CMs 10 year mfw plan... starting tomorrow!

cardiffmatch

Well there's a quick answer. Overpaying by the cost of a coffee at Patisserie Valerie in Waterloo Station (£2.15) on 20 working days will reduce my monthly interest payment by 14p over and above the effect of my regular overpayment.

Cumulatively, if I managed this every month for a year, my monthly interest would be £2.12 lower which is pleasingly similar to the cost of the cup of coffee in the first place. That's quite satisfying!

southportguy

I must admit i like to look at the reduction in term of the mortgage when I pay over the usual mortgage payment.
I love the idea of seeing how many yrs early I will be free of this monthly payment.
X

gallygirl

My favourite is seeing how much more I need to OP to reduce mortgage by another month.......

........ scuttles off to check.......

£563.65 to knock one day off - but another £1,800 to knock a month off .

I too would have been very pleased at the symmetry of the coffee cost .

Have a great holiday :T.

cardiffmatch

Thanks GG -I'm going to add "knock a month off the mortgage" as my next mini-challenge once the current target (daily interest below £21.50) has been ticked off. Obviously I had to calculate that as soon as you gave me the idea... it's roughly an additional £625 over our basic overpayment so that might be an achievable one in the couple of months after the holiday!

It's all about baby steps here today. I made proper coffee at home so saved the £2.15 there. I remembered to make enough dinner for there to be leftovers for both lunch and dinner today, so that's probably about £10 saved if lunch is around £3 and dinner (out) is around £6-7. Furthermore I'm saving on daily transport; this bit is complicated, bear with me. I am going out to a concert with a friend tonight. I can get the bus home from there (the Proms, v exciting) whereas I usually get the train to and from work. The train is £17.80 return. Today I bought a single on the train (£9.50) and will pay £1.50 for the late bus home so that's about £6.80 saved. Think I got that right>!?

Proms tickets were bought and paid for months ago so hopefully a free night out

CM

cardiffmatch

Afternoon all,

Well the holiday came and went, then I started my new job and all of a sudden it's been a few weeks without posting. However, tomorrow is payday which means the day after is overpayment day, which reminded me to update this here diary.

Overpayments are going well, if slowly. The plan was that we would pay £300 each per month into our offset accounts, in addition to the £110 ish that we actually overpay, making a total overpayment of just over £700 per month.

However, on account of holiday and moving expenses, plus buying things that we don't *need* but are quite nice, like colourful things to stop the new (beige painted) place looking quite so anaemic, I'm only paying £250 into my savings at the mo. Mr CM has just let slip that there is about £5k on his credit card :eek: which he needs to pay off before he gets back on the savings wagon, so I will leave him to get on with that. To cut a long story short, it's a joint CC and I owed him about £1500 of that for the last six weeks spending which I've just sent to him. He thinks he will pay the rest of it off by end October.

Back to the OPs though... payday is significant because I will find out tomorrow how much I will actually be taking home per month for the next two years once tax, NI, student loans, pension etc are all taken into account which will make budgeting much easier.

One bonus OP to report - the building society sent me a cheque for £199 as a "thank you" for keeping our mortgage with them when we moved. Straight into the offset with that then!

cardiffmatch

Morning all,

After a fab weekend (Abergavenny food festival, yum) it's down to the nitty gritty of reducing costs this week. I've managed to keep a spending diary all month and have gone over budget by about £200 :eek: Granted, that budget was a hypothetical self imposed amount which it turns out was an underestimation of my actual monthly income, but I should have been able to stick to it. Spending £500 on a deposit for next year's holiday probably didn't help matters...:o

Anyway, there we are. Next month isn't looking brilliant as last night we bade a fond farewell to our dishwasher. This is obviously a national emergency and full on crisis for our household. Said dishwasher made a terrible noise, filled with smoke and then fused the kitchen circuit (if you're going to die, do it with a sense of theatre). It turns out it was ten years old (we think - the house is ten years old and it's the original dishwasher) so it looks like a trip to find a new, energy efficient one tonight. Fortunately we have some vouchers for John Lewis which should help ease the pain!

