Small steps to reduce a big debt!! x

LittleMissGiggles123

Hi All

I've wandered these forums for years and would love to be mortgage free but never thought I'd get my husband on board. BUT, he's now on board so we're trying small things to clear our mortgage but also trying not to change too many things in ours & our daughters lives.

So first of all, the numbers.

House purchased October 2006.
Total Mortgage Outstanding as of January 2014 £169,303.72
I have checked the balance again recently but have forgotten the figure.
Monthly payment amount £912.29 (currently on SVR)

And now to the small things I'm doing to help us with our mission.

Have completed the forms to transfer our mortgage to another deal with lower interest rate. Fixed APR of 3.49%, monthly payment will be just under £800 but we are planning to overpay every month by 10% as that is the limit our provider will let us overpay without incurring Early Repayment Charges.

Started two £1 per day pots. Every day I am putting £1 in to these 2 pots. I have decided on 2 pots so that if I need to access a few pounds in an emergency, I have 1 pot that can be accessed & 1 that will stay intact. If I just put £2 per day in to one pot I think I would be more tempted to just take all the cash in one go.

Keeping current account on a round number every day, by transferring the odd £'s & pennies in to savings. So for example, all my wages go in to the current account. Today some bills went out so I had £273.47p in the account. So I have transferred £3.47p in to the savings account so that my current account is on a round £270.00. The savings account is on a very meagre £18.07 at the moment, but that is instant access. We do have other savings which we cannot touch.

Completing surveys online. Recently got to the £40 on Onepoll so have claimed that, just waiting for it to hit my bank account now.

So thats it for now. I've got some other tasks I need to do so will keep updating.

Good luck to everyone with their mortgage free journeys.

x

LittleMissGiggles123

MSE things I've done today to help towards the end goal.

Walked to school to pick daughter up - I don't get to do this often because I work full time so usually pick her up from her grandparents in the car on my way home. Was a beautiful day today so took her to the park. It's lovely to get some fresh air

Instead of buying an ice cream from the ice cream van for my daughter, I remembered that we had a tub in the freezer so she had some of this instead. Last summer the van came round every single day, sometimes twice a day, and we always got roped in to buying an ice cream. They were at least £1 each & last summer was gorgeous, so I worked out we must have easily spent well over £100 after buying for both daughters & sometimes friends too!

Listed some unwanted items on ebay & amazon. Also finally bagged up some of my daughters toys that she no longer plays with & somebody in my local area recently asked if she could buy for her son. She has offered £10 for the whole bag, which is great as I was just going to give them away.

Had a little sort out of various bookcases & underbed storage. Thats where I found some of the items that I have listed (as above) but have also found unopened, unused toiletry gifts which I am going to keep to give as gifts for people's birthdays etc this year.

Also under my bed I found 2 netbooks which we no longer use. I am going to give one to our youngest. She was given a small laptop by her nan about a year ago to play games on, but the screen has a line down the middle of it, so she can have the netbook now & I'll try to sell the other one.

Have not spent any money today, which is very good for me. But unfortunately I popped in to our local library today as I remembered that years ago I had a membership that I haven't used in a while. Unfortunately when the lady checked, it seems that I took some books out a few years ago & have not returned them (probably why I never went back), so they would need to charge me to replace them. It totals £29 altogether because some of them were hardbacks. The lady was very lovely & said that I don't have to pay it yet, but will need to before taking out more books. I have looked for the books at home but they're nowhere to be seen, which is ridiculous as my house is overrun with books. I might check Amazon to see if I can buy them cheap & see if the library will accept the replacements. Fingers crossed!

Back in work tomorrow but hoping not to spend much money. I would like to have another NSD but I think I'll end up buying something for lunch as we don't have any sandwich fillings in the house. Unless I just take some bread & a packet of crisps to make a crisp sandwich!

Will be putting up a to do list shortly of things I want to get done tomorrow.

x

LittleMissGiggles123

Keep lunch time spending to a minimum!
Don't forget to add £1 per pot per day.
Take toys round to Mrs J to get money.
Do some more surveys.
One load of washing when home.

LittleMissGiggles123

I didn't quite manage a NSD today. I should have but had a night to myself tonight so treated myself to a few nibbles.

Didn't have to buy lunch though as my new boss bought me a sandwich.

Added my £1's to both pots. I am really hoping I never have to raid these pots, well at least until a major event like Christmas.

