MF Quest

house_help

In April we can celebrate going below £160k

March was a very low spend month with no council tax, my time at uni (=no petrol or food costs) and the only one-off spend being a sat nav off ebay (to find the university!!) and small greenhouse - which will hopefully last many years and pay back its cost as we harvest the veg that will start to grow in it. We therefore had a good surplus that can go back into savings and some shares for the longer term.

It does feel quite daunting at times to know we owe that much money to the bank!! However we do have a lovely house and garden that we are fully enjoying to show for it. However it does ensure the OPs continue so we can get that amount down as quick as possible

house_help

Another OP of £500 in Apil so total £3,500 since the start of mortgage and £2,000 this year. We have also built up a good savings surplus for emergencies. Our fix is for 3 years so still another 2.5 years before we could put any more than £500 PM OP without penalty. Surplus above the OP from now on will be invested more for the long term. Cash ISA are already filled so I think it makes sense to put some cash away for the long term in some funds. I have also a few selected companies I want to invest in knowing a bit about their history from a previous job I think they are trading very low at the moment so with a long term view and happy with the risk I could lose the lot I will be putting a lump sum into their shares. They dividend return is also not bad at the price they are at.

We bought some more furniture from a general auction this weekend, a lovely desk and old leather office chair, chest of draws and 3 chairs to go with an old table got gifted. All for £170 which was a bargain as all quality built, solid wood items that will last.

DIY wise some more painting completed and started to plant seeds in the greenhouse. We have built some raised beds ready for the veg to grow from some re-claimed timber that we were given and few sleepers that we had to buy to finish it up, really happy with how they look. They will take a lot of soil to fill but thankfully we have a free source of good rotted down leaf mulch that can be topped up with a few bags of topsoil / compost. We are trying to source an unwanted water butt ready for the summer but not having much luck yet, we have a few barrels filled but will be difficult to get the water out fully without the tap.

house_help

Put the money into an account to buy the one companies shares today - will be several lump sums invested over the next few weeks to build an overall average price (using the low commision sharebuilder type options). The regular mortage payment also gone out. Is good getting the letter from the BS each month showing the new end date as a results of the OP, should have another one of those in few days

Disaster on the plant / greenhouse front as some shelving fell over (wind i think) along with all the seed trays on them Have salavaged best as could but could end up with some strange mixes in each tray! On a more positive note planted herbs in the first raised bed which are looking good and put 3 big bags (the builders merchant ones that sand come in) of the rotted leaf mulch into two other larger beds. Mix in a bit of compost with that and it will be ready for planting if we can recover the seeds from falling over! No luck on the water butt

DawnW

house_help wrote: »

We bought some more furniture from a general auction this weekend, a lovely desk and old leather office chair, chest of draws and 3 chairs to go with an old table got gifted. All for £170 which was a bargain as all quality built, solid wood items that will last.

Hello house_help :j
Well done on the auction buys. We have furnished our house from auctions, pretty much everything apart from beds and sofa, a few bits bought in junk shops and a couple of family pieces that have come down to me - as you say, you get great quality 'nearly antiques' (or even proper ones sometimes) for very cheap prices, and looks great in my older house! I would thoroughly recommend them

DreamsComeTrue_2

Hi, house_help, what a good start with overpaying the mortgage from the beginning of it. :j I wish we did it. Now kicking myself for wasting first 2-3 years and doing nothing. I will be following your thread with much interest.

house_help

Totally agree DawnW, I am a convert. You do have to be careful not to get into auction fever as its easy to bid on things you don't need because 'they are cheap'. A few things have gone past my limit and have been good at letting them go so far. Next auction is week on Friday, still looking for a few pieces so hopefully be something for us

Thanks DreamsComeTrue. We are making some solid progress, seeing the big minus £160k on the statement focuses the mind!

Since last post I have been playing around with my credit cards. My 0% deal came to an end recently so paid that card off, cancelled (ready to get another in 6 months) and opened another 0% one. My credit limit not as much as I thought I would get but will do for a slow stooze over a few months. I am back at University this week so will have a load of work expenses to go on the card that will be equvilent of turning it into straight cash when I claim them

The greenhouse disaster has been recovered quite well with seeds coming through despite being on the floor, just not sure what exactly they are! Tieing and weighing it down has been succesful as not fallen over so far in the high wind we have had. Some onions and herbs have gone into the beds to grow on with more small plants nearly ready to go out. Have also tried to grow some hanging basket flowers - will see how they come along over next couple weeks but looking good so far.

£500 OP will go across for May shortly. Giving total OP of £2,500 so far this year and £4,000 total

gecko

Hi house_help,

Well done for the overpayments! I will be keeping an eye on your thread as we are in almost exactly the same situation, (just the two of us, 5yr fix, £500 overpayments a month, started in October £3500 so far!) although you have a wood burning stove :cool:

Good luck on the veg patch, I am hoping to start one once the weather gets better as I know the joy of eating your own veg.

This is definitely the best time to get into overpayments, when kids come along then all your additional money seems to get spent (or so I have heard!).

Keep up the good work and maybe you can keep me motivated as well

Gecko

house_help

Hi Gecko, Apologies for not replying been a busy month. Hope we can both keep up the OPs.

Our May OP went out at the month start and monthly payment has also just gone out. Slowly eating into the capital

The shares I bought went up nearly 25% since I bought them so I cashed out for a very quick profit and stopped the regular investment. Will buy back in if they go down as I still think they are pretty low.

The vegetable beds now complete and most of the veg that had been growing in the greenhouse went out on the weekend. Hopefully they will do well in this weather. Looking forward to some home grown onion, peas, bean, strawberries and pots . The herbs still going well and we have started using them now. The hanging baskets also looking good with buds coming and some bedding plants have also gone out

No more auction buys as no time to go but may be make next month. I have been trying to sand the paint off some of our old doors to stip them back to the wood but it is a slow process, still plenty of time this summer hopefully.

Our house rabbits have taken a liking to chewing the wallpaper in one of the rooms, thankfully its some we would like to take down eventually anyway but have to keep an eye on them!

house_help

House rabbit wallpaper problem solved for now by giving them a card board box to play with and chew

Opened another 0% credit card this week (the RBS 18month) as the new one I opened start of this month had a small limit which I quickly filled as I had a lot of work expenses that I could put on there (which I have now re-claimed so have already got the cash back to sit and get the interest before I have to pay it off). The RBS one has much bigger credit limit (4x as big!) so will be able to slow stooze on that for some time. I would love to see the algorithm which works out these limits as it makes no sense! Will probably ask for extended limit on the other card too and see what they say. I don't mind playing the credit card 0% games at the moment as its coupkle of years before we need to re-mortgage, when that becomes closer I will pay all the 0% ones off and not take any new ones so we a cleaner recent credit history.

Have no events planned this weekend so will take time to enjoy the weather and probably head out for a picnic and walk somewhere

May has been pretty expensive month as went on the stag do abroad which was few hundred pounds spending money on top of the £200. So a cheap weekend will welcome to end the month.

house_help

Did a bit of calculation and with the June OP we will have taken 12 months off the term Pleased to have made a good start although a long way still to go.

The weekend walk ended up being 14 miles! Was nice to get out and enjoy the weather and countryside.

Gecko you will be glad to know I have also secured some wood for the log burner in the winter. Workers have been clearing trees along a river on a friends land - there is too much wood for him so he happily said I could take some. Should be able to gather and chop this weekend to fill the shed up and get it dry ready for the winter I already have a chain saw

We also had our first home grown veg of the year over the weekend with some radish in a salad, very tasty