I am therefore setting myself some challenges for the week:
1) Packed lunch every day
2) Three no spend days (Tues, Weds, Thurs)
3) Max food budget £40 for the week. This may involve me doing the supermarket run rather than Mr CM...

So - here we go!

gallygirl

:eek::eek::eek: I feel your pain :eek::eek::eek:National emergency indeed :cool:.
If the washing machine breaks people say to bring a load round, but never offer to do your dishes :rotfl:. When mine broke I went and ought the cheapest one in stock, made them help me put it in the back of my Punto (fitted - just ), walked it through the house and plumbed it in myself. Whereas when the washing machine went I just let the washing pile up :rotfl:.
Hope you get a reasonably priced one.

cardiffmatch

Well I guess it would be one way to meet the neighbours to just show up on their doorsteps with our washing up!

I hadn't thought of plumbing it in myself - it can't be that tricky as I think we just have a cold water inlet for it, along with the drainage...:think:

The only two problems I can think of are how we would go about getting rid of the incumbant machine, as well as getting the cupboard door off the front of it (it's one of those concealed "integrated" jobbies...)

I shall give this some thought, thanks GG!

cardiffmatch

Back again!

It's been a quiet month as work gave me cause to spend the last month at a training course with no internet access at all :eek: This was more difficult to cope with than I'd imagined (particularly as it was abroad!)

An update: mortgage overpayments are a bit thin on the ground this month. I made a £250 overpayment on payday, but owing to my new salary being a bit less than I had hoped and other expenses (that dishwasher, for example) I am now fairy short of cash for the month.

The silver lining to this is that at least I am aware I am short of cash, because I made a sort-of budget for the month: I worked out exactly how much I had to spend before the next payday, after all bills, savings etc etc. I then divided this into weeks to allow for a bit of forward planning. After doing the food shopping, I have £1 to last until sunday hehe... looks like a weekend in or maybe at some free museums!

Things then get a lot easier for the rest of the month with about £20 per day to spend, but that includes food shopping and my £66/wk rail ticket.

So where is this going? Well, in the old days, I'd have continued spending merrily, oblivious of the situation. These days, post DFW and now MFW, I'm determined not to spend a penny more than I can afford to this month!

So that's that. I've been mostly reading SSS's 10-year diary plan for inspiration and did a batch cook of lunch pasta yesterday. Congratulations on your news SSS!

Oh - also, I took £750 out of my offset account to buy Royal Mail share. Here's hoping that continues to be a good idea as I think I will hold onto them for the long haul...

CM

cardiffmatch

Checking in to say hello...

No OPs to report, but I didn't think I'd manage any significant OPs in this pay month. It's dragging a bit, isn't it?! Roll on payday.

I've been working away for a week again last week, which was tiring but on the plus side it means work paid for my meals and various other expenses for five days!

I succumbed to the winter and purchased a new winter overcoat at the weekend. It was £69 from H&M, which is hardly cheap but I am justifying it as my last one is eight years old and has a rip that no amount of my (inexpert) sewing is going to disguise... Also, I keep losing things into the pockets which have disintegrated!

This week I am having seven mini challenges - budget as well as life. Most of these were things I was already trying to do, so this is just a way of keeping track. The exception to that is the exercise; the exercise I was intending to do but kept finding excuses... but we have a beach holiday coming up and I am paying for a gym so this needs sorting!!!

Targets:
1: Three NSDs: Tues/Weds/Fri
2: Total weekly spend (including my half of food) £120: £88 so far
3: Food budget (for 2) £40 (£31 spent so far)
4: Stick to the meal plan: [STRIKE]Mon[/STRIKE]/Tues/Weds/Thurs/Fri/Sat
5: Packed lunch every day: [STRIKE]Mon/Tues[/STRIKE]/Weds/Thurs/Fri
6: Four days with some form of exercise [STRIKE]Mon[/STRIKE]/Tues/Weds/Fri
7: Four booze-free days [STRIKE]Mon[/STRIKE]/Tues/Weds/Fri

We are visiting various family members at the weekend, so I've no need to plan some meals and certainly won't be abstaining from a drinkie or two!:beer:
I will try to report back on how things go - today's packed lunch is a scrummy Cous Cous salad based on a mix from Aldi with a lot of crunchy salad type veg we needed to use up!