Mortgage Free by 40? 8 years to go

argomatt

Hi All :-)

I finally ordered the new washing machine and have spent the evening so far trying to disconnect the old one. Good news is I found an ad on gumtree for a scrap metall dealer who will come and get the old one for free. I will go get the new one in the morning and hopefully get it up and running and the laundry mountain might start going down!

A bit of bad news yesterday from HMRC, tax code notification came through - instead of having a personal allowance next year, I will have to pay tax on more money than I earn :eek:

Back to work this Wednesday so in theory 21 NSDs coming up - definitely needed as Februarys balance already suffering and the month hasn't even started yet :eek:

MOT due in March too.. my little car is getting old now so I am worried there will be some problems this time..

@Kodagirl
I hope your new washing machine comes tomorrow and you're pleased with it..

Although my target is to have the mortgage finished by 40, and I am really working hard towards that, at the moment I can't really see me achieving it.. I would actually be really pleased if I can do it by 45

Good Luck With your challenge

:beer:

Kodagirl

Hi,argomatt,

I feel your pain with February,its going to be a bad month for me to,not sure i will be able to save anything,in either me money box or me savings account,if anything,may have to borrow a wee bit to get me through!!:(

Ive also got my MOT in March,Bertha is 10 years old this year,im hoping the fact i spent £1400 on her last year,may mean something to her!!;)

Atleast my o/ps will be ok though,they are paid by d/d with my mortgage,and luckily,on the borrow back facility,if i really,and i mean really need it.
I hope your washing machine is ok to,like i said,i cant wait to get mine,.............. reallyneedtogetoutmore.com!!!:rotfl:

Sorry to hear about your tax code,malarky,always something. :-(

argomatt

Hi All
I hope you are having a nice weekend so far.

NSDs Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week.

Otherwise, not much MFW activity this week. Mortgage is full now, no more OPs allowed till August, so I am going to try to fill this years ISA up as much as possible, then apply this to the mortgage as soon as I can.

I survived the no drinking January, so will try for a no drinking February too. It must be helping the diet although I am still making very slow progress with that.

Starslimmer

Hi All

I am going to be 33 this year and am finally starting to get some of my debt under control.

I would love to be debt free by 40 so will ring my bank on Monday to find out how much I can repay.

argomatt

Hi All.
Hope you are well.

Just a quick update because I haven't been able to do much MFW activity this week, though only had 1 spending day where I succumbed and spent £6 on drinks and snacks in the supermarket, all of them have already been drunk / eaten. :eek:
Not good for the MFW or for the diet but I will try harder this week.

argomatt

Hi Everyone,

I have not had a good week this time, I was in a lot of pain in my face earlier in the week which meant I was unable to sleep properly and not able to eat, which culminated in me being sent home from work on Wednesday evening, and sitting in A&E most of Wednesday night. All is sorted now but I haven't been able to go back to work.

Apart from being ill, this could have a big effect on my MFW plans. Where I work there is a problem with absenteeism which they try to combat by only paying an annual bonus to those who haven't taken time off sick. 2011 bonus was 8%, and although we are awaiting 2012 bonus to be announced, this illness could mean no bonus for me for 2013.

I have asked if I could take the time off as holiday instead of sick, but waiting to hear about that.

On the plus side, I lost 7.5kg whilst I was ill, so I am working hard to not put that all back on again now!

I hope everyone else has had a better week.

(As I have now got antibiotics and not allowed to drink I have decided to extend the dry January and dry February to giving up alcohol for lent.. Easter just seems a long way away at the moment!)

argomatt

Hi everyone. I hope you are all well.

I have had a fairly good week on the MFW front:

1) My car passed the MOT first time (I used the council depot garage as advised on this website)

2) I finally got around to cancelling my fee paying current account and back onto a free one now.

Despite them telling me when I took it out that I could cancel any time, and the charges were made by Direct Debit, so I could just stop the DD whenever I wanted, the charges weren't taken by Direct Debit, and to downgrade I couldn't do it by phone, had to go there and sign a form..

3)Kept the groceries spending down to £66 which is good for me, but could be reduced further.

On the down side:

Although the car passed the MOT I got a list from them of a couple of jobs which should be done - radiator fan motor is broken and will need to be replaced before any warm weather gets here, and one tyre should be changed before much longer.

Targets for next week:

Reduce food shopping bill further
Buy cheaper breakdown cover to replace the cover which came with the bank account
Make a spreadsheet of where all the money went in February.

I am also expecting my quarterly mortgage statement which will be interesting to read :T because it'll be the first one since I started taking an interest in these things

argomatt

Hi everyone,

Just a quick post to update my signature..

Now that I have reached my 10% limit on overpayments until August :eek: my next priority is to build up my emergency savings in my ISA.

I withdrew some from the ISA to make an overpayment with earlier this year, and now realise that it was probably a mistake to do that.

My goal now is to bring my ISA up to max it can be before the end of this ISA year.

Because my mortgagte interest rate is quite high at 4.09% I will only save in the ISA when the mortgage is full. But the question is should I then empty the ISA into the mortgage when I next am able to? or keep it building up for when the tax man strikes?

Another question - Is anyone else using Zopa? I put £500 in last summer to have a try, but as the interest rates seem to be falling I haven't added any more funds to it. According to them I still am getting a 6% return but I don't know whether to add more money, keep it the same, or get out!? Confused!

Hope everyone is well.

argomatt

Hi All,
It doesn't seem like a week since I was last writing on here.. the time has gone by very quickly this week!

I haven't been able to do much MFW activity this week though

I tried to apply for a Nationwide Flex Direct account but was turned down by the online system.. I think there was a problem with an old address which didn't match when the credit check was done, I didn't want to keep trying though in case it put a black mark on my report card!

Mortgage statement came and Virgin Money had charged me £25 for the privelege of paying by standing order instead of direct debit, which their call centre operator had specifically told me wouldn't be applied in the first year when I set it up. Not very happy about that so called them but they refused to discuss on the phone. Apparently they will send me a letter. So I will wait and see what they have to say for themselves.


On the positive side, I gave the required 30 days notice just in time to transfer money from a notice savings account to my ISA before the deadline. I am hoping to be able to fill it up at the end of this month when I get paid.

I hope everyone else is having a better week.

:T:T

argomatt

Hi Everyone,

Posting early this week because I'll be away visiting family this weekend.

Good MFW week this time, with 3 NSDs. But that's mainly by necessity rather than choice because I am already half way through the interest free part of my overdraft. :eek: and still two weeks to pay day...

I finally got to speak to someone at Nationwide regarding opening the Flex Direct account. I was declined as I am apparently not on the electoral register at my current address.

I am not sure how they've worked this out, as I was able to vote for a replacement MP only last week after our old one had to quit for being bad.

I have checked Noddle and that shows me on the electoral register too, so I don't know what to do about that now. Maybe choose a different bank to switch to?

Virgin Money have credited my mortgage with the £25 that they shouldn't have charged me in the first place, I hope they remembered the interest too!

I hope everyone is going to have a nice weekend! :beer: