Sweetdaisy's aim to be mortgage-free

sweetdaisy

Mortgage paid today and total overpayments for May (so far) is £129. I have been underspending on my weekly food shop, however my car fuel costs are rising, so will have to tweek my weekly fuel costs a little.

My mortgage is almost under £80,000 and can't wait to get into the £70,000's.

I am tempted to contact Natwest and ask them to consider all offset accounts to get a projection of how much I have reduced the term of the mortgage. Officially, through making overpayments I have reduced our mortgage by 1 year and 6 months, however this doesn't take into consideration what's in our offset accounts. I feel I need some motivation at the moment as I am hoping to repay the mortgage in 10 years (4 years earlier than mortgage end date) and it just seems so far away I'm starting to doubt if I will be able to repay earlier .

Also, I hope to be able (at some point) to work part-time as I would love to be able to spend more time with the children and the only way I can ever see that happening is if I pay off the mortgage.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi SD, how are the potatoes doing?

Plus the next ten years will fly by. When I look back I cannot believe how quickly they have disappeared. Phoning the bank may give you a bit more motivation, but reducing by eighteen months is already good news - you must be delighted. I made an OP today of £2.29 on the basis that every penny counts and mine is offset as well, but I do like to see the actual mortgage figure dropping :rotfl:

Night, Tilly x

sweetdaisy

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Hi SD, how are the potatoes doing?

Hi Tilly

The potatoes have started growing! But they are taking their time :rotfl:. Really pleased with the way the veg is growing, but have to put the netting back down as nextdoor's cats have been in the veg patch :mad:.

I am pleased that I have reduced the mortgage by 18 months, but now that I am on the MFW journey - it doesn't seem enough. I wish I started doing this 11 years ago when we first took out the mortgage! I suppose the more that I chip away at it, the less interest I am paying = paying off the mortgage quicker.

CathT

Hi Sweetdaisy, glad work is going okay. I was tempted by some sort of cleaning rota as I have no idea how we will keep on top of things when I go back in a few weeks. Could also do with a batch cooking session to make mealtimes easier when I'm working late.

sweetdaisy

CathT wrote: »

Hi Sweetdaisy, glad work is going okay. I was tempted by some sort of cleaning rota as I have no idea how we will keep on top of things when I go back in a few weeks. Could also do with a batch cooking session to make mealtimes easier when I'm working late.

Hi Cath

I was really anxious at the thought of going back to work, but it wasn't as bad as I expected and now it doesn't feel like I have been away.

I definitely don't have as much time to do all the surveys now that I'm back in work, so I am now more selective about the ones that I do. I still need to carry on with these as I am now using this money towards overpayments and savings.

Having a cleaning rota definitely helps me keep on top of things. I am using the washing machine around 3 times during the week and twice a day on weekends, so am constantly ironing. Just don't know why I have so much washing?

sweetdaisy

Total mortgage overpayments for May was £164. My target for this year is £800 and so far I have already paid £600, so I am doing well.

It's payday on Friday and I have received my payslip. It's my first full 'proper' pay since coming back to work from Maternity Leave and had a pleasant surprise as I have a back payment of £500 (ish). Coupled with my Childcare Vouchers being deducted from my pay and being paid into my online childcare account, for June I have a surplus of approx £750!

Whilst I am tempted to make an additional overpayment on the mortgage, I am going to be sensible and keep it in the savings account to offset against the mortgage, so that I can build up our 'emergency fund/rainy day' savings.

sweetdaisy

It was Payday yesterday, so moved some money around and added £500 to offset savings account. We now have 3 x my monthly salary in savings, so will be be looking to increase this over the forthcoming months.

Monthly interest was added to the mortgage a few days ago: £227. My target date for MFW is February 2022, which is 4 years earlier than the original term end and I want to reduce this even further, but think I will be pushing it a little, so will have to hang fire and do some calculations at a later date.

Vegetable garden: this is the first year that we have tried to grow veg and DS1 was very proud this morning as he got to pick our first veg from the garden - a Turnip (we even took a picture of him and he had a massive smile on his face). One of the other turnips will be ready in a few days so will have them with mashed potato.

sweetdaisy

Thanks to Financialbliss I have been using his spreadsheet, which is helping me to work out my MFW date. So far, I am on target to repay our mortgage 1 year and 8 months early .

On the MFW side of things: my weekly shop at Aldi this week came to £54, so I was £26 under budget, so half of it has gone into savings and the other half as an overpayment.

DH has a meeting in work last week and he is now set to be made redundant at the end of October, so I am going to update his CV in the next few weeks in preparation.

I am in the 'Childcare Vouchers salary sacrifice scheme' in work where I have £243 a month deducted from my pay. I received my first vouchers at the end of May and I am going to save them up and start using them after DH has been made redundant. At the moment we can afford to pay for childcare using my pay, so thought that if I build them up it will make things a little easier when DH is made redundant. By the end of October I will have saved up £1,458 worth of vouchers which will cover DS2's weekly nursery costs for 5 months (he's in nursery 2 full days a week).

I am really struggling to find a 'worklife balance' at the moment . I am working full-time and enjoy my job, but would love to be able to work closer to home so that I can spend more time with our children.

On a happier note, we are going to a Jubilee Street Party tomorrow and really looking forward to it - just hope that it won't be a washout :rotfl:.

CathT

That's great news about the extra pay. My pay this month should be a lot better than my maternity pay (which in fairness hasn't been too bad!) I think striking a balance is the hardest part. Sorry to hear about your DH's impending redundancy, hope he is able to find something soon.

I also claim the childcare vouchers and have built up a reserve of about £700 as DD only been in for minimum sessions during my maternity leave. I think it will be quickly wiped out though as I have both of them in nursery as of next week until DD starts school nursery in September. I'm going back on compressed hours so although f/t only working 3 days a week in an attempt to cut childcare costs and have more family time.

Hope you enjoyed the jubilee party, ours was yday but we didn't go as it poured down all day and DS (8 months) was incredibly grumpy with his teeth.

sweetdaisy

CathT wrote: »

I'm going back on compressed hours so although f/t only working 3 days a week in an attempt to cut childcare costs and have more family time.

Hope that it goes well for you back in work. I would love to be able to work compressed hours, but not able to in my role unfortunately. Luckily I have been off work today, but working the Bank Holiday tomorrow.

Went to a lovely street party today in the village that I grew up in. It was lovely to see everyone and the children had a fantastic time. Came home around 5pm and then went to another street party in our village for a couple of hours. DS1 has been jumping about on bouncy castles all day, DS2 has been crawling everywhere, so both are tucked up in bed completely shattered!