Back to MFW with a bump! lilmissmups MFW journey

lilmissmup

Hello all!

I have had a MFW diary before where we overpaid approx £3k but then I got tempted by a shiney car and got a loan instead so have spent last 20 months paying £200 a month towards that instead! :cool::o

But my life situation has now changed and I am expecting my first baby in August.

Me and OH have just remortgaged again as our 2 year fix was up so we borrowed an extra £6k on the mortgage to clear my loan and I have called HSBC today and settled that so I am now loan free but the debt is still with us just in a different format!

I do have a 0% credit card too with approx £4500 on it too but its still got 21 months left on the 0% so I am not worried about that, will be making the minimum payments whilst I am off on maternity leave.

I currently have 1 more full pay until I only get 90% pay in August from maternity leave then I get not a lot at all from Septembers pay....:cool:

I do have £1132 sat in a TSB Plus account earning 5% each month I pay in £500 so will be doing that with my maternity/wages. I am sure the balance on this will fluctuate though whilst I am on maternity leave but should still earn a bit of interest for me.

lilmissmup

So we have borrowed £107,382 for our new mortgage from Accord Mortgages at a rate of 2.09% for a 2 year fix.

Our house is worth approx £170,000k so our LTV is 63%.

We only got a 2 year fix as we want to move house within 2 years maximum, OH already has 2 children who stay with us 50% of the time and we will be looking to buy a 3/4 bedroom house in a nearby small town where they currently live with their mum and which has schools and good shops and public transport.

Where we currently live is a 2 road village with no shops.....:cool: I wanted to move before baby is born but thats not going to happen!

But to live there will probably cost us £250k to buy a house..... so we need to be very frugal and try save/overpay where we can.

Hoping very much so interest rates don't change much in 2 years....:o

lilmissmup

The bad thing about our mortgage being with Accord is it doesn't look easy to keep an eye on my balance for the mortgage so if anyone can pinpoint me in the direction of a spreadsheet I can use to calculate our balance without phoning up every 5 mins I would appreciate it!

And apparently their customer services is a bit dire but hey they were cheapest!

I will keep looking on here for one but I get confused easily these days!

Beckyy

Welcome back! :cool:

I don't know much about accord, had a quick nosey on their website and looks like most over the phone?

Really chuffed for you getting your loan out of the way, must be a massive relief with little one almost here. Hope everything is going well with him/her! :wave:

lilmissmup

Shame the loan is now on the mortgage but no way I could have paid £200 off it each month whilst on maternity leave!!!

lilmissmup

9 more working days left for me before maternity leave

Got £40 coming from a survey site on Tuesday as I did a £35 telephone mystery shop for them the other week.

Still got £140 in bank and 18 days until payday too.

Its my 30th birthday Wednesday :eek: but should get some birthday money from family.

Sadly my car insurance is due in 4 weeks and looking online its going to cost me around £300 so all my birthday money will be going towards that.

Still need a mortgage calculator spreadsheet.....

dingling68

Hi,

Congratulations on the impending arrival of mini mup - exciting times ahead.

I did a quick search and can suggest searching the forum for Locoblade's mortgage calculator or there is one by financial bliss- if you search on their names, you'll find their threads.

I would very much like to be a MFW but haven't started a diary yet so thought I would come and gatecrash yours for now!

HTH

lilmissmup

Hello!

Not posted for a while as not much to report and been working/busy/turning 30!

I finished work last Friday though, currently on annual leave and start my maternity leave on 1st August....

Got paid today so paid £200 off my Barclaycard for purchases for baby stuff from the other month and we brought a new washing machine the other week as ours was pretty much dead so will be paying that off next month meaning the outstanding balance will be £4250 for me to keep on top of whilst I am off.....:o

I currently have £1636 sat in my 5% TSB account but need to renew my car insurance next week and thats going to cost me approx £320 so that will come out of that account.

Checked our household bills account and we currently have £2920 in there as I have just paid in £645 in for my contribution toward bills plus to cover some money I owed.

OH pays in £1400 each month to it as well so that will go in on 1st August.

Looking at the direct debits we have coming out each month....

ACCORD MORTGAGES £598.43
ANGLIAN WATER £56.46
BOOTS REWARDSCHEME £12.00 (OHs contact lenses although he does have a load still so might cancel this for a few months...)
BT GROUP PLC £47.20 (Internet and phone....we live in a 2 road village and can only get internet from BT....:cool::mad::cool:)
CENTRAL BEDS CNCL £127.00
LEISURE CONN LTD £18.50 (OH's swimming membership)
SCOTTISH POWER £98.00 (Gas and Electric, cheapest we can get but I need to check how much we are in credit by.....)
ST ANDREWS LIFE £35.77 (OHs life insurance.....we need to sort out joint cover for us now I am having baby as I have none....:o)
TV LICENCE MBP £12.12

So approx £940 in bills for both of us plus OH's £67.

I also pay for my cats insurance and phone out of my own bank account and OH has his phone coming out of his personal bank account.

OH also pays £400 maintenance to his ex wife for his two children each month even though we have them 50% of the time.... I think he pays her too much but ho hum not my place to butt in!

OH earns approx £43k a year though and I was earning about £18k a year until now but I am not sure I will be returning to work next year, at least not to my old job.

lilmissmup

So this diary will mainly be about trying to keep on top of bills and ensuring the household account doesn't drop too much by being as careful as possible with money especially on food so when it comes to April we can survive on his wage when my maternity pay stops....

We will get £20 in Child Benefit each week too but thats not going to go far....

Also we do really need to try and move house somehow..... its looking like OH's children are going to have to share a room from about Feb/March next year and thats not likely to go down very well.....

But house prices for where we want to move too for a 4 bedroom house is approx £300k!!!! :eek:

If we finish doing up our house we may get £200k for it so would have about £100k in Equity but would still need to borrow £200k which is not feasible on one wage.

So we would probably look at buying another 3 bedroom house which we could either extend to a 4 bedroom house or that we could get a loft conversion done too for one of his kids....

OH does have some shares worth approx £16k but he gets a bonus of about £1k each year from them so he doesn't want to sell them unless we have too which is fair enough.

I will copy and paste our list of things that need doing to our house before we can put it up for sale from my other diary but its pretty depressing.... :cool:

lilmissmup

[FONT=&quot]Stuff to do on house before selling[/FONT]

· Replace front door
· Refill holes on walls near front doors
· Paint stair walls/ceiling
· Redecorate Lucas room
· Redecorate Caras room
· Redecorate our room
· Replace upstairs doors (4)
· Shampoo upstairs carpets
· Replace living room floor
· Paint living room and skirting boards
· Remove radiator on living room wall
· Replace living room curtains
· Paint and fill doorframes
· Replace all downstairs doors (3)
· Paint dining room
· Fit wooden floor in dining room
· Fit skirting board in dining room
· Repaint kitchen
· Fit skirting board in kitchen
· Fit cupboard handles in kitchen
· Fix gap between cooker/cupboard in kitchen
· Tidy/redo grout in kitchen
· Fix drainage in garden
· Finish/Tidy grouting bathroom walls
· Tidy Seal around bath
· Hide pipes in bathroom

Some of these jobs are half done but my OH flits from task to task and never finishes anything....:cool:

lilmissmup

I would also like to try and earn an extra £100 a month from online surveys etc whilst I am off and plan to enter some comps to try get some pennies/prizes.

So time to get cracking.....

Need to go on oldstylemoneysaving and get some ideas for my slow cooker too!!!