Mortgages, DIY, pets and life - my MFW journey

Jackies

Some expensive few months past and ahead have got me thinking about how much money I spend and how much that would have saved us if we'd paid it off our mortgage!

So here is my mortage-free diary....................now I cant promise it will be updated regularly..........I had a savings diary when I was coming to the tail end of putting together the deposit for the house.......I think I used it twice lol but given the long term journey ahead I figured I needed something to keep me on the straight and narrow....so here is my story

DH and I have been together 10 years, living together 3 and a half year, and married for 18 months. We live in a house (which we purchased in Dec 2011) along with our pet cat and newt! We saved for 10 years before buying and were very lucky to be able to put together a 25% deposit.We are on a 5 year fix with a rate of approx 3.something % , (I have the paperwork somewhere!), over a 25 year term. The repayment amount is staggering (188k odd - eeeep!) but we are allowed to overpay 10% of the outsanding balance of the mortgage every year without penalty

As yet we have made no overpayments but are hoping to be able to do by the end of this year. We're currently trying to save the money for our emergency fund whilst balancing the cost of doing DIY to our house. DH is keen to have the mortgage paid off by the time he is 50 (thus cutting 5 years off the term) but I hope we can do it before then

So in the last few weeks I have been sitting down trying to get our accounts and finances in a clearer order - our aim is to save 10k in ISAs by the end of the year for our emergency fund and then start the OPs - giving us 4years to get it down as much as poss before we need to remortgage. We have money for doing up the house in our current account so we'll be balancing saving for emergencies with keeping this topped up for DIY spends (every room needs doing, the biggest job being a whole new bathroom from scratch! Eeek!)

So in the last few weeks I have
- Opened an ISA for each of us which is tied to our internet banking, and already have banked £2650 which was in our current account earning no interest
- Made sure to keep going with my Sealed Pot and VSP challenges
- Applied to bank to get internet access to our mortgage account

So first step is the emergency account...........£2650 down, £7350 to go!

newgirly

Hi, welcome to the mfw boards, congratulations on the house
There are many useful tips on here, it might be an idea to look at the oldstyle board as well for clever ideas to cut back a little without going without to free up some extra for overpaying, best of luck !

Jackies

Thank you for the warm welcome

Today is a NSD - hurrah! Full of DIY tasks though, love glossing woodwork - still I consider it to be abit like money saving - every bit of DIY contributes to a hopeful increase in house price so in the long term I'm making money hahaha

Jackies

Just realised I have some money in my quidco account and wondered why it hadnt been paid - turns out I still have a high minimum amount for the payout....so have lowered it......
Only £15 but every little helps!

Also realised that I've been paying money from my VSP into a current account earning no interest....so will transfer that into my ISA to (and obviously keep an eye on the amounts so I can give an accurate amount to the VSP thread at the end of the challenge!) I think I'll keep saving money in that account and then t/f it over whenever I hit a decent amount

Its amazing where you have money hiding and its rubbish to think how little/no interest its earning sat in other places!

Jackies

Also realised today that as I work for the NHS I can claim tax relief on some of my professional registrations, plus I can claim £100 for cleaning my own uniform............I've been working for 4 years and never claimed! So have back dated my claim and posted it to HRMC today..........I should get at least £400 for the uniform claims back, plus whatever the tax relief is for my registrations ...........so now I just wait patiently for my cheque haha!

megela

Hi,

Thank you for the welcome on my new thread!

We both wear work sweaters with logos on, and have both been successful in getting a tax refund for the laundry. I think we got about £75 between us, better in my pocket though. It went straight to the mortgage, which is where all 'unexpected' money goes. Good luck with your application!

Jackies

megela wrote: »

Hi,

Thank you for the welcome on my new thread!

We both wear work sweaters with logos on, and have both been successful in getting a tax refund for the laundry. I think we got about £75 between us, better in my pocket though. It went straight to the mortgage, which is where all 'unexpected' money goes. Good luck with your application!

Every little helps eh?!

Payday tomorrow:) Not sure how much I'll manage to save as I owe our joint acc quite abit of money which I used to pay for a trip to Barcelona later this year, so we'll see

Jackies

Pay day today......lots of household bills (damm DIY) and an expensive month for booking flights for various tlrips this month means only £250 in the emergency savings pot Disappointed as I usual save double this easy in a standard month...but hey....next month will be better as I won't have forked out a fortunate on DIY stuff hopefully!

Jackies

Transferred £8.60 to my VSP this month...good to see that mounting up without making much dent into the money I have to spend every month

Jackies

well DH has got paid so some more money for the emergency fund pot -£115 from him and £16 from my quidco paymenet that cleared yesterday

Had fun shopping for our friends new baby today - spent abit more than I expected - oops lol! Although we're keen to pay off the mortgage we obviously still want to have fun and buy gifts and things so we dont think too much about saving as much as we can. Its each to their own I guess - full credit to those people who get by on the minimum in order to pay off as much as possible, but I don't think its for us. I guess at the end of the day the goal is to pay the mortage off early, but it doesnt matter how you get there as long as you do

Theres abit more money to come from DH as he can only make a transactions up to a certain value per day so by the time he'd made all his usual payments he only had £115 of his quote left....so at some other point this month there will be more money to pay in.

So our emergency fund total stands at £3155.92 or 27.97%

Jackies

i don't think there is any such thing as a NSD when you own a house lol Today DH and I have been stripping wallpaper in our bedroom..............gotta love woodchip! Its taken us 5 hrs to do 2 walls and half the ceiling lol! Will finish tomorrow but then need to find a plasterer to fix the walls lol