Seen the light - Our quest to be MF starts here

Daryl_S_2

Hi everyone.
I have been having a good look through all the postings and I am amazingly inspired by what everyone is achieving, which has served no other purpose but to make me even more determined to become mortgage free.

Background - I live in Yorkshire with my wife and two children under the age of 3, 1 dog and 2 cats. I am 33 and my wife is 29

We have moved from a 2bed house which i bought in 2002, to a nice 3 bed semi, with easier commuting links, better schools and a third bedroom for our youngest.
Unfortunately, the sale on our place fell through (twice) so we bit the bullet and put it on a let to buy, increased our borrowing on the new place and increasing our term to 32 years :eek:.
So, as it stands, we have £137,750 on the new home against a purchase of £162k and £71k on the let to buy.
We are fixed in on the new house for 3 years on a repayment basis and have a 2 year fixed interest only on the let to buy.

We have a tenant in the let to buy for 12months and hopefully we want to sell before the 2 year fixed comes to an end.

So, we have budgeted and found, with a little discipline, we can make reasonable overpayments regularly.
We have a few jobs to sort out on the new house, essentials such as wood worm treatment and upgrading the electrics to a modern RCD system, but we are hoping to make our first overpayment at the same time as our first mortgage payment. :j

I find it terrifying that on paper we are liable for circa £210k of borrowing :eek: I am concentrating on reducing the capital on our residential home in the 3years until the fixed rate comes to an end in order to put us in a better position for remortgaging when the current deal comes to an end. To some extent, i am letting the let to buy take care of itself. This was only ever a short term fix and we hope to sell asap.

I'll keep popping in with updates.
Thanks for reading
Daryl

Sepa74

Hi Darryl, welcome to the board!

That mortgage does sound scary, but if you think it through you're in a sound financial position - the equity in the two houses covers both mortgages, and you have a tenant in your btl for a year, AND it's a lessors market.

But it's very wise of you to budget and keep on top of things and start getting those mortgages down. Good luck, and I look forward to reading your diary.

originalmiscellany

Crumbs! I guess the qn is broadly how much you 2 earn a year... In an article in the Telegraph last week were people complaining of not being able to get a decent house for 600k plus; poor them!
If you're on a decent salary, saving hard and overpaying will make a huge difference to your mindset and viewpoint of clearing the mortgage asap.

CathT

Hello and good luck.

sweetdaisy

Good luck in your quest to become mortgage-free Daryl .

Daryl_S_2

originalmiscellany wrote: »

Crumbs! I guess the qn is broadly how much you 2 earn a year... In an article in the Telegraph last week were people complaining of not being able to get a decent house for 600k plus; poor them!
If you're on a decent salary, saving hard and overpaying will make a huge difference to your mindset and viewpoint of clearing the mortgage asap.

I have a salary of 35k plus 4k car allowance. I haven't been on this for very long though, and have been living on much less. So we intend to continue to do so and make overpayments with the surplus.

Daryl_S_2

Quite a successful weekend this week. OH sat down and did some meal planning and cost planning for the food shop.
She's managed to plan out a decent months feeding for circa £85-90, thats for the two of us, a 2.5 year old and a 10month old.

I also managed a trip to Aldi. Much cheaper than Sainsburys and closer to home too!
Finally, I completed a home repair on the tumble drier, cost of parts - £10.99

lulabelle1

Hi there...

Congrats on taking the first steps, I shall subscribe to your thread and watch your progress.

You're in a great position and the fact that you turned your old home in to btw is fantastic, depending upon how things go, if I was you, I would be tempted to stick with the 2nd property as a btw as this could become a long term investment for you. I'm looking in to buying a 2nd property for btl but still at the umming and ah'ing stage at the moment....

Good Luck!

sweetdaisy

Daryl_S wrote: »

Quite a successful weekend this week. OH sat down and did some meal planning and cost planning for the food shop.
She's managed to plan out a decent months feeding for circa £85-90, thats for the two of us, a 2.5 year old and a 10month old.

I also managed a trip to Aldi. Much cheaper than Sainsburys and closer to home too!
Finally, I completed a home repair on the tumble drier, cost of parts - £10.99

That's amazing meal planning ! Wish I could plan like that. We have a weekly food budget of £85 (that's for two of us, 3 year old and 3 month old - but baby doesn't count towards costs yet) and now starting to spend a little less than this, as using up food in the freezer. How do you manage a month's food for £90?

lulabelle1

I'm with Sweetdaisy - I would love to know how you will manage a months good for £90! I'm intrigued and desperate to learn more.... I spend this each week and even that can be a struggle sometimes......

We're waiting to learn more... if you could share some of the meal ideas etc that would be fab

Thx, L

Daryl_S_2

I'll have a word with her tonight and get the details.
She's mainly done it through making stuff in batches.
Using left overs, bones etc to make stock for soups, stews, curries etc.
Buying stuff like rice and pasta in bulk
Meat we sometimes get from the market when they are packing up, you can get some real bargains there.
She also makes a lot of jams, chutneys etc.
We were spending a similar amount to which you mentioned, but then realised that a lot of that was from popping into the supermarket here and there, or the local convenience shop and generally paying over the odds for convenience.
We only tend to get essential stuff really, neither of us are particularly fussy eaters and we don't bother with things like pop, chocolate, puddings etc.
Our budget is based on Aldi prices, would be a lot more if we were still going to the other usual suspects.

Plus our 2 year old is at an age where he only seems to want to eat beans and at 15p a tin long may he continue! :rotfl:
For the record, we do feed him a completely balanced diet and not just a bean based banquet.