Little Steps To Mortgage Freedom

Daisychain1

Hello all :j

I have been a long time lurker of the mortgage free boards and have picked up some great tips along the way.

I am so much in awe of the huge amounts some people can pay off but unfortunately I am not in a position to do this. I do however want to start to make small overpayments and hopefully, gradually increase them over time.

Therefore this diary will be my place to babble on, record my progress however small and hopefully receive some encouragement along the way.

As it stands my mortgage is £126,500. When I have figured out some small goals I will be back to bore you with them!

DC1

Daisychain1

No time like the present I guess to start.

Do Martins overhaul your finances.
Make bread, cake and biscuits from items already in stores. Try to make the food we already have last until Monday ( Friday is my usual shopping day).
Reduce electric usage by switching off all items when not in use.
Reduce petrol use and walk as much as possible.

By doing the above i hope to meet my first small goal by the end if Feb and pay off £50.

Must get to it then. Any other tips would be much appreciated.

RaspberryRipple

Good Luck with your mortgage free journey Daisychain!

I cut my electricity bill by £25 per month just by switching things off that weren't being used.

I'm with you on the waiting a few extra days to do food shopping, having done some freezer and cupboard diving this afternoon, I realized I've got tons of food that I'd forgotton about, so I'm going to wait a week before I go shopping again.

Have you been on the mortgage over payment calulator yet? It's very addictive making overpayments when you realise what a difference they make.

Daisychain1

Thanks RaspberryRipple, That is a staggering amount to save on electric each month. It's inspired me to go around the house and turn everything off. Aslo just checked out the overpayment calculator and cannot quite believe how much you can save on interest and the amount of years owing just by paying small, regular amounts.

I suppose I should share a little bit about our situation to help you get a better picture. It's me and the OH in our 30s with no kiddies. We took out 35 year mortgage 3 years ago in order to keep the monthly payments as low as possible with the intention of overpaying. However 3 years on and we are only just ready to make small overpayments. I'm quite annoyed with myself for not starting sooner but I suppose better late than never :mad:

I will be keeping a very strict budget for all expenses with a little of bit of entertainment money to keep us sane The best place for making cut backs will be our grocery shopping. At present we spend approx £200 pm for the two of us. Is this considered high or normal? We are quite frugal by nature and don't drink, smoke or have cable tv. Our only treat is an occasional meal out, which more recently has become more of a regular occurrence!

I'm really motivated to get started so please join me on my journey. All advice, tips and encouragement are definitely welcome
:wave:

Daisychain1

Here I go on day 1

Have an NSD day by staying in on this horrible day, cleaning the house and making homemade crumble and cake with ingredients i already have.

See what money I have sat in bank accounts that I can round down. Is this a Tilly Tidy?

Do an hours website work for my small business.

Relax

Let's see how many pennies I can gather together today.

Have a good day and stay safe in this hideous weather

kirstypark

Welcome Daisychain - that is a TillyTidy. And now you know that you are well on your way to mortgage freedom.:beer:

Groceries are the section where i make the biggest saving - we are a family of 4 adults and use to spend over a £100 every shop - which was sometimes every few days. That included a lot of treats like clothes, DVD, books - not just food. Now i try to go once every 2 weeks and spend £50. Inbetween we pick up milk, bread and eggs locally, then use the freezer a lot.

Daisychain1

Brilliant news. By rounding down my bank accounts I've managed to get together £86. So chuffed

yukkibear

Hi welcome to the madhouse and good luck on your journey. It's amazing how addictive it is and you'll discover all the little ways to make and save to OP and find you are OPing more than you think.

RaspberryRipple

Morning!

£86...that's brilliant and you're only on day 1!

A few years back It seemed like I was forever getting letters from the electricity company saying the prices were going up AGAIN, so we cut the electricity bill from £65 a month to £40 just by switching everything off that wasn't being used and at the socket too (don't know if the socket thing saves much electricity, but that's what we do) My 3 children were young at the time, they are all teenagers now and fortunately the habit has stuck with them ( I'd say that's a minor miracle! )

The tip I have ( if you can call it a tip ) is that on my mortgage paperwork it says that I pay £1.46 for every £1 that I have borrowed. This little nugget of info really manages me to focus on not spending money on frivolous tat that I don't need and use it to OP on the mortgage instead.

Muser1

:hello:

Hi and welcome!
.
I only make very diddy ops at the minute. It's more about the mindset for me just now. Hopefully in a couple of years I can go for it big style.

Good luck I will subscribe. X

Daisychain1

Thanks to you all for the lovely welcome :j

Well today has not been a NSD day as hoped but it was all within budget so not too bothered by this. OH wanted to go out for the day and seeing it was a nice day I felt a bit bad saying no, it is his birthday weekend after all! We had a really lovely time and had lunch out but now home to an evening of HM pizza and a cozy up with the log burner going.

I did however manage to make two HM crumbles so I did at least tick something off my to do list and will try and do some ironing this evening, but I can make no promises

I'm feeling very motivated at the moment so bring on day 2