The journey to financial independence.

Cream_Tea

SOA coming up. DH and myself have never monitored our spending on clothes, food shop or going out but have agreed to trial for a month a £30 a week each spending money and £50 for both of us to spend on our weekly shop. These figures may change as we have no idea if its too much / too little.

OUTGOINGS

Gas 58
Electric 72
Water 33.34
TV 12.12
Life ins 39.38
Home and contents ins 37.25
Council tax 128
DH and my Mobile 88
Internet, TV, landline 36.61
Mortgage 879 + 400 overpayment = 1279
Spending money 240
Food shop 200
TOTAL £2223.70

INCOMING

DH 2000
Mine 1700
TOTAL £3700

REMAINING MONEY
£1476.30

This has actually been quite a eye opener. Considering I have not declared the money both DH and myself get when we work antisocial hours and for overtime. I cannot believe how much money we have wasted over the last two years.

Plan for this week:
-Go to cash point and take out £30 for each of us.
-Take all cards out of our wallets.
-Do online shop to ensure we have food in to achieve this plan
-Make more soup and freezable dinners to prepare for the week ahead.

Any advice welcome.

Cream_Tea

Sorry forgot to add £163 for DH bike repayments and £23 and £27 for our gym membership. Bringing our remaining to £1263.

jodles16

Sounds like you have a good solid plan and are making great headway into your MFW journey already!

Jodles

StrugglingYouth

Hi Cream Tea!

It is staggering the amount of interest you pay on mortgages! Im glad its been eyeopening for you.

Try using this Statement of Affairs calculator its quite in depth and may make you realise where you're spending money you dont recall:

http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

Cream_Tea

I agree struggling youth. My mortgage interest was worse a few months ago at 6.4% it was only last month that the interest went down to 2.49% one of the more satisfying days of my life!
I'm going to have a play around with the calculator and see what to do. I will check in later in the week for update of how this weeks plan works out.
CT

JimLad

Right then, I recon you could squeeze that lot!

Just a quick glance at those outgoings and it seems to me you are paying too much for your home and contents insurance. £37 a month is loads! Make sure you get a few quotes as ours was £80 for the year. Remember not to over insure as its a waste of money.

Mobile phones also seem an awful lot...are you locked into contracts for that £88?

System

Hi Cream Tea.

Just had a read through and loving your organisation. I'd not thought of just ringing the normal bills and asking if they could reduce it at all to make it more manageable. :T

Using cash instead of having your cards handy is also a good way to stop spending so removing cards from wallet/purse is a great plan.

Keep up the good work. I'll be reading

philhbug

Hi Cream Tea,

Looks like a good start, £400/month overpayment will make a big difference.

As far as bills go, gas and electric seem pretty high, electric particularly, I'm presuming your heating is all done on gas. Probably worth checking with the utility company to see if the payments match your usage or if they're just building up a big credit earning them interest instead of you! (Just found out my gas account has £150 quid sitting in it!)

Cream_Tea

JimLad, I'm off today and tomorrow so I will have a look around and see what I can get for home and contents insurance. I'm paying £364 more than you a year!

VinnyBro1988, I love being organised I just am not so good at keeping it up month on month. I'm hoping this diary will keep me focused. Bank cards at home is currently a winner.

Philhbug, our gas and electric were worse before they took it down now we have to pay extra each 6 month to make the difference I've started giving readings but we have a very old boiler and small radiators (something we are saving to replace) so I think this is not helping the amount we spend. I think I need to shop around something which fills me with dread it seems like such a massive task.

So far money taken out the cash point and cards removed from wallet achieved. Day off today so will be making some soup and cottage pies.

Keep up the good work team MFW.

greent

Definitely address the insurance - we've just renewed at just under £300 for combined insurance with a known name (Axa) with accidental damage cover on both house and contents, garage cover, some cover for larger value items - for a 5 bed detached (with 4 under 18yo in) and a large claim within the last 12 months. I could've got it cheaper than that, but I like having a known name so am prepared to pay a bit more:o:p