mortgage free by 45 diary

suse*

Day 2 of nsd completed. Problem is I realised I have to pay for some parking on the 2nd, and I also need to get some photos taken for an ID so my aim to not spend anything till the 6th isn't going to happen now I think. Depending how much the photos cost I might just say I can still only spend 10 quid or something until the 6th, just to help keep me on track and stop me going food shopping.

I have been looking at different book buying websites today to help with the decluttering. So far I have compaired ziffit and we buy books, I think I just need to check on amazon for some of the more textbook type ones then decide which ones get sent where. Some of the books are only showing as 10p each, but from having a read on some of the bootfair threads on here I don't think I'd get more for them there. I don't have the time to go through and list them all individually as well as the hassel of postage costs etc, this seems better I get 10p than they just sit in boxes still.

I have signed up to yougov again as it looks like they deleted my account, I can't have logged in often enough, as well as for a couple of other survey sites. Once I got through the initial sign up though I didn't get any actual surveys to do, so I suspect I am the wrong demographic still to ask lots of questions, but I'll keep an eye on them still for a while and see if that changes.

I watched 3 webinars today by the ynab software people which showed I had set it up right at least. I had hoped to win a free licence key too, but it wasn't to be. I can't decide if I just keep re-watching the same ones to keep trying to get a licence over the next 30 days before the trial runs out, or if the odds aren't worth it. I am sure they would notice me doing that too soon enough, and not give me one for being cheeky also, but I can't decide if it is worth a shot.

I have been quite good with cooking so far as well as I made a pasta bake thing yesterday and finished that off today. I need to figure out if I try and do these freezer "dump bags", could I use a jar of Thai green curry sauce I have for some of them, and just split the jar between a couple of portions. I am not sure how it will freeze though if it hasn't been cooked as well but if I made a batch with a whole jar it would take me a couple of days to eat it all and that much curry tends to put you off having it again for a good while.

I was thinking more about my garden and trying to find someone who would help me grow veg there. I was thinking maybe I could find someone interested in a sort of skills swap. So then I could end up keeping more of the food assuming any does grow.

suse*

Today is sort the kitchen, meal plan and make dump bags day. I just found this website with handy free templates that I think I'm going to use for keeping track of the freezer and cupboards. Just thought it might be handy for others or give people ideas to make their own.

http://organizedhome.com/printable/h...ezer-inventory

I just realised I can do a photo online for my application as well, so might still get away with only having to pay parking now for a couple of hours next week, and not have to pay out for a photo booth.

suse*

5 nsd and counting :T although I have looked in the fridge 20 times thinking oh I really need xyz, then thinking no I don't really need that for today. I recommened the demotavator calculator on another diary but actually filled it in myself for take aways, starbucks and too much food shopping and have stuck that on the fridge which has helped me I think.

I have signed up to the frugal challange and take your own lunch to work and am reading their tips with interest. I am going to finish the food inventory, and then do a shop with approved food and mysupermarket I think and see how they both work. I might check in town when the next market is too as they often have butchers doing trays of meat so I could use that for some dump bags if it is cheaper than aldi etc.

I have started again on yougov, onepoll and swagbucks too so plan to use money from these things for gifts and things this year.

The bag for return to earn came yesterday too so I need to finish having a sort out for that to get the 70p a kilo and see how that works. That as well as finishing going through the books as well.

As it is no listing fee on ebay right now I am pondering about putting a few things on there as collection only and see if they sell maybe, I just can't decide about ebay though as with the fee's etc if it is worth it really.

Once my next mortgage payment goes out I'll update the mortgage totals and op totals for jan and get that going. The daily interest has still been £8.91, but this will go up a bit now I've moved 1200 over to pay for the first week or so of direct debits coming up.

suse*

Happy new year fellow MFW peeps.

I just had a nice surprise, I logged in to see if my mortgage payment had gone in yet, and it is showing a zero balance for the whole mortgage !!! It has my saving accounts there ok still as well.

It is obviously just a computer glitch so I have mailed them asking can they keep it at zero, as compensation for telling them about the problem I am guessing the answer will be errrm no!.

I am taking lots of pictures and going to print out a copy of the statement to put on my fridge as motivation I think though, as it did feel pretty darn good to see that zero there.

