Flutteringby MFW - 2014 is the year

Flutteringby

Hi I wanted to start a thread where I can record all my ideas and achievements as we start to focus on paying off our Mortgage in 2014. Our position today is

Mortgage £65,700
Other borrowings £6,098.28 (Car and Kitchen Improvements)

As our account is an offset one, both the loans are loans to ourselves from our account. The car is being paid off monthly over 3 years, and the kitchen improvements one is where I need to focus my efforts in the early part of the year, before going mad on the mortgage.

I'm a SAHM with one daughter (3) and hubby. His wage is good, but when we take our eye off the ball we seem to overspend quite easily! So will be coming here regularly to keep track of what I'm spending. First task for this month is to have a very low grocery spend month. Need to do an inventory of what we have, meal plan and see how cheap I can get this month!

Habibiboo

:wave:
Welcome! It's always tricky to start in December as it tends to not be a normal month spend-wise, but I've done exactly the same as you and started my own journey this month too, as it somehow seems more motivating than starting in January!
You'll find lots of useful resources on these boards for frugal meal planning, so I'm sure you'll find lots of ideas.
Best of luck!

Flutteringby

Thanks for the welcome Habibiboo I don't find new year a very good time to start things as the motivation soon wears off, so thought I'd strike now while the iron is hot!

Been counting up some coins and cash I have around from sales over the last month. I have about £120 now. As my town doesn't have a bank where I can pay in my notes (have a One Account and need to go to RBS to pay in) I will hold onto the notes until 1st Jan and use them towards my Jan cash withdrawals (spending, grocery etc) so won't be able to move the cash into loan until Jan. Will keep adding to the pile so hopefully will have a bit more by then. Have £7 coming over next few days from a couple of xmas decs that I no longer need which I sold on FB selling page.

Just had a commission payment from my network marketing business. Used a few pounds of it to do a TT on my loan - bringing it down to £1700

This morning I did a full stock take of my fridge, freezer and cupboards. There is a lot there! Next job is to turn that into a meal plan. Will make an effort to eat food I already have before buying more. While I was sorting I found some bits that I won't use so took them along to the food bank collection point. I hope someone will get good use from them.

Flutteringby

I've joined the 2014 MFW thread with a target for overpayments of £3000. Thats £250 per month. Sounds achievable, but will require some effort I think!

If I can do that, plus my capital payments should leave me under £62000 at the end of 2014. Will have a think about how I'm going to achieve that each month.

Flutteringby

Another £18 will be heading into the pot in a few days. I've posted off a cheque to pay in which is my deposit back from the hall we booked for DD birthday party. As soon as it clears it will go into the home improvements loan.

Dropped DD off at nursery this morning and was very tempted to call into the cafe for a bacon sandwich, but resisted the urge so today should be a nsd!

Flutteringby

Just added a couple of extras to my signature in preparation for the new year. I'm going to try and do a £5 per day challenge to earn me £150 per month towards my £3k overpayments challenge. Have been making a list of things to sell but will wait til New Year now as they aren't Xmas present type things.

Habibiboo

:wave:
Sounds like you're being very pro-active and purposeful, which can only be a good thing on the MF road! Good luck with your plans!

Flutteringby

Thanks Habibiboo

Had some good news yesterday. We bought a car in May this year and when FIL was looking for a new one we put him in touch with the dealership. Yesterday he collected his new car and we received a cheque for £50 for referring him! We had no idea they even ran that scheme :j So that cheque is off with Royal Mail to be paid into the account.

Hubby's payslip came in the post today, and he had an unexpected £75 Christmas bonus. So we have decided to use that to pay for the hotels we need for our travelling over Christmas. We have a 4 hour car journey which is quite a long time for DD (age 3) and also usually means we lose most of Boxing Day in the car. So this year we have decided to drive half way Xmas night, stay in a Travelodge (£32!) and then we only have 90 mins or so to drive on Boxing Day so can be with my parents by mid morning! Then will do same on way back (£28 room) so the travel should be a lot less stressful and it will be an adventure too! So the bonus is great timing as we hadn't quite decided where to fund it from :rotfl:

The other thing we have been looking at this week is booking a trip to Butlins after Easter. We went this year and loved it. Had a look and the trip we want is around £400 (includes half board food). Just checked and last year we paid about £300 by booking in the January sale so hoping for a similar offer this time. Have £100 in the holiday account so far (we pay in £50 per month) so that should be enough to pay for the deposit. Then we have been saving Leisure vouchers which we can take off the balance. We have £50 already, and should hopefully manage another £30 or so before we have to pay off in full. So that will all help too! :T

Flutteringby

Having a quick look at the accounts while everyone else is asleep! The cheque for the deposit refund from DD birthday party has cleared and I've moved it to the loan account and updated my sig.

Made a list last night of the last remaning Xmas bits to buy. Not sure what is left in the budget will cover them fully but there is a bit of spare money I can add in. Am determined to stick to the list and the new budget, as usually at this time of year I have a huge panic fuelled shopping spree and buy loads!

Off to see Father Christmas this morning with DD at a local Garden Centre!:santa2:

Flutteringby

Well the Christmas shopping is complete. Unfortunately we went slightly over budget, but I'm happy with what we have spent/bought. Will do a final tally over the weekend when the credit cards have updated with the last few days of payments.

The cheque from the car garage cleared, so that was £50 now moved over to pay off the loan (£1632.00 outstanding). Also found another £25 which has come off the mortgage, leaving £65,675 balance.

Not long now til the new year budget comes into play. I'm quite excited really as it should help us with our goals for next year. Also I really enjoy setting up the accounts on 1st of the month! Everything is reset and we get a new start!

One not so good thing is that hubby's tax return needs doing in Jan. This was from a year when he was self employed, but was also the year we moved house and we weren't very good at keeping the right % aside each month for tax. He did his return a few months back, just hasn't hit send yet! The bill is around £5.5k and we have £4.6k saved. We should be able to pay in 2 stages, the first we can easily cover, and then we need to find £900 by summer to pay part 2. This will come from around £300 per month which is excess in hubby's pay at the moment so should be manageable.

Flutteringby

I've been playing about with the account balances today and have made a few small transfers to the loan.

1) £10.00 leftover from hubby work bonus (after it paid for our hotels over Xmas)
2) £17.28 from Phoenix sales
3) 10.30 leftover from Child Benefit (after it paid for winter coat and shoes)
4) 1.06 from a savings account no longer needed
5) 10.32 Quidco payment received today
6) £3.04 Tilly Tidy

Thats a total of £52 paid in, leaving the balance £1580.00 :T