Today's The Day

Daisychain1

Well as the title of this thread suggests, today's the day I am finally getting going on my mortgage free challenge. It was meant to begin the moment we took out the mortgage almost four years ago but life just kind of got in the way. So here goes......

My Aims

To begin with the overpayments will be very small. We are still in the process of doing the house up although we are almost finished and so a lot of funds get spent on this. I'm hoping once the work has all been done there will be a bit extra to overpay but in the meantime it will be £5 here and £10 there. Therefore I'm setting myself a mini target of £50 each month from September -December.

How To Achieve

I hope to achieve this by thinking about every purchase and whether or not it is necessary. Our biggest spends our on groceries and eating out so these are definitely two areas where savings could be made. I think it's important to strike a good balance between enjoying life and saving so I will be taking this into account but frivolous spending is now a thing of the past.

I hope this diary gives me the focus I need to finally start doing this and your motivation and any tips will be greatly received.

If anyone is still reading I will be amazed but talking to myself is nothing new

DC1

Cariad71

Hello DC1,
Good luck on your quest. £50 seems like an achievable target.
I think you've got the right idea....getting the balance right between spending and saving.
I find it helpful to post about my overpayments/mishaps.
Have you 'played' with the mortgage calculator apps? They're a good motivator too.
Anyway, keep posting and good luck!

kirstypark

hello, starting small is a great idea - once you see the differance even £10 makes it gives you an incentive to pay off more. Groceries are where we made our biggest saving - we used to spend over £100 a week, now only spend half of that.

Daisychain1

Morning Cariad71 and Kirstypark. Thanks for dropping by :j

Cariad71 it's been a while since I played around with the mortgage calculator so off to do that now for some motivation.

Kirstypark how many people do you feed for approx £50. There are two of us but I really struggle to keeping below about £55 a week. I have been batch cooking more recently so hope this will help keep meal costs down in the coming months but any tips you have would be great.

kirstypark

I feed 3 adults and sometimes 4! It's cheating a bit as kids both work in supermarket and so often come home with food that's been reduced and they pay for. I grow a lot of our own veg, use my slow cooker all the time and cook most meals from scratch. Batch cooking and freezing additional portions. I add puy lentils to most stews and chillis to bulk out portions.

I do nectar adpoints to get some free food once every few weeks. Get a year's worth of toiletaries from the Boots sale every january so rarely need to buy much smelly stuff during the year. We try and put off going to supermarkets as long as possible and wander about with a calculator - it makes you very aware of prices!