Mr and Mrs P are going mortgage free...

wantabetterlife

I know what you mean about the student loan... i paid the remaining 3k off my student loan a couple of months ago...i dont really know if it was the right thing to do because of the low interest rate but i am glad i did it because we are £145 per month better off...although not yet because they are still taking the payments out but we will get them back at the end of the financial year if that makes sense.

lulabelle1

argomatt wrote: »

My mortgage is like that too, so I can "borrow back" all the overpayments I have made if need be.

But, this is subject to an affordability check. So if I was out of work and needed the money back I probably wouldnt pass the affordability check and won't be able to get my money. :eek:

Oooh, that's a bit harsh, mine just makes us sign a form and then we can have whatever we like back with no questions asked..... Only did it once to buy a car and wouldn't do it again if I could avoid...... We have an old nationwide mortgage, best thing ever, very flexible. I believe their new mortgages are different now though...

choccielover

wantabetterlife wrote: »

I know what you mean about the student loan... i paid the remaining 3k off my student loan a couple of months ago...i dont really know if it was the right thing to do because of the low interest rate but i am glad i did it because we are £145 per month better off...although not yet because they are still taking the payments out but we will get them back at the end of the financial year if that makes sense.

Were you on the old or new repayment scheme? I called slc and told them what I had paid and they sent a cease notice to the hmrc to pass on to my payroll so no more deductions will be taken.

Choccie

wantabetterlife

Thanks Chocs for the post...i will ring them and see if they have sent the cease notice...its probably being sorted but will just take a while..i could be doing with the extra £145 a month when i start maternity leave though. Thanks

kansaskitty

Hi Mrs P, just read the first and last pages of your diary and it is very inspirational!

I am also a Dave Ramsey fan- have you seen his seven baby steps? I love how enthusiastic he is and we have adapted his seven steps for our own purposes, into five steps of our own for the next few years.

We are early-mid twenties and have just started overpaying our mortgage by 300p/m and upping our emergency fund (500) into a disaster fund (2400: 3 mths mort [without overpayment] + bills) but also have the student loan dilemma. We are only going to overpay the student loan when our disaster fund is up to 3 mths, then when we've paid off student loans we're going to put extra into our pensions. So hopefully the full plan will be in place by around 2015ish when we'd like to start trying for a baby. Life often tells me you can't make plans but I don't think financial plans are a bad place to start!

I'd love to continue reading about your journey with Mr P and mini P, I hope you don't mind if I subscribe!

MrsP1983

Hi KansasKitty! (Lovely name by the way.) That's interesting what you say about filling your emergency fund before tackling the loan. I think I've been a bit swayed by Dave Ramsey's insistence on getting rid of all debt first, but then student loans in America tend to be far higher than in this country! I agree with you that a bit of financial planning pre-baby is sensible, though technically of course I think you're never really ready-and then you are because it happens! Mini P isn't as expensive as we thought she'd be

I think we've decided to continue to build the emergency fund, then overpay the mortgage, then do the loan last. The rate on it is low enough to not worry about it too much, and also, if DH should lose his job, the payments would stop until he got a new one, so it's a lower risk than the mortgage is too.

I think!

MrsP1983

I've just used Martin's energy switch thingummy and saved us approx. £160 per year on our gas and electricity! Am chuffed

MrsP1983

Haven't checked in here for a while, so thought I should update. Mr P has sold his Xbox (unbidden!) and we've also sold our few remaining DVDs as we now have nothing to play them with and no screen to watch them on as we've given the TV to my mum! He got £70 for the Xbox which we're pleased with and has gone into the savings pot.

We're just waiting for his joining bonus from First Direct and then we'll ask them to convert our accounts to a joint one. Irritatingly I decided to open a regular saver with them the very day they pulled them-am now on the hunt for something else but don't think I'll find anything as good somehow.

Our daughter was given £600 of premium bonds when she was born and I'm tempted to cash them in and just put the money in her savings account (3%) but I feel like it would slightly go against the nature of the gift. She has won £50 already (she's 17months) which I did put in her savings account, but I bet she now won't win anything for a decade!

MrsP1983

Have spent a satisfying morning adjusting our household budget. I had a system where I showed where all the money was going and then had a little bit that was technically 'leftover' but in reality got eaten up by trips to the corner shop for diet coke and kitkats So, inspired by Dave Ramsey (who I think I'm becoming a bit obsessed with!) I've changed it so that every single penny is accounted for in advance, as we were kidding ourselves on some bits of the budget and never actually had anything left over. Hopefully this new system will work better!

NSD today, as well as yesterday and Monday. In fact, every day except grocery-shopping-Sundays has become a NSD, which is rather pleasing! (Not counting the bills that go out by direct debit.)

Hope everyone's doing well. Off to read some more diaries :j

Does anyone know-is there a way of getting the site to save where you're up to on a thread? I have figured out how to subscribe but that's it-I can't see how to hilight my own or the OP's posts, or to bookmark reading progress. I also can't find a sensible way of getting to my own diary-I've had to subscribe to it just to keep it in a list I can find!

gallygirl

MrsP1983 wrote: »

Does anyone know-is there a way of getting the site to save where you're up to on a thread? I have figured out how to subscribe but that's it-I can't see how to hilight my own or the OP's posts, or to bookmark reading progress. I also can't find a sensible way of getting to my own diary-I've had to subscribe to it just to keep it in a list I can find!

I don't know how to keep track of where you're up to I'm afraid. But for those you are up to date on, click on User CP and that will bring up a list of New Subscribed Threads. If you then click right click on the little v sign at the left of the title it will open the thread on a new tab, at the first unread post.

To find my own diary, if it's not on the list of New Subscribed Threads as someone has posted, either just scroll down to page 2, 3 etc of your subscribed threads or click on your name where it says welcome Mrs P. That will bring up a Statistics option. Click on that and you can see all threads started by you.

Well done on the budgeting