Did a load of surveys on Onepoll, VO & InboxPounds today.

Didn't do a washing load but thats because I haven't got a full load to do, which is very unusual in this house!

So tomorrows To Do List is

£1 in both pots
Take toys round (forgot today)
More surveys
One washing load
Help with daughters homework

Hope everyone else's missions are going well.

Hurdler

All sounds very positive - keep it up

LittleMissGiggles123

Haven't been on for ages! Well, been on but not updated here.

£1 per day has been going well, have kept it up with the 2 pots & not had to take anything back out.

My eldest daughters bank account is now sorted, so I have a standing order going to her at the beginning of every month with her months pocket money in. The deal is she gets £55 per month, but out of that she HAS to save at least £10 per month. If she doesn't save it one month, she will have the money deducted out of her next month's money until she has caught up with saving that £10 per month. Seems to be working so far because she still hasn't spent any money, there are things she wants to buy but she really puts thought in to what she is going to buy & so far hasn't actually bought anything!

I've been keeping up with the surveys. I've set up 2 accounts on Onepoll, one in my name & one in my husbands. Onepoll paid out the £40 on my account recently & the 2nd account is only just set up, so I'm on £8.50 on the one account now & £4.55 on the other account.

Valued Opinions is sending me lots of surveys but then I'm getting screened out of some of them & some of them are so long!!

We've had the letter from our mortgage provider confirming the new amount is set up. April will be a higher amount (but still lower than current payment) then from 1st May it will go to the lower monthly amount. Now that I know it's set up I'm going to call them about setting up a separate standing order for the overpayment.

I've been keeping up with transferring money from the current account in to savings too. It's only small amounts but I think it will add up eventually. It's on about £25 now which doesn't seem a lot but that would be enough to pay for a few birthday presents for my daughters friends (so many parties at the age of 6!!). My ultimate goal though is to keep doing this & keep it for Christmas spending.

Oh, one of my other things I'm doing now too, is that every month I have set a budget of £40 and out of that I have to spend £20 on a christmas present for somebody & £20 in to a Christmas savings pot. I know it involves spending money but in previous years I've always left everything until the last minute, did all my xmas shopping in November & then been skint in December.

Went on Boots the other day to start this shopping, saw a lovely gift set that would be great for my stepmum. It said it was £20 but when I put it through the checkout I was only charged £9, so I've still got £11 to spend this month but also have to put away the £20 saving.

The one thing I'm still struggling with is lunch times. I am going to google some lunch time ideas so I'm not just having a sandwich every day, I get bored of sandwiches so quickly!

Well, good luck everybody!

x

LittleMissGiggles123

I've had a lovely Mothers day, not had to lift a finger all day!! Such lovely weather too which is supposed to last all week - woohoo!!

As for money, the £1 per day is still going well. Don't know how much the total is now but don't want to count it in case I get tempted to spend it.

I've also been keeping up with transferring the small amounts out of current account in to savings account. It's now on £36 odd which is good. It's an extra £10 since last time I updated & thats only small amounts that I don't notice.

I took a packed lunch to work twice this week, so thats saved a few pounds. I know I won't stick to it for very long if I try & take my own packed lunch every day, so I'm going to start taking it in a few days a week for now & then increase the days as I start coming up with more ideas of things to take in. I will get too bored if it's just a sandwich every day, but last week I took a bagel in & we sometimes have pasta as our evening meal so I can cook a bit extra to take to work the next day.

Surveys are going ok. I'm still doing them but Onepoll surveys seem to be getting longer but the payout is always low. The VO surveys are so long too & I get screened out of them quite a bit. I'll keep going with it though.

Checked Quidco today too & have £10.35 confirmed waiting for me to claim for payment. I think I'm going to leave it there until it hits £25 then claim it. That shouldn't take too long as in the next few months I have both daughters birthdays, Easter & some insurance renewals to sort.

First payday of new job was on Friday & I haven't spent any of it! I used to get paid last working day of the month & then bills out on the 1st of the month, so there was never any time between payday & bills going out. But now payday is last Friday of the month so there will be some months where my money is sitting in the account for a few days before bills come out. I have to be strict with that & make sure I don't just look at the balance & think I have loads of money to spend.

