Small Steps To A Bigger, Brighter Future

MuffinTops

I've been a regular on the site for almost a year now posting in my DFW diary. Recently I became debt free and so my next financial goal is to melt my mortgage.

But, this journey isn't just about my mortgage. I'm currently 41 years old, and fairly happily single. I am currently living alone, and I do have to admit that I mostly love the solitude of that. However, I do have a lot of areas in my life that I feel could do with a little polish (some areas need industrial strength cleaner and a whole lot of elbow grease ) but I often get a little overwhelmed when I look at the big picture. So, I think that while I'm moving forward with a financial goal I can add a few little steps to make improvements in many other areas too which I'd like to incorporate into this diary.

I'll post a detailed explanation of the above soon, but for now I just wanted to get this diary started.

So, today I made my first Over Payment onto my mortgage which reduced the overall total to £61,000.00. My current plan is to knock off £1,000 from the total owed every month.

My interest rate works out at around £75 a month at the moment due to a very lucky variable rate of "never above 1% of the BoE base rate". So I'm currently at 1.5% and I've been paying the same payment each month that I did on my 4% fixed rate.

I've also joined the next Mortgage Free in Three challenge which starts on 1st January 2013, the 2012 sealed pot challenge and, just recently, the NSD's in October challenge. All of these with the aim of putting money away to make sure that over payments are always possible.

Right, that's it from me tonight. I'm very excited about my shiny new diary and this new chapter.

***AREA RESERVED FOR PLANS AND UPDATES TO PLANS***

Financial Declaration

Any and all vouchers = Christmas and Birthday gifts*
Loyalty points and coupons = Christmas and Birthday gifts*
Selling of clutter = Mortgage OP or offset account
Any other method of income = Mortgage OP or offset account
Anything spare in any IF jars = Mortgage OP or offset account
Daily Budget = Mine, all mine

* If I manage to get a large amount of vouchers, points and/or coupons then I'll allow myself a nice treat with what's spare.

Emzilla

Hi MT :wave:

Just popping on here to subscribe and say good luck

Emz xx

Erme

I'm subscribing too

Sorry I've not been on here much lately. Am still alive :j...

Yeah change is in the air...I feel it too. Start an OU course on monday (:eek)

e

MuffinTops

Thanks for popping in Emz. xx

Hi Erme, thanks for finding my new diary. I need to pop in and visit yours soon to find out more about your OU course you've just started. xx

MuffinTops

Wow, so much time has flown by and I've not had a proper chance to update my diary.

In my starting post I mentioned that there are a lot of areas that need a major overhaul, which there definitely is, but I think I was feeling a bit beaten when I wrote that and I want this diary to be all about what's positive and focus on those things rather than putting too much emphasis on anything negative. When you see a mess that you start to clean you can either focus on how great and effective that cleaner is, or how hard the mess is to clean up. I'm going with great and effective.

I've decided that I need to set myself actual small but solid objectives. So, for me, deciding on a personal challenge to "lose weight" doesn't work as I flounce around with something that's vague. So, when I decide to really push the lose weight challenge it will be along the lines of "Consume no more than 1500 calories daily, and expend an extra 600 calories minimum daily" Something solid like that, which will be a sort of template for all personal objectives.

This week is hectic at work with a major international project I've been working on going live today. It's meant I've had to work a lot of overtime, so now it's all finished I need to catch up on a few bits at home and on sleep! I'm away at a Spa weekend this Friday until Sunday so that's perfect recoup time.

So, once this week is tidied up and out of the way I will be setting myself regular small objectives with the bigger picture in mind. When I started my debt free journey I thought it was going to be a long, hard slog, but once I got into it, got myself organised and worked on the snowball effect with the overall objective and picture always at the heart of my decisions then it was much more achievable than I dreamed. It was still hard at times, it just wasn't the long slog I thought it was going to be. So, I'll be hitting my mortgage and my personal 'works in progress' in the same manner!;)

I've managed 3 NSD's this month so far, so once I get to the end of the month they'll also go into the mortgage fund. I want to make an actual mortgage reduction of £1K every month and then, anything spare will go into an ISA for maximum interest. Honestly, this isn't the most financially effective manner, but, for now, it's the most psychologically effective. Once the ISA gets to a nice amount my psyche is likely to shift on that though.

Knitting_Nora

Helloooooooooooooo.... oooo, this new place echoes something chronic! S'dead posh... can I slide down the bannister? Pleeeaaase??

Liking your style, MT... and you've got me all inspired again on the various challenges!

Nora.x

MuffinTops

Knitting_Nora wrote: »

Helloooooooooooooo.... oooo, this new place echoes something chronic! S'dead posh... can I slide down the bannister? Pleeeaaase??

Liking your style, MT... and you've got me all inspired again on the various challenges!

Nora.x

The bannister has been polished just for you Nora. I've put a cushion at the bottom for you in case you go a bit faster than expected. x

Erme

MuffinTops wrote: »

The bannister has been polished just for you Nora. I've put a cushion at the bottom for you in case you go a bit faster than expected. x

He he....

My OU student card came yesterday :T. Instead of like paying £5+ for passport photos for it I got an app off app store and used that for 69p :money:

I should go back to bed but anyhow

E
PS. I also have a stomach bug and like sinusitis...lovely

E

newgirly

Hello, welcome to the mfw board and best of luck!

MuffinTops

Thanks for the welcome newgirly. It's feeling good over here already!

MuffinTops

Well this week feels like it's gone well. I've managed to keep on top of work and leave on time a few days this week and am now far enough ahead on chores that I won't have anything waiting for me to do when I'm home on Sunday.

The spa I'm going to this weekend is one I've been to a fair few times and always with the same very close friend. We love it there! The food is healthy, the gym is good, I love their steam room and she loves the swimming pool. It's a good starting block into a more healthy outlook. Getting fit and healthy is my main personal priority. Declutter the house completely is next and as both of those are fairly low spends it will help my overall financial goal of cutting back as much as I comfortably can to add to the mortgage pot.

I have a locker at work which I organised today and now I just have essentials in there to make it easy to get to the gym next week. I dug out my gym pass too, and so am all set for some early workout sessions.

I've also printed off some nice vegan and vegetarian recipes to go through on Sunday evening which include nutrition details too so I can ensure a good all round balance. I would like to say that I'm not a meat activist. My choice not to eat meat was placed on me when I just couldn't face it anymore, for no other reason than that.

My alarm is now set for the morning so that I don't accidentally oversleep. I've also given myself plenty of time to get ready, and I do still need to pack a few things. Fortunately it's only a 2 day trip so I'll only need the 3 suitcases!!!!!

Very excited!