The long road to being mortgage free!

shala_moo

Good luck on the grocery challenge..

it's one area that I can never bring down to the levels of others on here. I struggle to get it below £200 and there's only 2 of us and a cat!

I think i have irrational fears of empty cupboards:rotfl:

ammonite

Me too! Just been to Mr T's for "a few bits" came out £55 lighter Seriously got a problem!

Started a food diary to see what we eat and hopefully it will give me some idea of a realistic budget rather than "lets see how we get on with £60 a month" (then wonder why I fail miserably!)

ammonite

Bits to report on the MFW front. Having some internal deficits so will have to borrow some cash out of the overpay fund. Still got £300 for this month which is £100 more than I'd planned.

Doing very well on DooU - have £38 in miles...need £50 to redeem. Averaging about £10 per week at the moment which is great. That will go to the overpay fund I think. Really glad I'm back into the swing of things there. I go through fits and starts with it.

Onepoll seems to be fruitful today too - hopefully I'm not screened out too much.

Marie27lol

ammonite wrote: »

Just earned another £8.27 on Ciao which will go into my overpay fund. Going to try and take advantage of the bonus offer they have there at the moment, 50p per review for house and garden reviews. Hope to write another 3-4 reviews today and take the total to over £10. Bonus ends at midnight.

Hi Ammoite

Just looked on Ciao for payments, how did you earn £8.27 fromthem, when you can only earn 2p per review?

M

Marie27lol

Thanks Moneypenny21

Umm, really daft question, but umm where on the website do I find the link? As I think I am being quite blind???

M

ammonite

Hiya, I do the same as moneypenny - only review when there is a bonus category. I write a lot for Doo Yoo and then if Ci*o have a bonus category, I copy a lot of my reviews over from DY to C. You have to login and then under 'my ciao' there is a big box at the top that says latest announcements. scroll through the annoucements and you should find which categories have the bonus each month. It is number 3 in my announcements x

ammonite

Well just finally dug out the paperwork for the mortgage and worked out exactly how much we owe. About £2k less that I'd reckon in my head which is always nice

Also made the fatal error of working out how much we've paid the bank (£20k) and how much we've paid off (£6k). It's made me all the more determined to make sure we get the overpays in each month, come hell or high water! If hubby sits around too long he'll be getting eBayed to ensure we have overpay money each month!

Still aiming to overpay by £2100 by the end of the year, that'll knock a year off the mortgage and is a start.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Evening Ammonite, how good will you be feeling come New Years Eve, knowing you have knocked a year off the mortgage :T:T:T

It's so great isn't it.

Tilly x

ammonite

I really hope that we can do it Tilly! Lots of changes to our financial situation coming up in the next 18 months so I just hope and pray that we can manage to find £2100 per year extra for the mortgage.

I'm nervous to overpay to be honest, mainly because I like having savings "just in case" - we have some but not lots so I keep wondering if overpaying is the best thing to do, but when I think that its quite a small amount over the course of a year (then think how much we will save in the long term), I do know deep down its the right thing to do.

shala_moo

Could you make a compromise and use half of your overpayments for savings and half for mortgage?

That way you're still knocking 6 months off your mortgage but you will feel more secure that you have some savings behind you should anything happen..