Stressfree_WB

Hi Suse*

It's motivating reading your diary. Did you ever decide to make overpayments off the mortgage or continue adding it to your offset? I did contemplate making overpayments but decided I'd carry adding to my offset savings account because you never know when there will be an emergency and I like seeing my money grow in the offset account !!


Good luck with your journey. I've subscribed for extra motivation!

Watty1

Have just read your diary. Nicely motivating bits in here. Good for you! And I loved the idea about freezing stuff ready for the slow cooker. I think I have heard this before but this time it struck a note for me

pennyforthepot

Great diary - focused and informative - subscribed

PFTP x

suse*

Day 6 nsd and also nearly 1/2 stone lost as well over christmas and new years as a side effect. I haven't been trying to loose weight by doing this either I have been eating loads, from when I went a bit mad buying christmas junk food etc as well as trying really hard to cook food I already have. This though isn't all good, as much as I do want to loose weight, if I loose it that quickly it actually makes my health conditions worse, so I might need to rethink that somehow before the pain gets too bad.

Anyway

Stressfree_WB wrote: »

Did you ever decide to make overpayments off the mortgage or continue adding it to your offset?

HI well I have still decided a bit of both. I am doing the mfw 2014 challenge so my plan is to save the money in the offset, and then overpay it at the end of the year I think. As my offset doesn't have a direct debit option and is just saving accounts, I am just going to try and keep everything in the offset though as much as I can, without risking any direct debits bouncing. I think this ynab software will help me do this as well, so I have set up scheduled transactions in there as reminders of when in the month I need to move money over for things.

My main goal I guess is to get it under 65ltv or more if I can in the next 5 years, so I can have a lot more options then to remortgage at a much lower rate. So seeing the overall balance going down helps me towards that. Well apart from today where it still says the balance is zero for the mortgage part, but I will phone them tomorrow if it isn't sorted out by then to see what is going on with that. Once I get it below 65 though then I will probably just focus on saving for the rest of it then so the rest of it will hopefully be covered by the offset.

I have about 5 months emergency fund so far just to cover wages, and with the budget software I will work on separate emergency funds on top of that for a new car, new white goods, laptop, holidays etc. All that money will still be in the offset though, so it isn't like it doesn't all count towards mfw too, it is just helping me to see what the offset money is for I guess, just as I have never saved as much as I have currently, so this is helping to quell the "lets go to vegas baby and sod the overpayment's" temptations

suse*

Well today is first day back at work this year - boo and my mortgage has reappeared in the internet banking - double boo.

I have done a tilly tidy of 93p so I think I'm going to track them seperate to the mfw challenge, just as even though I'm putting the money back into the offset, I might just end up putting the money back into my spending account at a later date to cover a different bill. All the time it is in the offset though it is better than being in my current account.

So today I will break my nsd streak as I will have to pay either 60p or a quid on parking, depending how long it takes. I need to get some dog food too, I am going to look at cheaper stuff for some of what she has I think. as james wellbeloved it is very expensive really but she has calmed down a lot since she switched to it so it would have to be something similar really. For today though I will just get a big bag of biscuits, and look at the rest of what she has later before it runs out.

suse*

So my mortgage payment for jan has gone in so time to update the sig.

£114363.69 is the current total with £8.99 daily interest currently. It is still at 82ltv but I realised if the price hadn't have dropped after the recession it would have been 71% by now, so in a way I am making a dent it is just trying to keep ahead of the negative equity that is slowing me down.

I have made an extra over payment of 1.32 of my tilly tidys today as well as the normal 145 included in the dd, just as I have earnt £7.13 on ipoll already since I signed up the other week, so when that builds up enough to redeem I will just move that into the offset, or maybe use that for vouchers or something.

I only spent £1 yesterday in the end so in the past 7 days that wasn't bad at all really. I have decided I will go to the market in town tomorrow and look for cheap meat / veg etc, and I can go get the dog biscuits then too.

I have just ordered a free o2 sim as well to get the free evernote subscription as mine is due to run out soon so that works very well. I used to be with o2 but moved to giff gaff so at least I know the sim / app should work. I just hope it arrives in time to save me the 35 quid as I was thinking I might have to rethink using it where this way I might not need to.

I have booked my returntoearn clothes collection for tuesday, to force me to have a clear out over the weekend instead of keep looking at the bag thinking "oh I must sort that out".