Sundaysgirl's MFW journey - better late than never!

Sundaysgirl

Thanks GG - feeling very positive ATM!

Switchover date isn't until early September though (to avoid ERC on my fix), and I'm on the cusp of ending up with a surplus on my remortgage so having to limit my OPs A LOT (will only be able to OP £250 instead of my usual ~£1,200 over the next 6 weeks) in order to avoid this and then having to pay £25 TT fee for the pleasure of having my money returned to me! The interest differential is teeny so not worth it - will just have to sit on my hands and make the extra OPs once I'm on the new mortgage. Can't wait!

Sundaysgirl

So I've managed 11 NSDs so far this month - 4 more to reach my target and 7 days to do it in!

Planning a non-spendy weekend, and have generally been very thrifty this month - no treats but have been so busy with work that I've not felt deprived as I've not had time for browsing... silver linings!

Pay day today and my pay rise is working out about £250 per month extra - straight to the OP pot it goes! I'm restricting my OP this month through necessity, and as Santander doen't allow small OPs I think I'll make my next one closer to redemption (early Sept) once I receive the final statement, so as to avoid extra costs if I go under the new loan balance.

Sundaysgirl

Oops, over a year since I last posted! I have been very good though, I promise!

Such a lot has happened in the past year - we redid the bathroom and hallway, and spruced up the kitchen. Have now decided to move to our forever home sooner rather than later and have found The One so just need to sell ours.

Had a very welcome payrise and bonus, both of which I have funnelled straight into the mortgage. This, with lots of thriftiness, has enabled me to reduce the mortgage from the £72k I remortgaged to a year ago to the current balance of £45.5k. This should be reduced to £43.5k by next week once payday (and OP day!) happened tomorrow, and my standard mortgage payment comes out next week.


I am on track to have the mortgage paid off by December 2016 with a fair wind if we decided to stay put! The move will result in a very large mortgage - circa £390k :eek: so I need to keep chipping away at the current balance in the meantime.


The good news is that DH is now completely on-board with MFW - he has always been supportive of me, but having shown him the calculators and run through various scenarios he is incredibly keen to do whatever we can to be MF on our forever home in 10 years, which looks possible if rates stay as they are.


This has led to even more small savings and a new found love of Lidl which is shaving a huge amount off our grocery shopping each week!


My goals for the coming month:
- reduce mortgage to £43k before next payday (this will be a stretch!)
- stick to grocery budget of £140
- eBay sales of £25

Khrisjun

Hi Sundaysgirl - Just had a read of your Diary and looks like you have done amazingly!

I had to double take on the amount for your new mortgage! Good luck with the new amount, Id be scared to put the new figures into a calculator to see the change in daily interest etc. But im sure it will all be worth it for the forever home!

Sundaysgirl

Thanks Khrisjun - always nice to have a bit of encouragement and know I'm not just waffling away to myself!


The new mortgage is scarily huge, but at least it will be shared with DH. We've each done lots of budgeting and are happy that things won't be too tight - we're planning to do a longer term than we need to (18 years) so that we're not committed to stretching ourselves each month, and will then OP.


So the overall pay-out each month will be the same, but we have more financial flexibility and if all goes to plan the mortgage will finish in the same time and cost only about £400 more overall (which in the grand scheme of things is nothing for the peace of mind it will give us - if it ever came to it, we could cover the mortgage and our monthly outgoings on one salary for a while).


The rate we have found is great - 3.14% for a 10 year fix! So just hoping we can proceed and secure it before it is pulled.


I foresee many hours being whiled away with the OP calculators if we go ahead, the interest savings with even small OPs will be much more rewarding than with my current mortgage... silver lining?!?

Sundaysgirl

Pay day, whoop!


I've OP'd £1,800 and will try to do more later in the month, hopefully with the help of some small fleabay sales and grocery savings.


Current balance £43.8k, by my calculations once my standard mortgage payment is deducted next week I have to find £130 (give or take a few pounds for interest) to get to my ambitious target of £43k by next pay day!


In theory this should be doable, but I also have to pay the balance on a big holiday at the end of next month so need to be saving rather than OP'ing really...

Sundaysgirl

I'm renting my parking space to a neighbour for £70 p/m and received October's "rent" in advance so that has been OP'd.

Grocery shopping for the week came in at £44, however this included many store cupboard items, and I've done a fair amount of batch cooking over the weekend so the freezer is well stocked for later in the month and I think we're on track.


Several small items have bids on [EMAIL="eB@y"]eB@y[/EMAIL].

So progress on goals:
- reduce mortgage to £43k before next payday - currently at £43,775, with £745 standard payment to come out this week, so about £60 to find I think
- stick to grocery budget of £140 - £44/140
- eBay sales of £25 - £10/25 "profit"

Sundaysgirl

So I finally got around to doing a heap of listings last weekend and it has paid off - an item I've been meaning to sell for ages now has a £50 bid :j


I have several items ending this evening and am up to £60+ so should be a nice boost to the OP pot

hiddenshadow

Well done on the OPs!

Will you buy your forever home even if your current one doesn't sell?

Sundaysgirl

Thanks! We have considered it (we could probably rent our current home for ~£2.5k pcm and there is demand in the area) but we're reliant on using the equity for our deposit - the mortgage levels quoted above assume ~40% LTV. So we would then be in the position of having more expensive financing, and the financial risks associated with any void periods. The pay off would be huge if it all worked out but I think we're just a bit too cautious to chance it.