I have a dream...to be a MFW

Watty1

By the sea ....wonderful Seaside always restores my spirits.

ajmoney

Watty1 wrote: »

By the sea ....wonderful Seaside always restores my spirits.

And on the edge of the country too, best of both worlds

I had a lovely walk out, lots of lovely people out walking and cycling and only 1 group didn't return my greetings. Heard the seals making a commotion out on one of the rocks, saw 3 separate herons and one did a flying act for me as I walked past. I have returned home to sit in the conservatory and continue to watch nature/life and what do I get but mating crane flies on the door! I feel quite positive now. I will need to start taking a camera with me so I can post photos like GG.

ajmoney

I have £27.92 in my purse and I am going to try and only spend this between now and the end of the month. My car doesn't need any fuel, even with a planned meet up with my parents next week. I don't need anything and all my monthly direct debits have gone out so my cash situation should be ok. The only extra spend may be sending extra money to our joint account. We are going up to the Grampian region this weekend for a short break. The hotel has been paid for and we are planning to visit Historic Scotland properties with our membership so we will only need to buy food and fill Mr AJMs car up when we return. I don't think we have quite enough in our account to see us through to the end of the month but internet banking is down for me to check.

This could be a tough mini-challenge for me but I am willing to give it a go. I bought a new hard drive the other day and am planning on putting all my CDs onto it so that should take up most of my time over the next 12 days!

I need to re-start my spending diary from now. I NEED to get my inspiration and motivation back for money. Once I am more aware of my spending I may be in a better position to get saving well again.

Just checked online banking, there should be enough money in our account for the rest of the month...depending on how we eat at the weekend! I am already using up food from the freezer so should not need to buy too much for food when we get back. I will have to be imaginative though...

ajmoney

I have started reading MMMs blog and have worked out the figure I think I need for FI :eek: OK, I have actually worked out 2 figures the first is based on current spending which is not overly realistic while we are living in separate places and the second is minus the spends I don't expect to have without a mortgage and living in the same place, the difference in £300k :eek: I should also point out that I have only included my half of any household bills as Mr AJM would be contributing to the other half.

I am looking at these figures so I can begin a different way of life as soon as the mortgage is paid off. If I am still employed under my current contract then I don't intend to stop working (unless it is consistently keeping me from living at home with Mr AJM) and even when I do I plan to be self employed having already worked (at that point) to set up the business in advance.

We are a long way from achieving this goal or mortgage freedom (which will probably come first) and I do believe that until I can get Mr AJM fully on board and not just as a passenger it will never happen. I am hoping to spend the next 3 weeks while I am at home trying to work out if I can encourage him to budget properly and be aware of where his own money is going. Once we can work at this and he is mostly spending his own money each year, not dipping into savings and more importantly putting money into savings regularly we may be in a position to OP properly and move towards the ultimate goal of owning our home and being employed doing what we enjoy rather than because it pays the bills.

It is a little disheartening to come to this realisation but I have come to learn on here that the people who succeed are doing it as a partnership, until we get to that point I am going to continue to work at boosting my own savings and being aware of my own spending vs income.

ajmoney

My mind is in a whirl thinking about money at the moment, maybe because it is the first time I have really done this in quite a while. Mr AJM and I are going out for a cheap meal tonight so I am going to use the time to discuss money with him. Firstly I want to make sure he is budgetting for everything that goes out through the year (I know he is not) and then see what money he has left over. Although I am happy to continue building my savings up I am wondering if we are better doing this gradually and putting extra money to the mortgage. It makes sense as it is the larger interest rate but after reading other people's diaries and different websites it has got me thinking about a possible interest rate rise. Due to our current working/living situation rate rises would not be ideal so I may look at this a bit further. I have a couple of end dates to look at regarding and interest free payment plan and a higher introductory payment for our life insurance which should drop in just over a year. I want to add the extra money into my spreadsheet to see how it affects the end date for paying the mortgage. My preferred mortgage free date is only 7 years and 13 days away :eek:

