New MFW checking in...

suse*

As for the mrs I'd say have a play with the demotivator calculator as well as the mortgage op ones.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/demotivator/

Once you see how quickly even a small op each month can knock month / years off your mortgage, then it doesn't seem like such hard work then to start spending in a more considered way. It isnt having to give up everything as such - unless you want to go hard core and pay it off in a couple of years - but just using vouchers etc to get things you buy already or just checking for the best deals for things.

FastAndFurious

Thanks for the insights Suse

When I get to the end of my current fix, definitely going to have a look at offsets. My LTV is low. House value is somewhere around 250 to 260k, though the outlaws have some money tied up in it as they helped us get on the ladder. Mortgage is currently at a shade over 80k and we have about 70 to 80k of equity as we put in a sizeable deposit on top of the outlaws contribution when we first bought. So generally we don't struggle to get favourable rates. We also bought in a good area so while house price didn't go up for quite some time, it also didn't go down as demand remained. So fortunately we didn't have negative equity, despite us buying right at the peak before all the problems. All in all, we've been pretty lucky on that front really.

But no, we are not going hard core with the OPs, we want to live a little too so the key will be realistic targets and intelligent savings. But I am very aware we are wasting a lot more than we should given our income is pretty decent. I actually had a chat with her tonight and she is totally on board, but admitted she finds it harder than I do not to spend on 'nice to haves'.

Anyway, my current plan for the next few of weeks:

- Check we are getting the best deal on utilities (pretty sure we are not)
- Look into cashback sites for things we'll be buying anyway
- Have a post Christmas clear out and see if there is anything worth ebaying
- Look into other ways to increase our income. I have a few ideas on this but need to mull it over a bit more before making any decisions.