Mr Motivated's Sort of MFW Diary

MisterMotivated

Good evening all,

This isn't really a mortgage-free diary as such, but I couldn't think of a better section to post it in. The background is, I was happily working on being mortgage free, and doing fairly well, until I was faced with possible redundancy last year. The only way I managed to keep my job was by relocating, around 200 miles away. I couldn't sell my house and decided it would actually be better to embrace the prospect of becoming a landlord and letting out my house back home. Since this meant I had no money for a deposit on a house here, I'm having to rent. Therefore, my plan has three main parts.

First, is to rebuild my savings, after I had to lock in all my (previously withdrawable) overpayments when I remortgaged to buy to let.

Second, is to save up for a deposit on a second house for me to live in, while I continue to let out my first.

Third, is to pay off as much as possible from both mortgages (or possibly get another btl, who knows ).

I thought it was about time I started a diary on here as another way to help keep myself motivated. I already spend too much time going over my budget spreadsheet looking for ways to improve it (the 2012 incarnation has 96 tabs :eek:), so posting on here might be a little healthier.

My finances took a hammering when I moved, and with losing the majority of my savings, I ended up in the red for a little while. Fortunately, my stoozing efforts meant I had backup cash available for such a situation. Otherwise, I might have had no choice but to give up work . I'm now back in the black enough that I'll still be in it by the time April payday arrives, so I guess now is as good a time as any to start this.

Rather than get caught up in deciding which one to aim for first, I've broken this into simpler stages, saving up in chunks of £5,000. Technically, this will all be emergency funds to begin with, on the basis that I'm not planning to spend it on anything, but it can still be used if needed.

I'm already pretty much up to date on cutting bills, etc. I refuse to get rid of Sky+ though (just basic, don't have movie or sports channels). I'm not struggling to pay the bills and I want to have some luxuries. Besides, I never watch TV shows at the actual time they're on, so it helps being able to record stuff easily. I'm trying to sort through all the survey sites I signed up to and get the bookmarks organised to make things a little easier to find. I don't have a lot of junk that I can sell on eBay, so I'm trying to find other ways to bring in a little (or a lot) extra. So far this year, these have mostly included earnings from survey/cashback/skill gaming sites and use of many supermarket vouchers to cut costs. I also had a council tax rebate, insurance refund from a policy they forgot to cancel and a refund from my ISP for their broadband not working. My car insurance is due soon, so I'll be buying that on my new cashback card (that makes 7 credit cards now :eek:).

Right! I need a cup of tea after that. I might be back later to post a bit more

Sepa74

Hi Mr Motivated, welcome to the board. You sound very organised with your finances!

Good luck, I'll be interested to read about your journey.

MisterMotivated

Thanks Sepa74. I guess I am, but I still feel like there's more I could be doing.

Lois_E

MisterMotivated wrote: »

I thought it was about time I started a diary on here as another way to help keep myself motivated. I already spend too much time going over my budget spreadsheet looking for ways to improve it (the 2012 incarnation has 96 tabs :eek:), so posting on here might be a little healthier.

Hi Mr Motivated, and welcome. :wave:

I am honoured to meet an even bigger spreadsheet-geek than me! (My spreadsheet for tax year 2011-12 only has 15 tabs.) Are you into graphs and charts, or do you prefer tables of numbers? I'm a graphs and charts girl myself - maybe it's because I'm a science teacher, but I don't feel I've got my head round a set of data until I've displayed it graphically somehow.

You sound like you'll fit right in here. Don't worry that your circumstances aren't a conventional "have mortgage and trying to OP" set-up. MFW welcomes all sorts of variations on the general theme: it's the attitude that counts, and you've clearly got that.

I'll be interested to follow your progress - do put some details in a sig if you feel able to; it helps people to follow along. My diary is here, if you're interested.

MisterMotivated

Hi Lois_E

Thanks for the welcome :-) As far as spreadsheets go, I do like my tables of numbers, but there are quite a few graphs thrown in there for good measure. I must confess that my spreadsheet only has about 40 "used" tabs. There are a lot of graphical representations of my mortgage, that I used to help motivate myself to pay it off.

Basically it involved making the cells square and (through use of conditional formatting and some simple formulae) using them to make patterns. I'd assign them all the same value (say, £25) and for every £25 I paid off, I'd de-colour one of the boxes, building up a pattern as I went (sort of like a geeky, digital crochet). The problem is, I got a little carried away, so I now have about 30 variations, with different patterns (and some with different amounts). Sadly, these aren't getting used at the moment, as my main focus is on rebuilding savings first.

To that end, today I've listed some things on eBay (taking advantage of their free listings weekend) and have written to my gas/elec supplier requesting a refund for my credit balance and a reduced Direct Debit. When I moved in, they based my usage on the previous resident's (I guess he/she was less stingy with the central heating).

Hopefully there'll be more savings to come. I've copied my (realistic) "Budget" tab and created a "Bare Bones Budget" tab, just to go through and see what's possible if I were to cut back even more.

