Diary of a home owner wannabe (my 6 year journey)

pennyforthepot

Hi there,

I have been reading so many inspiring threads over the past few months on here and the debt free diaries that I have decided to take the plunge and start a diary of my own. This way, by putting things down it will make my goal seem real and achievable.

I currently rent a house with my DH, DSS2 (16), DS1 (14) and DD2 (12 going on 18:eek:) having sold my house 2 years ago. My goal is to save up £153,400 over the next 6 years (over the last 8 years I have managed to save £96,600) bringing the total to £250,000 to buy a small 2 bed flat in London. So I suppose I am working backwards in that I want to be a mortgage free wannabe but without having the mortgage in the first place (due to our circumstances a mortgage is not viable at the moment).

Until yesterday I had never posted let alone set up a new thread but after looking at the different forums I decided that the most appropriate place for me was the savings and investment thread. Hmmm - think I just proved myself wrong :eek:

They are a scary bunch over there (not all I hasten to add) -I felt quite morally judged on there about the reason for my goal. There was lots of hard line talking about how to invest, what to invest and how much do you have to invest. There definitely wasn't any :rotfl::T:eek: or:j and not a mention of NSD's, LBM, DH, DS or DD. and I certainly didn't feel comfortable mentioning the fact that I was excited to get half price bread and manage to save £3.25 with my coupons. So, I will brave it once more with a forum that I know gives a lot of support, enjoys a giggle and will give me a:j when I mention that I got a 5p of per litre of petrol at Mr T today:rotfl:

Lots more to post but as I was up at 4.45am to take my DH to the airport I will leave it for another day.

Pennyforthepot x

resilie

I love getting that 5p off voucher welcome

Tahlullah

Welcome! No negative judgement here that I have noticed, just lots of support whilst we walk alongside you in your journey!

Good luck!

linz

I agree with the other. Everyone is friendly on this board and we love hearing about peoples savings . I feel the same as you about the savings and investments thread unfortunately. You'll be at home here

newgirly

Ah , stick with us we have much less sensible financial advice to give :rotfl: confessions on spending ,eating and drinking to much etc. we have a plenty though

Best of luck with your plan, that takes some considerable willpower to save that amount :T I am sure you will reach your goal of if you are that determined. Have you thought of joining one of the challenges like the mfw 2013, the target can include savings as well as overpayments ,so would suit you too.

Ps well done on the half price bread

exarmydreamer

I found 20p in the street today, welcome you are amongst friends.:)

kirstypark

welcome - and well done on the savings so far. :beer:

pennyforthepot

WOW guys - thank you so much for such a lovely and warm welcome - definitely the right place for me:T. I think my motto for the next 6 years will be 'if you look after the coupons then the pounds will look after themselves'

Thank you newgirly - I shall look into the challenges - and have been following a couple of them unofficially over the last few months and will look to join.

OK - Day 1 of my 6 year challenge.

So I know what I want to achieve and I know when I want to achieve it by I just have the small issue of working out how I achieve it:eek:

I am quite practiced in saving and frugality, certainly over the past 8 years since my first husband did the dirty and left (all water under the bridge and we are good friends now). My life has taken a different path since then as financially we were very secure and living a life where money was never an issue. I am now remarried and DH (would it be wrong to putDH2:rotfl:) is the most wonderful husband I could ever want - despite being skint and a MS-phobic:o but I wouldn't have it any other way. I am so much happier now that I don't have the money that became a substitute for happiness.

There is so much for me to put down that I'm not sure where to start so I will leave it to come out in dribs and drabs over the next few weeks.

Right -so back to how I am going to achieve this gargantuan challange - small steps, monthly goals, not too much penny pinching but keeping up with the small changes that I have made over the last year and adding a few more.

Step No. 1: Down size to reduce monthly rental cost as well as cost of travel, fuel and council tax.

We are very lucky to be living in a very large house at the moment with a mahoosive garden (had our wedding party here last summer for 150 - called it WedFest and everyone camped- what a great day we had). The downside to this is the mahoosive rent we are currently paying - not sure if I can bring myself to write the figure down yet. We live in a very expensive area of the country where you will be unlikely to buy a house for less than £1 million :eek: (hence not owning a house). Anyway I digress -

Yesterday I went to put a holding deposit on a house which will be saving us £400 a month on rent. It is much smaller and if I stand in the middle of the garden and stretched my arms out I would be able to touch the house and the bottom of the garden fence. But hey - its a garden and I am very lucky to have one. The plus side apart from the rent reduction is that it is right outside my DD school and 5 minutes walk to school for DS1 and 5 minutes to the bus stop for DSS2 - so a saving in petrol. Its also on the high street so within easy walking distance to Mr T and the train station. My DH seems to think the fact that it is 2 minutes walk to the local pub is a positive but I'm not so sure about this :rotfl:

Right I'm going to stop procrastinating - I have rooms to declutter whilst the kids are on holiday with their other parents - the perfect time to get rid of stuff without them digging it out again.

So MS challenges for today:

Tackle the lounge
Take non - Eb@yable stuff to the charity shop
Take non charity shopable stuff to the tip
Hand in notice on the house
Pick up change of address forms from the PO whilst in town
Hand in statement of income to new letting agent
Water down milk:rotfl:

Have a fun day everyone

Pennyforthepot x

egoode

Wow congrats on the savings in rent, that's going to make a massive difference to your savings. Just make sure you set up a DD to put it straight into your savings acct so you aren't tempted to spend it!

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Welcome and good luck!

Andy_WSM

I love the "mortgage free with a twist" - what an amazing achievement to work towards. Good luck!

I also love the support here. You guys are great