Freedom At 50!

southerndave

Not long back from annual holidays. This time last year we hit bottom with our money, and this mortgage free lark started. This year we holidayed in a much different way by booking early and planning our spend. We took cash with us and managed to have more days out than planned while away using two for one deals and coupons, had a whale of a time and come back with money left out of the pot!! Unheard of thriftyness in our house and shows what you can do. I also think that working in CASH is much easier to see what you have and what you can spend. Banks, credit, credit/debit cards, direct debits and the rest all mask, hide and dissappear your earnings and your spending. I'd rather get paid in money and spend in money and this will form another major tweek to how we work our money in the coming months.

Next week I intend to conduct an annual review process to see how far we have come, what has worked, etc and hope to post back with figures and examples. I also need to review and then plan the next year and think of further way to proceed with the goals we have set. I am feeling more determined than ever to pay this bloody millstone off!

sweetdaisy

Glad you had a nice holiday. Looking forward to seeing the figures and how far you have come in one year .

southerndave

sweetdaisy wrote: »

Glad you had a nice holiday. Looking forward to seeing the figures and how far you have come in one year .

Me too. I intend to factor out our bonus received to see just how well/bad we have done on our own efforts.

We are also looking at some further progression on the simple living / minimalist front as well as we have reached the point where we are considering the next level in our lives and want to start striking a proper balance in favour of life over work and to really start enjoying experiences, travel and people over materials things, money and property.

While away I read a superb e-book (God, I LOVE my Kindle!) by Tammy Strobel entitled You Can Buy Happiness and It's Cheap! I recommend it thoroughly and it really ties in with money saving / debt reduction / mortgage repayment in a life changing way. She also has an online blog and live in a brilliant home....

http://rowdykittens.com/

Annieddiva

southerndave you are doing incredibly well - fantastic!! :j
I find the opposite, I use credit cards a lot, well the reward type ones, so as soon as I spend on them, I make a payment straight away as I can do this all online, so have accrued lots of M&S vouchers and Avios airmiles too! So I find my credit card bills are never a surprise and don't encourage me to overspend...

Hope you enjoyed your holiday and you're vrooming along your overpayment track - celebrations!! :T

southerndave

Thanks for the support!:beer:

Just had last day of the hols, took my son to the cricket and even though our team lost, it was a good day. I used to be a season ticket holder / club member and watched the game all the time with my father until he died. Not had the inclination to go after that.

My son, now 9, is cricket mad and it was the first time back to watch mine and my father's (and now my son's) team in ten years. A bit emotional, but good day. Spent a bit of money in the club shop, but what the hell!:dance:

Back to the realities of work tomorrow, dreading it. A flying start as well straight into a 12hr day. Ho-hum, will land with a thud I expect.

Roll on the weekend already!:rotfl:

HelenDaveKids

Welcome back SD. I too have given up on ebay for several months due to being too much hassle for the money made.
My latest "project" has been making money via surveys / doo yoo / swag bucks then covering it to Amazon vouchers, have a nice healthy start to Christmas presents already as "watch" items on amazon and when the reach their lowest price I buy. Win win for me as I like to get ahead with my Christmas cupboard.

gallygirl

Have a good day SD, my working day will start when I pick up my laptop bag and go upstairs to study but I've managed to ignore it so far .

Glad you enjoyed the cricket :T.

southerndave

Well that was an interesting return. Long day, not much done while away so piles of it left for me. I work over two sites with a shared manager. Over the last week he has been relieved of one of the posts (planned) and the new guy failed to start today, quit before beginning!:shocked:

Someone else is leaving for another country, others are on hols (wonder if they'll come back?!) and more stuff going on. Was it something I said?!:p

Oh well, back to it again tomorrow.

HD - yes, eBay is definitely dead for me now, I have closed my account along with PayPal as well. Managed to sell some bits outside of eBay using the tried and trusted 'ad on the board' at work. Much easier, cash without fees, no hassle and no posting. Seems lots of colleagues are using Facebook now as well. I think eBay and similar, even Amazon to a degree encourage spending as well as 'earning' money. I personally feel much better without it, I don't miss it.

GG - I'd love to work from home. I know my current job looks far better from my lounge!:rotfl:

southerndave

First Update.

The first update of the weekend is that our balance is £723 lower than it was a month ago. Not bad, but flattering. The way our remaining payments go out mean they won't leave the account until Monday and I also have an electric bill and two water bills sitting here waiting cheques, so that will dent the next month's balance I am sure. However, considering my partner has reduced her hours drastically for the holiday period to look after our son, we have been away on holiday and I have had two weeks of nearly flat wages, this isn't too bad and better than I was expecting. A return to near normal earnings next week and I am managing a bit more overtime as well so be interesting to see next month's balance.

The only other gain, (and also expected, I was on holiday!) is a 1lb in weight, but not too bad. Back on the fast this week anyway.

Am about to trawl through out year long finances, so will update again by the end of the weekend.

EDIT: It should be noted that the figures in my sig are the simplest way of showing my progress. They are the reduction in balance of our account, which is a One Account so combined mortgage and current account. It is difficult to extrapolate actual 'repayments' and 'overpayments' as the account simply doesn't work in that way. As long as the balance is reducing each month, we are reducing the mortgage. 'Ahead of plan' is the amount we are in front of the planned repayment graph supplied by Virgin.

southerndave

Second Update (annual review, part 1)

Blimey this turned into a bit of a head-scratcher, so in line with current philosophy, I simplified!

I took last year's starting balance from the 1st September and totalled all income and expenditure up to 31st August this year. Obviously this included an inheritance and we also paid off our debts, the car and a loan.

I deducted the debt repayment from the inheritance and then the remainder of the inheritance figure from the overall income. Then simply deducted outgoings from expenditure. This left a figure of +£7023, which divided over 12 months shows a £585 reduction in overall mortgage balance every month.

According to the stats provided on our monthly mortgage statements, we should be budgeting two variable figures each month: one to pay back the interest and the second to leave an amount in the account to reduce the overall balance. Adding these statement figures together (as provided by Virgin) and then dividing by 12 again gives an average amount of £510 to pay each month to cover interest and repayment.

So in essence, I'd say we are overpaying an average of £70-80 a month give or take, which I think sounds about right. To pay back within 8 years as originally envisaged, I estimated an overpayment figure of £200-£250 a month, so we are it seems well short of that.

I am going to look at the sums again and see if we can improve the amount we are putting away and also see if I can predict more accurately when we are likely to pay off at the current rate.

Although short of our target I am please that in one short year, we have managed to get a good grip on our money and made significant progress against our mortgage. Even allowing for the money we gained, which really allowed us to clear our debts put us back on track mortgage wise, I think our own efforts are evident and although far short of our goals in terms of monthly overpayments, we are certainly going in the right direction. We need a bit of reflection to work out the next year's goals.