Going to get rid of my mortgage!

bbh30

Hello!

Im not a new poster but Ive reregistered as my old name was too identifiable
I've decided now is the time to become mortgage free, and Im going to pay as much as I possibly can to get rid of this mortgage! Our house is actually on the market but with no success- but we are in no rush to move anywhere anyway. If we got an offer then we would move but whilst it sits here with no offers, Ive decided I might as well try and clear as much as I can off the mortgage.
So background is, Im 30, h is 34. Weve got 2 children, who are both at school now. This is the first year that they have both been at school and Im not having to pay any nursery fees- so my wage is almost "spare" as in the past it just paid for nursery fees. My h earns a good salary (not fantastic!) but enough to cover the mortgage and bills. So I intend to pretty much put my whole wage on overpayments on the mortage and continue living off the husbands wage. Also by being frugal I hope to put any savings we make from grocery bills etc onto the mortgage.

The mortgage as of 1st Jan was £147715. Ive made some overpayments already and its currently at £146549.60. Our interest rate is 2.5% and we can make unlimited overpayments. In the last few days Ive saved £450 interest and shaved 2 months off our mortage!

I am now pretty skint for the rest of Jan until we both get paid. Ive sold a few things on a local buying and selling group on fb- have about £25cash and I have about £40 left in the bank. That is all I can spend on groceries until the end of Jan.

However I did a BIG shop last week which should last me at least 2 weeks and I have a freezer full of food. I am also in the unique position where I get alot of free food from work (or it gets chucked in the bin) so I will be salvaging more of this. Im happy to make bread and Ive 16 pints of fresh milk in the fridge and about the same amount of UHT milk in stores so no top up shops should be needed.

Its my son's birthday in 2 weeks time and we are buying him a new bike (budgeted for)- and he is having a party at home- we will do games with the kids and having a treasure hunt in the woods outside the house so should be fairly cheap. Im planning on giving them chicken nuggets and oven chips to eat with baked beans, so again, fairly cheap. Party bags- Ive already got some in the cupboard and Ive ordered 20 of those polystyrene gliders from amazon for about £2. Got some haribo in the cupboard left over from xmas which can go in party bags also, and then a piece of cake (which Ill make).

I think my biggest vice is diet coke, I just cant kick that habit. My husband has a very expensive triathlon habit also and always seems to "need" new expensive things for his bike :mad:

Anyway, Im off to make another OP-just pennies this time - Im going to "round down" the bank account- something Ive read about on here.:money:

happycamel_2

Welcome and good luck.

I'll be in the same situation as you in a few years, I have a 21mo and a 5 week old. I'm going to be a SAHM until the kids go to school and the. Use my income to OP what's left of the mortgage. I worked full time between having the kids so I've been able to make some big OPs but now scrimping and saving is the only way!

Maybe you could put in a signature so we know how you're doing.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Good luck BBH,

Enjoy your journey and my advice would be to post often to keep the focus going.

Best wishes Tilly

bbh30

Hi, thanks for your responses, I will aim to put a siggy up!

Ive made another OP today, only £4.11 from an old unused bank account but I thought I might aswel transfer it. Im not sure how many more OPs Ill be able to make now until I get paid as Im going to need the money we do have for food. If we have any left over then I can put that in but it might be a couple of weeks before I can make another OP.
I am finding that my outlook has changed a lot though. Its my mum's birthday tomorrow so instead of spending money and buying her a present I decided to make her a really nice cake instead. I had sugar, flour, eggs, butter at home already so no shopping needed. We were making Christmas cakes at work in December and I used some leftover fondant icing from work to ice it with. Piped some nice flowers on and it looks really nice, even if I do say so myself! I think my mum will be pleased with it! Only minor problem was when I came to weigh the ingredients out, I discovered the batteries in my scales had died. DH was all ready to go to the shops to buy some more batteries but I reused the batteries from the bathroom scales and put them in the kitchen scales so no trip to the shops needed!

