MF before I'm 30

YoungBaker

Argh having trouble updating my signature for some reason! I make the changes then click the submit form button but it isn't saving. Nevermind will get it at some time, and know we are up to £962 so not far off the £1k.

Going food shopping this afternoon so will spend a bit there but need to eat for the week! ha

Other than that having quite a quiet day, play some xbox whilst OH does some work for school Been having a look at the overpayment calculator and it's quite exciting! If we overpay by £500 a month we would be paying it off before we hit 30 (cutting nearly 18 years off the time and saving £28k in interest!!!) We are about to start putting £500 in savings a month to build up our emergency fund, so once we get there with that we can get onto using it fore overpayments! Very exciting

EchoDelta

I'm soooooo addicted to the over payment calculator! (cool aren't I?! :rotfl:)

YoungBaker

Hi all, hope you had a good weekend.

Been pretty quiet here really - still not able to update my sig but see that its a forum wide problem rather than specific to me. Who knew updating your sig was so motivating :P

Well we are not at £962 in the Emergency Savings pot which is 19.2% of the way! Hoping to have a final pish and find a spare £38 somewhere to get us up to the £1k mark before OH get's paid next week. Will see how that goes.

Was a pretty quiet weekend here, had quite an expensive food shop this week but was a bigger payday shop that will last us for a few weeks so will pay off as we won't need to buy much at all next weekend really.

Am coming down to London for work tomorrow and wed this week so will hopefully make the week past quick, but at the same time will no doubt be expensive as will need to pay out for drinks and stuff tht will be going on! Ah well.

Other than that hope you are all well!

YoungBaker

Hi all

Been a few days since last update.

Been down in London with work so a bit tired and glad we are at the end of the week. Managed not to spend too much money whilst I was down which was good - probably about 30 quid of my own money that I won't claim back.

Done another Tilly Tidy today from 2 accounts - about £1.40 in total :rotfl: but with the one the other day we are almost up to the £265 mark.

One week till OH payday and we will get some serious money into the savings account, but had hoped to get another £35 in before then so we were at the £1k mark. Will keep trying but don't know if we will manage.



The fact I just treated myself to GTA V probably won't be helping but hey ho :P Have waited a while for this game to re live my youth haha.

Anyway, going home tonight to just chill a bit but wan't to go through our spare room that I have been saying since I begun this thread :P Hoping to find some stuff we can maybe get onto eBay but don't know if we have anything really worth while.

Absolutely rubbish weather up here today, but hope you are all good also.

tinkerbel

Hey young baker sounds like you're making good headway so far and will get another lump when your wife gets paid well done!

With the Tilly tidies are you doing nearest £5? Or what have you decided?

Did you do the spare room?!

YoungBaker

Hi there

Not posted in over a week or so now. Not too much progress to report on really - OH had payday so got some more cash into the savigns pot. Have put some cash aside a month for Christmas also now so we are prepared for that. Have 5 nephews/neices and a young brother and as this is our first year both working we want to get them something good and make up for some of the cheaper years before. We have quite small families (only aunt and uncle for our nephews for example) so they don't get loads from a lot of people or anything either.

In terms of the OP bandwagon... we are still so on board and would love to but at the same time realistically I don't think we are going to be actually making any overpayments any time soon. We are slowly and surely building up our savings money which we need as a buffer in case OH doesn't get a perm job come next year, that's fine and we anticipiate that so are saving for that outcome. But as well as this, as already has been said in this thread we are young and do want to enjoy ourselves a bit too. As we have saved hard over the years to get married and get our house, this is the first time we have ever really had a bit of cash to play about with as well - so don't want to just throw it all into paying off a house which is obviously not a "bad debt". But then at the same time we would love to have it paid off much quicker so we have a property paid off by the age of 30, or at least have a lot more equity for when we move for our next home.

Ah who knows, some days we are both so commited to it and want to throw every penny at getting it paid off and watching the years come down, btu then sometimes stop and think what are we doing we want to enjoy ourselves to and buy ourselves some nice stuff / go places and see things etc.

I think we are trying to get a happy medium between both tbh... so we have upp'ed our spends pot a bit more so we don't feel restricted and can get more stuff we want, have a bit saving up to go on holiday each month and then a healthy amount being saved too. Once we hit a target and are happy with the savings pot this cash will go onto the mortgage OP instead. The issue just is this may take a bit longer to we get to that point, but I guess we aren't in any major rush really!

Probably quite a big post back but wanted to get all that down... :P In other news, we are both working hard with lots of stress at work but just need to plod along.

sweetdaisy

You are taking the right approach. Balance is the key and it is so important to have an Emergency Fund as a backup as it's peace of mind.

As many have said on this thread before: it's a marathon and not a sprint :rotfl:.

YoungBaker

Hi there

Been a couple of months since my last update now. The MF plans have went completely out the window unfortunately.

Had a bit of a bad few months and last month me and my wife decided we are treating ourselves to a holiday of our dreams next year and travelling to NY then Miami. Managed to stay MSE though and managed to get our flights from £2k to £1200 so canot complain at all. But basically took a bit of our savings and all our months spare cash on that for or Oct.

For November we have tried to get Christmas out the way and everyone bought. Again not ideal for the MF plans but has to be done and we haven't went crazy or anything.

So really - overall we have not made much progress at all. Still love the thought of getting the mortgage down and definitely being sensible, but have been a bit too generous to ourselves lately.

Now that Christmas is paid out the way and our flights are bought we really need to get back on it. We have been saving a little still but not what we should.

December will only need some of the cash for food etc. as we are hosting Xmas dinner, but as of next year we will have all our spare cash to the side again.

Gonna keep posting here to keep us focussed and on the right track!

Hope you are all well also.

teabody

Hi,
I am currently trying as you are to save to make overpayments on a santander mortgage. I have just opened a 123 account which gives ash back on direct debits and so on as it all helps. With Santander the minimum payment is £500 which is why it is so difficult. Previously I had a mortgage elsewhere and you could pay little and often which was easy to do and shave a couple of years off. Still, I am determined to do this and I estimate that £500 can take around 2 months off at a time so perhaps aim smaller i.e £500 per year and you may find that you can achieve more.....remember that the sooner you do it the remaining interest is on the remaining balance therefore it does get easier.
I did have my first house age 20(i am now 31) and managed to reduce the balance a lot but then wanted to move. My husband didnt want to sell our house so we compromised by rented the first out and buying a 2nd which we now live in. Both mortgages are higher than our original but one pays for itself and gives a small income which i overpay the original mortgage with and the other has created cheaper outgoings for us but knowing I WOULD have been mortgage free by age 40 has me planning to get back to or as near that position as possible. Keep us up to date on your progress and I really do hope and believe you will do it.

YoungBaker

Thanks teabody

The similarities between us are funny and quite inspiring to keep me going. I didnt realise it was £500 min overpayment for santander so like you said I guess doing it in these sort of chunks will help motivate us.

We have the 123 account as well and have made a load of cash back from it in just the past 7 months or so, so really impressed with it. I must say Santander have been a really good bank to be with overall SO FAR.

I think now we have got the big expenses out the way with flights for next year and christmas out the way it should be a bit easier as well.

2014 will be a focussed one!!