It is a lovely day so I am heading out for a walk to meet Mr AJM after work. It will take me 2 hours to walk to the town but I am going to see how close I can get to his school before he calls me, I think this may be another 30 minutes but not sure as I have never attempted it. I will be going past a regular seal colony today

ajmoney

It is 8.45 miles door-to-door from our house to Mr AJMs work via the coastal path, managed to do it all taking 2 hours 40 minutes...my little toe is a bit sore now as the seam of my sock slipped round

I need to find a different way of helping Mr AJM to understand my view on money, we may still end up not changing anything but it might make me feel a bit more understood. Until then I will continue to work on my own savings and seek solace on here. I will also remind Mr AJM that he won't be able to retire at 60 and instead will need to work for a further 3 years...that might do the trick :rotfl:

ajmoney

ajmoney wrote: »

I have a couple of end dates to look at regarding and interest free payment plan and a higher introductory payment for our life insurance which should drop in just over a year. I want to add the extra money into my spreadsheet to see how it affects the end date for paying the mortgage.

I have just done this, it brings the larger mortgage end date to September 2025 and the smaller one to March 2027 although we already have enough in savings to pay off the smaller one. I guess the next step is to see when we can be mortgage neutral on the larger mortgage as that is the crippler and the one that means we both need to keep working.

To keep my own motivation going I am going to set myself some small savings goals. The first is a relatively easy one...unless it is an absolute emergency I am not going to dip into my savings AT ALL, if it is not an emergency then it will be planned for and I will save up. I normally do this anyway, but the couple of shopping trips I had a couple of months ago crippled me. I have some lovely clothes now but that is beside the point, I didn't need to spend so much!

The only thing I need to work out how to fund is my personal training sessions. I absolutely love them and they are the only thing that keeps me sane while I am working away. I am having to do it all myself at the moment due to being at home and I am finding it quite easy to push myself although maybe not quite as much as the PT encourages me to do. I currently pay for a 10 session block which lasts me 5 weeks and I have being paying for another each time that ends but I may just pay that every other month and use the rest of the time after it finishes to continue by myself. It would be a maximum of 3-4 weeks and I think the PT would give me a more structured plan to work to in the meantime. Hopefully working with the cadet band will offset some of these costs and I am still debating tutoring privately which would help immensely, I just don't want to commit to too many.

I am going to work out a savings goal for the rest of the year and then I will post it here. I have a few outlays coming up so it is likely to be small while I budget for those but I haven't only saved £200 over the last 2 months so it will be better than that!

ajmoney

Seeing as this is a MF diary I am happy to say I have OPd £39.51 to the mortgage this morning, money left over from the float I put aside for the factoring costs on our estate. We have a new company in charge that are a third of the price of the old one. That will be an extra £29 to the mortgage each quarter until I am sure what it is doing and then I will readjust the monthly fee we save. Mr AJM will not know about this!

Luckyinlife

Good job AJ everything adds up fast in this game :]

ajmoney

ajmoney wrote: »

I have just done this, it brings the larger mortgage end date to September 2025 and the smaller one to March 2027 although we already have enough in savings to pay off the smaller one. I guess the next step is to see when we can be mortgage neutral on the larger mortgage as that is the crippler and the one that means we both need to keep working.

I lied, our smaller mortgage will be cleared in June 2026 if we stick to the payment plan I have worked out. I have also managed to shave a month off by adding the £29 each quarter. The plan does not see any increases in what we pay now apart from each time something ends it gets sent to the mortgage. We are not really having to work hard towards this and won't need to give anything up but I am hoping as time goes on I can encourage some sacrifices when I show Mr AJM what we are doing without us realising (without him realising). Neither of us can get any more incremental payrises from work (unless I get promoted and I am unsure on this) and we have been stuck at 1% annual rises for years so we would have to take on extra paid work or change our lifestyle to fund any more payments. Mr AJM has plenty of surplus income each month but he worries he won't have any if he commits it to something :rotfl:

My savings target doesn't seem very high for the rest of the year but I guess anything is better than nothing. I am going to continue paying £100 a month into my S&S ISA and will put the equivalent into my ISA if I have no spends planned for the month, if I have it will be £1 a day and then if I have any left over I will sweep it across at the end of the month. I have about 10 hours of extra paid work coming up with my youth band so that will be a buffer for the planned spends.