I have had 4 no spend days in a row now, feeling quite good and angelic about this! Im hoping the weekend should be no spend also (fingers crossed) as we should spend saturday at my parents (will take the cake over), and then on sunday, the kids have been invited to another birthday party (Ive got lots of generic presents in the present cupboard which are "recycled" from other birthdays!). I need to spend sunday cleaning while the kids are at the party as Ive got a viewing on this house monday morning- not holding out much hope for this though as the viewers havnt even got their house on the market.

I need to make some bread tomorrow morning as we have now eaten all the sliced bread I bought from the shops. I dont have a breadmaker, I have tried one out (borrowed one from work for a couple of months) but I could never get on with it and I find it easier to make it by hand.

Only problem Ive had this week is that fact my car wont start! Ive been using the husbands car as he has been working at home but I need to sort mine out. Im hoping its just a flat battery and we can jump start it but the husband was talking about having to buy a whole new engine for it. Really dont want to have to do that. The car isnt worth a great deal and I literally just use it to get to work and back.

Next week I am on my own all week as the husband will be away with work. I have to go into work myself one evening for a meeting so I have asked the girl next door to babysit. This will cost me! I try to avoid paying for babysitters but sometimes it is unavoidable- I can't not be there on Tuesday evening. Im going to have to use the cash in my purse to pay her which is going to squeeze my food budget even more. I have, however, sold another item on the local buying sites which is due to be picked up next week so hopefully the net balance will stay the same.

Fingers crossed for a no spend weekend and being able to jump start the car tomorrow morning!!

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

That's a lovely gift for your mum

Tilly

bbh30

Well I did spend some money today, spent £99.99 on a bike for my son for his birthday. However, this was budgeted for and I had planned to buy this particular bike for him so I feel quite comfortable with spending the money as it was planned for. The husband also bought him a pair of cycling gloves but I made him pay for that out of his own (pocket!!) money as I said it wasnt in budget. Ive also just ordered him a puppet theatre from amazon but I didnt pay "money" for it- I had some vouchers left over from xmas so used a voucher to pay for this. Thats all his presents sorted out now.
Made a 49p OP on the mortgage as I had a refund of 49p on a pair of shoes I had bought my daughter which arrived in my bank acc today- Ive just transferred it straight to my mortgage account. I know its only 49p but every penny counts!
Ive only got £38 pounds left in my bank acc until I get paid now and about £25 in my purse. This needs to cover all food for the whole family. I made a massive batch of bread this morning which should last us a week (now in freezer) but Ive run out of bread flour now. Ive only got 1 bottle of diet coke left also and Im starting to get worried!! Can I cope without my diet coke fix?? Really dont want to go shopping until next weekend if I can help it. Weve had chicken stir fry for dinner tonight- chicken from the freezer and found a packet of stir fry sauce lurking in the cupboard- went out of date in aug 12 but Im sure it was fine! Used up some onions, mushrooms and peppers.

Tomorrow Im going to make some soup to take to work for my lunches. Hoping to have a no spend day tomorrow, maybe we can take the kids out on a bike ride or swimming, if it dosnt snow! Kids get free swimming as they have lessons at our local leisure centre, and I have a membership so I dont need to pay. We will have to see what tomorrow brings!

bbh30

I had an impulse buy today!! argh this is not good! I ended up buying an MP3 album but it did only cost me £3. The other thing is that it didnt really cost "me" as my account is linked up to the husbands card.. so I told him that he very generously has bought me some music! He didnt seem to mind too much which is good!
Other than that- spent nothing today. Kids were at a party where they had their dinner (saving me the cost of their food!)- and me and the husband have eaten last nights leftover stir fry in a wrap (from the freezer) with the last of the wensleydale from xmas crumbled over the top. Was really delicious actually and as I kept saying to him- in the past we would have just thrown the leftovers away so we have essentially just eaten for free!!
Made soup for the whole weeks lunches and Ive got a freezer full of bread for the kids sandwiches. Husband is away all week (unless it snows and there are no flights!!) which means we wil save the cost of his food and I will probably just eat jacket potatoes etc next week for dinners. Fingers crossed I can get to next saturday without having to go to the supermarket.

