Sweetdaisy's aim to be mortgage-free

southerndave

Forgot to say that on day which have a meal like bolognaise, we cook more than needed and freeze the leftovers - this gives the ready meals.

sweetdaisy

southerndave wrote: »

Well done Daisy! Regarding the dinner planning.... we struggled with this for a while, so what we did was have a family meeting and all write down the meals we like, the meals we can and do cook and then drew up a five week menu plan. Each week has its own mix of meat and vegitarian dishes, quick cooks and more in depth meals, and pre-cooked frozen dinners (our own). This also in turn makes for a fairly fixed shopping list give or take for each week.

We are not rigid with the meals, life doesn't fit a timetable, so if we are late in on Monday and the meal should have been one involving prep, we can just grab the easy meal and eat it and swap the days about to suit. Sometimes we swap a day's meal out and have a takeaway or we swap for somehting else in the freezer or cupboard. All of the meals can be prepared in different ways, so it is at once planned and flexible and suits our lifestyle.

Five weeks seems long enough for us to forget the 1st weeks meals by the last and so far it has not become boring - most folk eat the same few meals anyway. We had used a couple of try-me dishes originally and these have not worked, so we keep these as 'try out' days and if recipes catch our eye, we will plan for these on those weeks. If something is really nice, it earns it place!

Not sure if this will work for you, but there you go!

Thanks Southerndave .

I thought that I did well with my one-week meal plan! I like the idea of doing a 4-5 week plan, so will look into this at the weekend (when I have more time). I think that I need to be more organised in terms of freezing meals because sometimes I need to make a meal quickly, as the children are inpatient when it comes to their Tea and can't wait too long :rotfl:. Also DH is home from work before me, so it will mean that all he has to do is heat up a meal for the children as his cooking skills . . . well, they leave a lot to be desired!!

southerndave

I can't say anything - the meals I can cook all end up looking the same, hot brown and plenty of it!:D

For teas ready for when everyone gets in, especially this time of year, you cannot beat the slow cooker, cheap cooking too.

And not sure what you guys eat, but we have a lot of lighter meals, especially if eating late after work. For example I just had a vegetable tart/bake - ready to roll puff pastry sheet, spread with a little cream cheese topped with chopped veggies/peppers and roasted in the oven. Cheap, simple, quick and tasty and can also use up half-ends and left over veggies.

sweetdaisy

Sound nice, yum. I don't have a slow cooker, but I do have a pressure cooker and when I make stew/soups etc I make so much of it that we are eating it for the next 3 days or so! It's a perfect way to have a nice quick hot meal. When the children have their Tea at after school club/nursery I tend to make a light meal in the evenings, such as omelette, beans/egg on toast - something quick and easy. I need to think about my food plan so that I can vary our meals more during the week. I am more adventurous cooking at the weekend as I have more time to cook.

sweetdaisy

£40 survey site payment received today - £20 put into savings, £10 added to the mortgage overpayment 'pot' and £10 direct mortgage overpayment made.

Mortgage balance: £76,513 and Mortgage Overpayment 'pot' balance: £377.

After all the fuss of seeing if we could claim on our Mortgage Protection Insurance (when DH was made redundant at the end of October) and then finding out just before Christmas that he would not be able to claim until 10th January (if he was still unemployed) I am wondering what is the point of having the insurance? We were told that as he is now working in a Temp job, when he does get laid off he will have to wait another 10 weeks or so until he could start the process again. They are quick enough to take the monthly payment from us, but when it comes to claiming they make the process very difficult.

On a lighter note, DS1 has been invited to a joint birthday party this Sunday, so I will need to buy two presents. Plus, his school friend is coming over for Tea on Saturday so I don't think that I will be having any underspend this week!

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi SD, we got rid of ours as the conditions were so strict and it was around £180 a month, it made more sense to add that to our OPs and just keep buying more of the house.

It's a difficult decision so good luck mulling it over,

How is DH getting on with his job?

Tilly x

sweetdaisy

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Hi SD, we got rid of ours as the conditions were so strict and it was around £180 a month, it made more sense to add that to our OPs and just keep buying more of the house.

It's a difficult decision so good luck mulling it over

I agree. The monthly insurance payment we would have had is less than 1/3 of our monthly mortgage payment and we took it out with the mortgage nearly 12 years ago as a security measure if we lost our jobs. But you have to be out of work for a period of 10 weeks or so before they will pay and even if you did a week's work within that period, you will not get paid. I am going to have to have a long think about this and see if it's worth continuing with the insurance.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

How is DH getting on with his job?

His temp job is going well. It's only NMW, but it's local and we don't need to change/increase our childcare arrangements, so that helps a lot. It looks like he will have work next week as well (which is good) and the agency has staff in a few local factories, so I am sure that he will get work. It would be nice if he was above NMW but it's a job and we are grateful for that. It will also look good on his CV that he is employed as he didn't want a long gap in employment.

It looks like the only work around at the moment for him is agency work, as not many people are taking on permanent staff.

southerndave

Hi Daisy. You have answered your own question really. Insurance is there to protect against the worst case scenario within a given situation. You have already got to the worst case scenario and lo and behold, you have still not benefited one jot from the insurance, thus rendering it useless.

I personally, only have the minimum insurance at the cheapest costs for whatever we are legally obliged to have, like house, life, car etc. Even when I was completely self employed, all the income protections, mortgage protections, illness protection, were all grossly on favour of the insurers with so many get out clauses they became worthless. Income protection is a scam in my opinion as you can never fully insure your income, only ever about two thirds of it and that's before the small print comes in!

Think how much you have paid into this scheme over the term so far and how much smaller would your mortgage be now if the funds had gone in overpayments, which amount to much the same protection if you think about it - paying off more is effectively paying in advance and if you are unable to make payments for a while, you have covered this eventuality by being that much further ahead of your payment plan....with no downside of ten week waits and nasty get-out clauses.

In short, ditch it. Insurance is taking my money out of my pocket and giving to someone else just in case something really bad happens, which often doesn't and even when it does, I am still no better off. I'd rather keep my money in my pocket and see what fate has in store on my own terms.

sweetdaisy

Thanks Southerndave.

I agree, I have answered my own question but I have this little seed of doubt about cancelling it :think:. Mainly because I earn significantly more than DH and my salary pays for all bills. If I were to lose my job, the jobs are few and far between in my field, so I like the idea of having a safety net. However, also realise that when we needed to claim, we were unable to!

I am trying to build up my rainy day savings as much as I can. I am also building up a Mortgage Overpayment 'pot' that I will use to make a large overpayment against the mortgage and as this account is being offset against the mortgage, I think that as I get close to being 100% offset then I will definitely cancel the insurance.

I am not really a risk-taker and at the moment I feel that I don't have enough rainy day savings to enable me to live off my savings should I lose my job. So I am erring on the side of caution for the time being.

sweetdaisy

It's the end of the week so money transferred between accounts. Mortgage overpayment 'pot' now stands at £387 and mortgage overpayments made so far this month is £109.

DH's car insurance is due for renewal, so after what feels like hours on comparison sites we have renewed with a different provider, saving £27. We also renewed using TopCashback, so should get around £20 cashback.