We've tidied up the garden a bit today, it was such a mess from being battered by the bad weather we had. It still needs a lot more work & unfortunately we need new garden furniture this year. We've had the current set for 7 years now & it's in a bad way now. Looking on A*da though there is a set of table, 6 seats & parasol for £125 which is so much cheaper than the sets I've seen in B&Q etc!

I want to make the front & back gardens look prettier this year though as they look a bit bland. We haven't got grass because when we had grass it was covered in weeds all the time, we even had it returfed but that made no difference. A lot of our neighbours gardens are the same, so not sure if it's a problem area? Anyway, because of the no grass the garden looks a bit bland so I want to get some large troughs, fill with compost & plant some seeds to grow some flowers.

My to do list for this week:

Put £40 in the Christmas pot (still haven't put March payment in & now have April payment to put in too)
Start clearing eldest daughters bedroom for redecoration
List some items on ebay
Make a curry
Sort out girls wardrobes for clothes that don't fit - this will give some stuff for ebay listings

Anyway I think thats all for now, I have gone on a bit long here!

x

LittleMissGiggles123

So March went well. My 2 £1 per day pots had the correct amount in each, so thats £62 sitting in the pots now (plus the last 2 days worth of payments).

I was going to leave it all in there until I couldn't fit anymore money in the pots, but I think as time goes on I might lose track of how much is actually supposed to be in each pot & also if it's sitting in the pot in my bedroom I will be more tempted to spend the money.

So instead I'm going to pay the first months money in to my savings account & then pay it in at the end of every month.

Apart from the pots, I've also done well with the other goals I set.

Have only spent on lunch once this week so far & looks like I won't need to spend anything tomorrow or Friday as well, so saved myself around £16 there.
Have been transferring the money from current account in to savings whenever it needs rounding. Got about £40 in there now.
Bought a few more Xmas presents with my £20 per month fund.
Surveys going ok.

Anyway, I've got a quiet evening tonight so going to catch up on some TV.

Hope everyone's MF missions are going well.

x

LittleMissGiggles123

Wow, it's been ages since I last updated. Been on here loads but just reading other people's diaries rather than updating my own.

The Bank Holiday weekend has been lovely but a little expensive. Not only was it Easter, it was also our daughters birthday.

However, I have been conscious of how much money we're spending so I was pretty good with things this year. Easter usually consists of a huge Easter egg hunt around the house which results in far too many eggs not being eaten & taking up room in the kitchen. Well this year I limited it to 2 eggs each just for the kids & a few small treats (kinder eggs, chocolate bar). They were not bothered in the slightest, they have enough chocolate & treats anyway.

I went through a cash back website when ordering my daughters birthday presents so have earned a bit through that & there were a few things that I wanted to get her from Next, but remembered I had £50 voucher so used that instead of cash. She was very pleased with all her gifts & has now gone out for the day with her friends. She is having a sleepover next week so I've just got to think of ways to keep that relatively cheap.

As for moneysaving, I'm still keeping up with the 2 £1 per day pots but have not paid last months money in to my savings account yet. I have hidden the money in a purse that I no longer use though, so at least I've not spent it!!

I also put a few things on ebay & made £80. I was very happy with that as I was originally just going to give the things away (some children's' toys) but thought I'd give it one go on ebay. I have more things to get rid of but trying to decide if ebay or gumtree would be better, as they are bags of random toys that I would rather somebody collect.

I've been transferring money in to the savings account to keep the current account at a round number. This has been small this month though so only got £54 odd in the account now. I get paid at the end of this week though so once all the bills are paid I will see what I can transfer.

I've fallen behind on surveys. Am going to do some today though so hopefully that will boost the funds a bit.

I hope everyone has enjoyed the Easter bank holiday.

Good luck to all you DFW's.

x

black_taxi_2

Making the decision to become MF is a life changer

I took out small bank loans every couple of years for years,never repaying my capital mortgage,just loan debt.,took the decision to be MF 2009 after finding M.S.E.

My main advice is not to take on new debt if at all possible,If your struggling,many unknowns out there.just stop o/p,main thing is your capital debt hasn't gone up end of year.

you will make the journey,and if you are struggling feel free to post your concerns,on MF thread

LittleMissGiggles123

Thanks BT. I will definitely not be taking on any more debt. After having debt since the first credit card at the age of 20, I just HATE the thought of more debt now.

Looks like you are very close to being mortgage free now, 6 years to MF, that is amazing. Well done & good luck in the last year of overpayments.

x