Ecoelle's MFW Diary

ztan

Hi Ecoelle

Have been reading through some of your posts.. and I'm loving the idea of having an OP pot which you are aiming to fill each month to pay off. You're doing very well! Keep it up and you'll be MF in no time!

ecoelle

Thanks ztan, i am a member of the MFW 2012 thread, and set a yearly target. I always OP £100 on the 1st of the month, then find extra where and when i can. This month, i looked at where i was in terms of payments and increased my year target as i had already hit the £1100 i had set, to take it to £1500 by the end of December i needed to find an extra £56 on top of the regular. so i made myself an 'OPpot' which is actually a savings account attached to the Current account. What i do is whenever i make anything extra, like ebay money, cashback, music magpie money, whatever, as soon as it comes into the current account i transfer it into the saving account and then i will write a cheque and pay it off. Although i set the year target i also like to have smaller targets, otherwise i think it can be hard to focus.

Smaller targets more frequently i think are better, this is part of the reason i haven't joined the MFi3 challenge. I think if i only had to update the thread with OP's every 3 months i would lose focus and actually not achieve anything. I find having a monthly update good motivation. This year i think we will hit the target of £1500 which when you think about our income means we have actually overpaid £125 a month on average. which is actually 25% of my take home pay.

Do you have a diary ztan?

nattypants

ecoelle wrote: »

This year i think we will hit the target of £1500 which when you think about our income means we have actually overpaid £125 a month on average. which is actually 25% of my take home pay.

This is amazing ecoelle:T

ecoelle

Yeah, i am pretty good!

My hubby thinks i'm mental, but i'm hoping that we'll be mortgage free in 10 years, not sure how realistic this is, but it's the goal. I figure if we can do it now when i earn 490 a month then i'm sure we can keep doing it when i start to increase my hours as little one grows up a bit, then we can increase the OP. My hourly rate has ncreased a bit this month, only by 18p an hour but it basically means that i should get about an extra £10 a month once my pension and union fees come out.

ecoelle

Morning all, i have updated my sig with totals today and am feeling good. Got my money ready to take into the bank when baby wakes up and pay off the mortgage. So the OP pot now stands at £0, but only £7.35 to find before December 31st to hit the target of £1500, this is on top of the £100 regular OP which will automatically go in Nov and Dec. So i think £1500 will def be hit, wondering whether we could actually try for £1550 but don't want to push things too much so don't think i'm going to change the target again but just aim to exceed it:)

ecoelle

Ended up paying a round £50 off the mortgage and have transferred the OP pot money into the CA to cover it. Feeling quite positive that our journey is worthwhile and that we can do it:) just wish i could see it happening quicker!

ecoelle

Ok, checked topcashback and 45p is now on it's way lol:)

There's another £8 to come but not ready confirmed for pay out yet.
So, money i'm waiting for...
£29.91 Music Magpie
£68.40 Petplan

Last DD go from santander on the 10th and cashback will be paid into the account on the 15th, the £2 fee will taken on the 17th so on the 17th i will transfer any CB into the OP pot, probably about £3.50, which is quite good. So with that we only need to find another £3.40

BookWorm

Hi there - I just wanted to say hello and to tell you that I have read your diary. It's very inspiring. :jI'm fairly new to site (as you can tell lol) but the whole MFW thing is exciting and I'm seriously considering given it a go. I wish you all the luck in your journey.
Cheers

ammonite

You are doing really well ecoelle. Have you used a mortgage overpayment calculator or spreadsheet? I used one to work out how much we would have to overpay if we wanted to cut the mortgage in half and it really helped me to set an annual target (£2100) anything more than that is a bonus for me

ecoelle

Hadn't thought of that ammonite, but great idea:) might look into it, bit worried it might just depress me though, i only earn 490 a month and the mortgage payment is set at 670 so all my wages and more are taken up with the mortgage, this is why making extra money is so important to us. I have made an effort to try and do more surveys, ebay, car boots, nsd and other things, but it's hard going at the moment. I think if i am able to work a few more hours once baby gets a bit older then that will make a massive difference.

Thanks to book worm too:) Glad you're thinking of joining us.

Well i was inspired yesterday by Nattypants so i'm off to clean the front room window and seep through the kitchen, once don ei shall be back and i'll allow myself another 10 mins on here, before zooming off on another little job. I always moan my house is a mess but never actually try and change it. So the new cleaner me starts today:)