Decided to go for it

bloolagoon

Well you lot have inspired me to attempt to be mortgage free by 2018. I have set a five year target which I think is doable. I do have savings in ISA's which I am hoping not to touch unless rates drop and mortgage rates rise.

Currently it is £81,212 owed. It is part interest and part capital due to end in 12 years time.

I am also wanting a pension so looking at increasing this too, so a tough few years ahead, but wish to be able to help my children with University in the future so need to do something as my money goes somewhere and I don't know where, so this may stop squandering if I have a focus. Started today by paying £1500 off the interest only loan.

Any other advice to begin with and increase motivation and less frivolous unnecessary spending?

A bit of info about my family as others have included it.

We are possibly in our forever home, maybe not as I do dream of moving again upwards but it would take something special to make that happen. We are both hitting the big 40 this year and had a tough time in 2012. My husband lost his job with the firm he had been at since school as they outsourced overseas and it took him nearly 5 months to find a new position (lower salary), I was made rendundant too (lucklily for me Mental Health exists and as such that means work and I gained work quickly) and I beat Cancer. Last year made me evaulate things. Prior to that we had 2 very good incomes and never once thought about money as our disposable income was huge. I buy what I want was my motto. We had savings and no debt thank gooodness, both cars owned, insurance had been paid annually, however, it made me realise that we wasted a lot. Last year took it's financial toll yet we eneded up in December with the same amount of savings as the start of the year in the bank, showing me that we wasted 75% of salaries in prior years.

This is my new start to make my money work for me. Instead of frittering money I want to pay down the mortgage, add to pensions and retain the same value of savings if possible.

Lois_E

Hi bloolagoon and welcome. :wave:

Hmmm... you ask for advice .... what shall I say? If you don't know where your money disappears to, then keep a spending diary. It doesn't have to be forever, but do it for a few months. It can be on paper, or with an app on your phone, or on your computer with excel or similar. But keep one, and include where the cash goes as well as what you spend with cards etc.

If possible, find the link to the template for your SOA and post it here, and people will be along to suggest where you have most scope to trim expenditure.

bloolagoon

Thank you Lois - I am really looking forward to it.

I really like your signature and if not too cheeky how do you calculate it. Is it via a spreadsheet or an app? I'd live to have something like that in place to motivate me. I'm also easily fooled and so would want to ensure my savings were not paying for the mortgage overpayment and convincing myself I am actually spending less.��

A sending diary is a great idea and may make me fess up to how much I spend on rubbish.

Lois_E

Hi bloolagoon. I have a severe case of Excel-geekery (as in I don't just record macros - I write code for them) so all my data's on a spreadsheets that I designed myself, along with various kinds of graphs and chart. There's more details of what's on my financial "master spreadsheet" on my diary, especially in this post. But you can do something very similar by copying the sample mortgage spreadsheets that have been designed by FinancialBliss and LocoBlade - you'll find links to them all over this forum if you do a forum search.

bloolagoon

Thank you - computers and myself do not mix but my husband can help with anything like that, it's the innovation of what to calculate for motivation, which is why I was drawn to your signature.

I am going to spend a few days setting up some basic recording and spending diary, getting true figures and should be able to have a more realistic target soon.

I'm off to browse others recent posts on their journeys ��

Lois_E

There are loads of things you can track - the more of them you do, the more little milestones you get to celebrate to keep you motivated. As well as the ones in my sig, you can track how much interest you've saved by OPing, or your progress on some of the many challenges - how many NSDs you manage each month, or how well you do on the grocery challenge, or how much you've got in your sealed pot (real or virtual). Just have a browse around at what various MFWs have got in their sigs and get some ideas, and then suggest to your husband that it would be an interesting and enjoyable challenge for him to work out how to get the spreadsheet to calculate them.

bloolagoon

Well I sent over £45 today to the interest only account (so I can see the balance reduction easier) as declined a meal with the girls for detox, healthy eating and also snowing reasons. So popped money I'd normally spend on my night out straight over.

I have also increased pension by £500 per month and overpayment by £250 per month.

Feels good (spreadsheets still on to do list)

Bufger

Best of luck!

I'm also a spreadsheet geek. I only use them at a basic level but I have one master sheet that has all of my accounts on seperate pages. It might give you an idea on how some others do it:

On my current account tab I have income and outgoings. I use my online statement to populate it and break it down into types of outgoing. ie i have a column for online spends, shop spends, insurances, petrol, phone etc. At the end of the income and outgoings is a simple calculation to give me the end balance and the amount saved (as a + or - to see the accounts health).

On my joint account i do the same but for all the bills and regular outgoings. The mortgage, car loan etc come out of this one but have their own tab. When I fill out the mortgage cell to show how much paid out as a standard payment that populates the cell in the mortgage tab. That page is the template from Locoblade with added columns for overpayments etc

So in summary any single debt and every single account is on that one spreadsheet. I even have a tab for my cashback credit card to show how much the current balance is and how much cashback i've accumulated so far.

:cool:

bloolagoon

Ok, I have paid a bit off this month via old accounts with not much in them so tidied up, less accounts and greater control.

I think I have updated my signature correctly too.

It hasn't been a good month as my dear husband decided to buy a huge smart screen TV for some reason, and christmas on cards, so only £45 over payment plus £185 council tax bill that I don't pay in February. This is harder than I thought and do lack some motivation.

Here is hoping for a better March.

cb4fwh

Hiya bloolagoon,

I'm assuming that you're earning more interest on the savings than you're paying on your mortgage? If not, wouldn't it make sense to reduce the mortgage balance if you are able to overpay without penalty?

Is bloolagoon a reference to the Blue Lagoon near Reykjavik, Iceland? Amazing place!

cb4fwh

Assuming of course that you don't need £70k+ of savings at short notice...