Sweetdaisy's aim to be mortgage-free

sweetdaisy

Watty1 wrote: »

Hope you are mending and not toooo bored

Thanks Watty. I have had my Plaster Cast changed and the good news is that this one is a lot lighter, yet more solid . The bad news is that due to where I have broken my ankle I am not able to have a boot to walk on. I have been told that I can’t put any weight on my foot and have to keep it elevated as much as I can for the next 4 weeks .

I managed to do some housework yesterday, not a lot but at least the house is cleaner as I can't stand not being able to keep on top of the housework.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Morning SD, I can imagine you feel pretty frustrated but think of all the spreadsheet fun you can have, whilst it thing down resting the ankle :)

Best wishes Tilly x

sweetdaisy

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Morning SD, I can imagine you feel pretty frustrated but think of all the spreadsheet fun you can have, whilst it thing down resting the ankle :)

Best wishes Tilly x

All this sitting down and resting (well, trying to at least) is giving me too much time to think :rotfl:.

I have streamlined my savings pots again and now I have 5 pots:

Emergency Fund
Savings
Christmas/Birthdays
DH's pot
My saving pot

I have gotten rid of the childcare pot as this money just gets transferred from the Savings account into the Direct Debit/Bills account once the cheques are cashed. It just makes sense to have the money in the Savings pot.

I have also been thinking a lot about work :eek: and balancing home life etc and this has given me a chance to re-look at our priorities. I am enjoying having a play around with our finance spreadsheets to see what's possible in terms of a change in direction. DH is hopefully going to be taken on full-time in his job in August and I hope to go to college part time in September to study a AAT Level 2 course. Looking at the figures I should be able to afford to take a level entry job in the sector I would like to change to. This does mean taking a massive pay cut, but as DH's pay will increase, this will make it easier, though it won't replace the money I would be losing.

I know it will be a long way off until I am hopefully able to change jobs, but I feel excited just thinking about it .

sweetdaisy

I have been paid early, due to the Bank Holiday . Transferred money into Savings and the children’s accounts.

I have been doing really well with the surveys and have been doing quite a lot of them (now that I have the time). I have redeemed from a couple of sites and received £38 this week, which has been divided between Savings and Christmas/Birthday’s pot.

For the past fortnight I have been doing my shopping online at Tesco, but not getting good value for money. I managed a shop at Aldi this week, thanks to DH driving me and putting up with my hobbling around the store. I did a really big shop that cost £30 over my budget but the cupboards, fridge and freezer are full.

Started potty training DS2 today :eek:. Rug was pulled up from the lounge, had the potty sitting on a towel in the middle of the floor, mop and bucket at the ready and plenty of spare changes of pants for the accidents. Day 1 went well, just need to see how the next few days go as he will not be going back into nappies during the day - only at night (as he is still wet overnight). Just need to put a towel on the car seat in case he wets through.

sweetdaisy

Monthly interest of £177 has been applied to the mortgage this morning, which brings the balance to £60,075. I am tempted to make an overpayment of £76, just to get the balance in the £59k's .

sweetdaisy

DH was paid today and received a back payment of £800. Money has been divided between his savings pot and our main Savings account :j.

Following my 6 monthly Stocks & Shares ISA statement, I have decided to close the account and I am in the process of transferring the balance into a Cash ISA instead. I have had this account for over 5 years and it has lost some money through admin fees and is not doing as well as I had hoped. It’s a long term savings plan (15 years or so) to help pay for the children’s college/University fees (when they are older), help with a house deposit etc. I want the money to be safe and don’t want to risk losing it.

sweetdaisy

_party_ Mortgage balance is now in the £59,000’s and even without any further overpayments I have reached my original target of repaying the mortgage 4 years earlier than planned – January 2022.

I started my MFW diary in October 2011 and can’t believe that I have reached my target so quickly. This feels like a big milestone as when we bought our house in 2001 we took out a mortgage of £61,000. We did re-mortgage a few times after that and had a house extension in 2009, but this is the lowest the mortgage has ever been and it feels great to see it reducing.

I have now set myself a new MFW target date: July 2019 (as it will be my 40th Birthday ).

Also, every June our mortgage borrowing facility gets recalculated and it has been reduced to £70,250. This has brought down the minimum monthly mortgage payment to £541.

We have reached another milestone in our house - DS2 has been potty trained and is now out of nappies in the day :j. I will stop nappies at night in a few weeks’ time once my plaster cast has been removed as it’s not easy changing bed sheets whilst trying to hobble around the house.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi SD, what fab news to read. 2019 is SO close.

Best wishes, Tilly x x x

edinburgher

Agreed, MFW by 40 would be a wonderful achievement

slowlyfading

Mortgage free by 40 would be amazing :j