Car still dead but we havnt tried to jump start it yet. Now the husband is away all week so it will be next weekend before we can try. I will be using the husbands car as he is out of the country all week. He is adamant that we need to buy a new battery for it but I think we should jump start it and see how that goes before rushing out to buy a new battery.

No OPs made today but I have discovered another bank account I had from when I was a child that contains about £6.50!!! I dont have a book/card for this account so apparently I have to request a cheque for this money- which Im going to do so then that can go on OPs.

Jan is such a long month, I dont get paid until 31st... seems ages away.......

catshark88

Hello and welcome! I've just started on the OP road too.

Looks like you are making great strides already. Bet your Mum will love the cake!

Will look forward to reading your progress. I've just started a diary, but have no idea how to do links.

Hope your son's party goes well. :-)

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Very good luck to you. It is a good time to get started while rates are low, so that impact is minimised if they start to go up again. Very well done too!

bbh30

Yay- another NSD today under my belt!
I normally work "short days" so I can take my children to school and pick them up but had to stay late today for a meeting. Meant I didnt finish til 5pm so the kids had to go to after school club. I paid for that a couple of weeks ago though so all prepaid.
Ive just counted out the money for the babysitter for tomorrow night as Ive got to go back to work in the evening. We normally pay her £5 per hour but tomorrow eve she is also looking after a neighbours child in our house (said I would babysit the neighbours child but forgot I was going out) so I feel I should give her extra for looking after another child. My husband says I need to ask the neighbour for the extra money but I dont feel I can- I know they are having financial problems at the moment and having problems paying their rent- so I would feel really awful asking them for money. So I counted out all the pennies in my purse and I will give her £25. She is coming at 6pm and I should be back by 9pm. Hopefully it wont run over too late.

I took my soup to work for lunch but then ate some quiche at work for lunch which was going begging- so have left my soup at work for tomorrow! So a free lunch! Kids just had omelette for their dinner and Ive had another portion of soup that I made at the weekend.

No OPs made today but Ive also just remembered Ive got a load of my husbands credit card statements from ages ago that I meant to reclaim the PPI on them. Ive been meaning to do it for ages. I need to get the statements photocopied and fill in the forms then send them off. Ive never had PPI but he has and didnt realise. So I will aim to do that at some point this week and then hopefully if we get anything back, it can go into the mortgage OPs.

Right, need to do some work now before tomorrow, nose to the grindstone.....

bbh30

Sooo tired right now!

Cupboards bare but will not go shopping until the weekend! When I say bare- there are no "instant" foods left- but we have pasta, rice, potatoes, meat in the freezer, onions, 1 pepper, a handful of carrots and a couple of sticks of celery left. So I am unable to graze on junk food (good for the waistline) but have to plan ahead for meals to cook to ensure we use everything up. Very low on milk- only about half a pint of fresh milk left (kids will get through that at breakfast I expect) and then we are onto the UHT stuff. Fingers crossed we will make it to saturday. No chocolate/cereal bars etc for kids lunchboxes left either so I made a batch of flapjacks they can have.

Still didnt eat my soup at lunchtime as I ended up eating 2 pieces of cake at lunch for a birthday and was so full I couldnt manage the soup. So another "free" lunch but not the healthiest! Soup still there and I WILL eat it tomorrow!! The rest of the soup is in the freezer in portions so I can take it to work on other days.

I had £25 all counted out for the babysitter tonight but she would only take £15 and wouldnt take any extra for the extra (neighbours) child so Ive still got another £10 in my purse I wasnt expecting to have. That will come in useful for the food shopping at the weekend.

Husband is back thursday night and is going to be furious at the prospect of UHT milk in his tea!!!! I dont drink tea/coffee so its not an issue for me but he is very specific about his tea!! I may have to get some fresh milk. We will see.