The BIG Plan...

MummyEm

Started sorting out month end/start finances. Looking at the mortgage.

July Month End

Overpaid £94.67
Interest added £434.64 daily interest £14.02

August monthly payment made plus normal £23.58 OP. With the interest added if I can find another £143.62 OP this month we can get to £270000.00 which would mean another nice milestone.

August is going to be a very tight month for us though as DH's start date for new job means he missed payroll for July so no wages for him until end of August :eek:

I will have to try to spend as little as possible this month. I have ordered some of the kids school uniform but still have some to buy plus new shoes etc. My wages will mostly be swallowed up by childcare costs.

August aims

-No savings to family fund seems silly to overstretch ourselves so taking a break bar any unexpected windfalls...
-My wages diverted instead to childcare
-£143.62 extra OP which I should have some wages to go towards this and will use eb@y earnings to tops this up too
-keep overdraft to a minimum (or non at all!)

The plus side is that DH will get larger than wages at the end of the month so if we keep spending to bare minimum we could have more to save at the start of September.

MummyEm

Not such successful MS trip to pick up groceries this morning Have friends staying this weekend so picked up some treats for the grown ups and the littlies too.

On the other hand I have caught up on surveys on OnePo11 and Sw@gbucks.

Must do better, must do better, must do better...

MummyEm

I have withdrawn Paypal balance and transferred £143.62 to the mortgage bringing it down to £270000.00 :j

Not much else will happen the rest of the month but very pleased to have reached this milestone.

In other news

-ebay item sold and posted

-got letter from Tesc0 to say points doubling up is on so will be using those to pay for a good chunk of school uniform. Also have a £5 off £50 spend clothing code so need to work out if I can combine it :think:

-need to get DS's passport renew. Not in a rush as not planning to go away but don't like the idea of not having it as have family out of the country and would hate not to be able to leave in an emergency!

MummyEm

Wet and windy day here today Feels so cold I may have to get DH to put a fire on in the lounge later otherwise I'm sure he will start hinting at putting the heating on :shocked:


-Kids uniform ordered using Tesc0 double up. Saving approx £180 compared to what I would normally buy in Marks. I do still have a couple of items to get which will be from M $ S and need to order more name labels but still loads of the budget left :T

-Cleared out under stair cupboard last night. Listed 5 more items on eb@y and have a whole box full more to do. Also found several items to entertain the kids - perfect for a rainy day today

Plan for today is to avoid going out as it looks so wet! I had mentioned swimming to the kids but hoping they forget DS wants to make pancakes and DD wants to learn to play chess so should keep us busy for a bit.

MummyEm

I looked up our old budget this morning and realised that when we moved into this house almost 5 years ago, we were paying £134.54 more than we are now. So I'm going to revisit the budget to see if we could rejig things to OP this every month. Afterall, when interest rates go up, we could well end up paying a whole to more than this!

I'm struggling with trying to balance everything in my mind. We need to pay back our family loan ASAP but in my mind the mortgage is a huge weight. The ideal scenario would be to pay back the family loan by the time our mortgage deal comes to an end in Mar'16. We owe £40k total so paying all this off by March 16 is not achievable in terms of the 'normal' budget but could well be done if a couple of work bonus'/share options go our way.

I'd then like to move to an offset (dependent on rates of course). I'd probably look to split OP 50/50 between mortgage and savings. This would leave us in a better position as the children get older (and more expensive) to have more money in instant access.

I think I am going to play around with the budget to see if we could manage £134.54 monthly OP and see what that would give us going in to the family loan pot.

Apologies for my ranting, just trying to get things straight in my mind.

In other news, we have achieved our £10k target for the family loan for this year. Just waiting on some of the money to clear to the account so should be transferring this over to relatives at some point next week. We'd set ourselves a target of £10k by December '14 for this so 4 months early with this one :j :j:j

MummyEm

£10,000 has now been paid off and cleared from family loan :beer: £30,000 to go . Though 10k was the target for the year, I am going to continue to see whether I can make another £10k. This is very ambitious so we shall see. I have calculated how much we shoud be able to to get by the end of the year.

Current savings £1700
+ wages £1760
+ CB £681

Total £4141

So rather a lot of work to be done to get to the next £10k by Christmas. Completely unachievable in many ways but I won't let that stop me from trying! I will add any eb@y earnings, surveys, cashback. There may also be work OT to add to that a possibly bonuses from DH.

Another 5 items sold on eb@y in the last three days. I need to get some more items listed on there as running a bit low on there now. The good news is I have almost got through the items in the 'eb@y' cupboard. Still have lots to get through in the loft though and I need to clear out my wardrobe (though this I will 'reinvest' as my clothes are looking a bit drab!)

In other news, have also made OP of £50.54 so will add that to my total.

Also started transfer to new provider to gas and elec. Have logged complaint with npower as they have been so useless in billing us. Every bill is incorrect despite my submitting monthly readings :mad:

bubbleupagus

Hi MummyEm

I'm a long time lurker but as we're currently arranging our first mortgage, thought I'd register now.

I've just read your diary from the beginning and will subscribe - I'm a mummy too and will be getting a similar sized mortgage.

Just wanted to say how well you are doing. Particularly with the ebaying - I'm on maternity leave at the moment yet still haven't managed to even start tackling the piles of rubbish around the house that we definitely don't want to move to the new house! Anyway, you've motivated be to try and list some things tonight.

Will be reading to see how you get on with your additional £10k loan challenge this year.

Bubs

MummyEm

Hi Bubs

Thanks for dropping in. It's nice to hear that someone is reading my ramblings!

I find eB@ying quite therapeutic. I like the process of decluttering (less in the house = less to tidy up) and I find it also serves to remind me when I look at buying bits (do I NEED it or will it end up on eB@y?!). I find I go through patches with it too. Listing items used to be such a lengthy process but I use the eB@y app on my phone now which makes things so much easier and quicker. It's just the post office that puts me off now! I find that when I am going through a really busy patch in life with other things, it's better that I put the listings on hold for a week or two as it becomes too big a stress!

I'd say start small, list a couple of items. When you see an item sell and money starts coming in, it's surprising the motivation that provides.

Good luck

MummyEm

Little update. This weekend we

-Had friends over for BBQ. This was a very cheap meal as had almost everything already in the freezer from previous BBQs, and very yummy too.
-Planned day out with kids for Sunday but rain put us off. Ended up going to cinema with them instead. First time we have taken them for a full orice showing - normally just do the 'juniors' £1.50 tickets. Tried not to cry at the bill but was less that we'd planned to spend anyway so not too bad I suppose.
-1 eb@y item sold and parcel prepared so will be posting that today
-Did some gardening - free exercise

Planning a low spend day today. Post office and a couple of other items to pay for whilst we are out. Must get tidying up as have friends coming over today and house is one enormous mess of toys and piles of clean/dirty clothes :eek:

WhiteSnowdrop

I'm really getting in to the flea bay thing. It's quite satisfying to know an item that is useless to you is going to become useful again for someone and not going into landfill.

Well done in hitting the 10k 4 months early!!

WS