an impact. Hopefully we can trim the gas bill a bit as we now have a log burner, and I should get round to installing the second log burner in the next month or so.

We are due to visit the in-laws in Morecambe in October and the boat is costing us about £350 !! The joys of living on an island !!

So we are looking to trim the christmas present outlay - maybe make christmas hampers for parents and siblings - some of the stuff can be cooked/made at a reasonable cost and the personal touch can mean more especially to relatives.

Other cost savings in some respects, has been a bulk purchase of loft insulation from B&Q - Rockwool rolls for DIY use at £3 a roll which is a bargain - quickly installed and should save a bit on the heating after topping up the loft insulation.

Also the energy bulbs I purchased from the local wholesalers are already saving me a good amount on the electricity which will be more noticeable as we move into shorter days.

I am also trying to 'educate' the missus into cooking more in bulk rather than buying individual items to shove in the freezer - so over the weekend we can cook big batches of soup / stew / broths etc and then freeze individual portions for later use.

As a last item I am going to start cylcing to/from work again - good way to keep an eye on the weight and i reckon I saved about £100 in fuel last year when I did it regularly !!

All I need is a lottery win to make things a bit easier !!!

Shady

dimbo61

Buy yourself a big slow cooker which is a great way to cook and save money on fuel costs ( energy use of a 60W light bulb )
Argos do them for about £20 ( 422/8826) or have a look on WHICH mag/website for best buy
If you can afford to overpay the mortgage it goes into an overpayment pot which means you could reduce or even stop ( mortgage payment holiday) for a while !!