MisterMotivated

Just another update. Although I mentioned in my first post that I refuse to get rid of Sky, I'm going to call and reduce my package a little. I got the Kids' channels for when nieces/nephews were over, but since they won't really be over as often now I'll get rid of these. I'll take the opportunity to see what other channel "packs" I don't use and cut them too. I know this won't save a lot, but it all adds up

abouttimetoo

Hi MisterMotivated and welcome to the board. Also well done for moving so far for work, I'm sure that can't have been easy

As the other have said you sound very organised so well done, however, i can't go any further without acknowledging your spreadsheet We've got a lot of geeks on here who lurrrve their spreadsheets (me inlcuded) and we've recently been having a bit of friendly banter over on Tilly's thread about this very thing and how we capture the data, graphs, pivots etc (in some cases this has lead to some going off to learn how to do pivots :rotfl:) So.... you'll fit right in here and I think I can safely say, 'ladies, we have the current winner of the biggest SS :rotfl:)

It sounds like you are doing all the right things but here's just a few other random thoughts

• have you made sure of everything that you can claim/offset against any profit you make on your BTL? (You might also find WynnVegas's thread interesting. Billy paid off his mortage last year and is now leaping into BTL's in a big way and is currently up to 5 I think with 10 as his next target
• you sound switched on re credit cards and stoozing but have you thought about other ways they can be used e.g.
  • pay your council tax on them thus accruing points, cashback etc
  • do you apply for your cards via Topcashback quidco etc (i got £60 last year for Amex application and £10 last month for Halifax CC)
  • could you pay your rent on them to accrue points etc?
• are you responsible for your land line? if so is it BT as if you pay a year in advance then they do it for £10 pm saving ~£49 per year
• re your BTL, do you have 'normal/private' tentants? The reason I ask is that I have mine as corporate lets only and this typically pays higher with the added benifits of people not living there full time and not wanting to change my place as they have their own home elsewhere that they typically return to at the weekends
• how does you gas and electric work e.g. I have my nectar card linked to Br gas and get points for having a direct debit, submitting readings and various other things

Right, I think that's enough to be going on with for now

Best wishes with your plans
Regards
ATT

MisterMotivated

Thanks abouttimetoo, I'm feeling rather happy to be here. And thanks for the spreadsheet acknowledgement. I'll have to pop over and check out Tilly's thread. Yippee! Do I get a prize for winning the biggest SS comp?

Great points for extra consideration.

• I really haven't done a lot with regards BTL, but am planning to spend some time soon going through it all to make sure I have everything covered. I didn't actually make any profit in 2011/12 because the house sat empty for two months, so am I correct in thinking the loss can be carried forward to 2012/13 tax year?
• I'm pleased to announce I do use cashback sites when applying for credit cards, and made £15 when applying for my latest card. Good thinking on the council tax/rent payments - I'll definitely have to look into those options :-)
• I am responsible for the landline, though it's with Sky. I don't know if they do a similar deal but will definitely look into this.
• I do have 'normal/private' tenants in my BTL. I'm not sure corporate tenancy would work for me because of the size and location of the property, unfortunately. I might look into it though, when the current tenant decides to move on.
• My gas/electric are online via Scottish Power. Sadly I can't link my nectar card (though it is linked to the HomeCare cover on my BTL). I send monthly meter readings and, this weekend, got fed up watching the credit balance increase, so I've asked for a refund and a reduced direct debit

abouttimetoo

lol, no tangible prize I'm afraid, just the kudos of being the biggest spreadsheet king :rotfl:Or should I say 'current' king

abouttimetoo

lol, no prize I'm afraid, just the kudos of being the current spreadsheet king note, I said current

Yes, take the time to have a look into your BTL, it's something I could be far better off understanding too! There are plenty other BTL'ers on here as well so don't hesitate to share your thoughts and plans on that topic.

There is also the house/buying/letting forum on here and whilst they seem a friendly bunch if you are going to post on there I would be prepared to take a bit of flack on occassion as there is the odd person who thinks that BTL landlords are the devils child and the reason the housing market is the way it is. There are also some who don't look kindly on people like you and I who kind of fell into it as they think we are unprofessional or have gone into it without fully understanding what we are doing. I don't say that to put you off, just forewarned is forearmed as they say and of course there are loads of really helpful folk over there who really know their stuff!

I also wouldn't hesitate to pick up the phone to HMRC if you want to check things out, I've not done it myself but have heard several good reports of how helpful they have been

Regards
ATT

MisterMotivated

Well, I'll take the kudos then I've posted a breakdown of it over on the Budgeting and Bank Accounts forum (early indications are that I need psychiatric help ).

I might actually make a start on looking into the BTL stuff this afternoon. I'm also rather tempted to call HMRC, since I've had some conflicting advice from different people (including my letting agent :mad:). I'll let you know how it goes

Thanks for the heads up about the house buying/renting forum. I'll make sure I put my flack jacket on before I go in. :cool: