A stay at home mummy who wants to be a mfw - Yes I can and Yes I will!

I_want_a_baby

Thanks Ztan so lovely when people comment!!

Well I have decided on our ultimate targets:

Emergency fund £5k - achieved so that now needs to stay put in an instant access account but earning interest.

House Moving Fees £5k - needed for next house move - Current balance £0.

Mortgage current balance £96126 - Target balance £10000 so that we can move house and get a mortgage on a 60% LTV with an affordable monthly payment.

I think we can pay off at a push £7500 per year therefore I calculate it will take us 11.5 years to pay off the mortgage this month and approx another 6 months to save the house move fees so 12 years in total - I want to do it in 5-7 years.

So LETS GET CRACKING!!

Updates on these targets will follow as always.

Now I need to persuade hubby that we shouldn't block pave the drive so we can OP £2k .

Stacey

ztan

I love persuading DH and DOH's that these plans we've had are good and they should listen to us! Tough job when they have their minds set on things hey?

GreenNinja

I_want_a_baby wrote: »

Just a quick update this morning.

I have sorted the cash out for the purses.

Currently have £14.78 in purse for food this week (£10 x 3 put aside for rest of month to stay within budget of £44.78).

Dug all the vouchers I have out, I have £18 luncheon vouchers, a £10 M&S gift voucher and a few tesco money off coupons - aiming to use these first and come in below the January frugal budget of £65 for food!

This could leave me £100 of my normal food budget to OP :-)

Have £10 in fritter envelope (£10 x 3 put aside for each of next three weeks as above). Aiming so save the majority of this budget to increase bucket list fund!

When I was sorting out the cash I put £1 into the OP tin and 70p into the date fund too so all in all a good day so far!

Stacey x

Hi Stacey, loving your diary its very motivating, I love all the little payments you do. Just wanted to mention that car boot sales are good for getting plants etc cheaply for your garden. I've found that around mid to late morning when people are packing up to go home any plants they tend to sell for ridiculous prices just to get rid of them so may be worth trying that.

Also for your "date night" if you save any T**co clubcard points you can convert them to cinema and restaurant vouchers. I think you get one cinema entrance for £4 in vouchers and a £10 Pizza Express/Prezzo etc voucher for £2.50 in Tesco vouchers so could get yourself a free night out?

CathT

Just been catching up Stacey, you are so organised and I think that's the key to how well you are doing. I'm so guilty of frittering money at the moment and it's driving me mad! I like the idea of money envelopes though and I think that system would work here.

Well done on the new job, don't worry too much about Tax credits, I think in a couple of years people will be lucky to get any they change the goalposts so often.

Be interested to hear how you get on with your gardening project as we want similar things done but have no idea of cost! I'll also check out the snap and save and Quicksnap offers so thank you Linz for that!

linz

Have you heard about the new 5% paying current account with Nationwide ? It's the FlexDirect one and for 12 months it pays monthly interest of 5% up to £2500 if you pay in £1000pcm (which doesn't have to stay in there). It works out at £125 a year if you have the £2500 in from the start. It then reverts to 1%.

Could be a home for your £5k, don't know though if you'd be able to get one and your OH as well for £250 a year free cash

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/current_account/flexdirect/default.htm

I_want_a_baby

Wow, thanks for all the comments sometimes being a MFWer can seem like a lonely journey - anyone in real life looks at me like I have two heads if I mention it - but it is so nice to get so much help and support on here! :money:

Ztan - Husband has agreed (:D) that getting the driveway done is a want rather than a need - it is already gravelled and 'fit for use'. We just have the problem of the neighbours cats using it as a litter tray!

GreenNinja - I love car boots! We haven't been to one yet this year however I hadn't actually thought about using them for plants! our garden is completely bare (and tiny and full shade) so we need to give it a bit of interest. I have bought some runner bean & lettuce seeds to trial to see if they will grow in the teeny corner that gets sun. I do save clubcard vouchers so will look into using them for a date night - again hadn't thought of this so thanks for the tip!

CathT - I am VERY organised with the finances which is great, if a little too OCD however I am always worried about making a bad decision so I change my mind all the time and keep changing my goals! However I think my last set of goals are really where we are heading for. We have been quoted £1250 for a 3m x 5m patio including clearing a mixture of lawn, gravels etc so I have allowed £1500. We need this as this end of the garden is very boggy and we can't let the kids in the garden at all at the moment.

Linz - Thanks for all your hints & tips - you seem to know all there is to know about becoming a MFWer!! For that account then I could transfer £2.5k from the emergency fund and then transfer £1k in/out each month from another account? I was thinking I could do this & then maybe the first direct 6% saver for the other 2.5k?
Also we have our 'bill account' in a lloyds TSB vantage account paying 3.5% not sure if/when this rate ends though.
Our emergency fund is in a locked 2yr isa which rate ends on 14/05/13 so wouldn't be able to move the money until then.
I obviously have a lot to think about!! Any advice from anyone on here very welcome!

Right so back to the money update:

Husband agreed that the block paving wasn't needed. We had saved £2k for this yet the patio which we had budgeted as £1.5k we hadn't saved up yet.

So a few transfers later...
£1k saved in full to help parents (want to make husbands parents garden nicer and more accessable for them to enjoy with raised beds so they don't ache too much with arthritus & helping my parents to redecorate their downstairs as mum is full time carer to dad with severe MS and they have no money and it would make them much happier).
£1.5k saved in full for patio
£160 saved for lino
£25 saved for paint for bathroom
£249.80 saved for carpet for living room & stairs (50.20 to go).
Once the £50.20 is saved our current house projects will all be saved for and no further money will be spent on this area.

We have a fully saved emergency fund of £5k.

Then there was £1500 left which I split 25%/70%/5%:
£375 in our future house fees fund (target £5k)
£1050 in our mortgage OP fund
£75 in our family fun fund
This is currently in the ISA (with emergency fund) which we are unable to access until 14/5/13.

So the upshot is that we need to put a further £50.20 into our current house project fund account & then any other money we can save will be split 25%/70%/5% as above.

I will OP the £1050 as soon as I can access the ISA in May (hopefully Halifax online banking will work by then ).

So that is the 'big' update...now the little things:

£12.64 in purse to last until new cash budget day on saturday. This will definately be in budget. Did spend £10 out of my food budget this week buying my mum a new hand blender as hers broke. I need to get back focused on putting my change into the tin weekly.

I have a £10 M&S voucher that needs using - I think I will just use this somewhen to reduce the grocery spend as I have had it for ages and not spent it on anything else.

I also have a £10 new look voucher to use somewhen.

We have spoken to my in laws & agreed to rotivate a large patch of her lawn to use as a vegetable patch - we will water it in the week, they will at weekends and we will share the work & crop. This should significantly reduce our spends on vegetables (more so next year as this year will mainly be the preparation) and also let us give the kids the good life/outdoors life we want in the size of gerden we cannot (yet) afford. Very win/win :T.

I really have gone on this morning - a mfw medal for you if you read all this!

Off to see If I can do any transfers or find any pennies to save.

Stacey x

I_want_a_baby

£7.00 was in my clearing acc and can't remember why!
£0.58 TT from my personal spends acc
£0.29 TT from life insurance budget acc
£3.50 TT from nappies budget acc
£0.13 TT from birthdays budget acc
£7.11 TT from gas & electric budget acc
£3.36 TT from BT budget acc
£6.73 TT from Food budget acc
£28.70 transferred to house project acc

Then I counted out £60 cash from the tin and put this aside for next months food & transfered £60 from next month food budget (showing as £-60 but will work out when budgets done at end of month) into the following :

£21.50 House project acc - now fully saved :T
£38.50 into ISA (£25 OP, £10 Fees, £3.50 Family fun).

I also found £1.38 of save the change money in an unused acc which I transferred to the OP savings.

New Totals:
Mortgage OP savings £1076.38
House Move Fees Fund £385.00
Family Fun Fund £78.50

Yey :j

Stacey

Muser1

I'm de lurking to say how inspiring I have found your diary! I have read it from start to finish and really enjoyed it. It just goes to show that it's the pennies that matter. Well done. xx

ztan

Blimey Stacey... I thought I was OCD!

All sounds amazing, well done!
That's lovely for what you've raised for your parents to help them out. They have a lovely daughter

Also great work on the shared veg plot with the in laws. DOH and I are hoping to grow a fair bit this year, keep learning, trying to live the Good Life!

I_want_a_baby

Thanks Muser1, can't believe that you read the whole thing! I definately don't feel inspirational, but I honestly do believe that if you want something enough you can & you will get it, some people just have to try & work harder for longer but you will achieve your goals.

Thanks Ztan - what are you hoping to grow? Do you have much outside space where you are? The self sufficient 'good life' is a dream for us too! I am currently trying to find ways to life it within our circumstances which gives us a house without much storage in a town estate with a very small garden!

Well update from me, worked my third shift last night got home at 12.35am and up at half 6 as usual. Last night was a very hard and busy shift and by 11 I was repeating in my head 'it will be worth it think of the mortgage and the big plan' :rotfl:.

Still managed to walk a total of 2.5 miles there and back to nursery this morning and take the littlest one to the park before coming home. Really tired now though!

Going to take next weeks cash for food/fritter out of the purse today instead of tomorrow as husband & son have asked me to get some more cereal (and already spent £5 of this weeks cash on donations for sons nursery) and I must keep them happy especially as hubby has agreed that I can OP every £ I can get my hands on as long as we have a 'good' standard of living (which we don't actually need a lot of money for) and he doesn't feel like we are scrimping.

I have been busy every evening since sunday and have plans tonight, tomorrow night, work sunday and monday night and none of these are things with my husband or children. Which although they are nice things to do and seeing nice people does make me feel a little bit . We have a free entry pass to a national trust property so I am going to pencil in a family day next weekend I think for some quality time.

Got to do some veg plot digging on Sunday at the in laws too which will get us out in the fresh air.

Also going to suggest to my family we do a homemade christmas this year as we are all skint/trying to save money and they are getting into lots of crafts etc. I thought that if I suggest it now we will all have time to make the gifts without a mad rush at the end of the year.

Anyway enough ramblings from me for now. Will see if I have anything to OP on the weekend.

Happy Friday MFWers!

Stacey x