Managing The Mortgages

saver03

Luckyinlife wrote: »

Great stuff life is for enjoying just as much as it is for paying stuff off :]

We do want to make sure we still enjoy our little luxuries so we don't feel like all we do is work and pay bills. Although, we are aware that if we pay off our mortgage sooner, we save money on the interest that we pay and therefore we can afford more luxuries. But this is a task that will take a number of years so we don't want to get disheartened and lose focus so we make sure we have a good balance.

The weather is wet and wild where I am and it keeps trying to snow so we are going to stay in, well I am sending OH to get some of those 2 for £1.50 Easter Eggs as my friend told me that it ends today. But I am going to eBay like a good girl :A

Anyway, enough of my procrastination I need to go and make some money.

Luckyinlife

Defiantly work to live part of living is making sure you pay for everything you have :] good blance is key

Personally im going to go without nice things for a while now ie expensive car ect ect my only debt i have is the mortgage i recently got see sig :]

Also with the ebay selling/facebook im keeping all the money after fees ect in my paypal till i hit my target of 800-1000 then transfer it over to the mortgage fund when it Gd luck with your sales :]

saver03

Today my plan is to do a lot more eBaying as I have brought all the stuff down from the attic that I am putting on with buy it now and it is taking over my front room I am hoping this will work to motivate me!

I thought I would set myself short term goals so I don't lose focus.

• Our fixed rate is finishing December 2017 so I want us to get to 60% LTV (should be easily done if we stick with our £100 monthly OP, and if the property values don't fall)
• We pay OH's parents £500 a month for our loan so have 13 more payments but would like to pay it off before the end of this year (sacrifices will have to be made somewhere)
• The loan with my mum isn't being paid back really, just the odd bit here and there, so we are going to make an effort with that and get it paid back asap. My plan is £100 a month until we have paid other family loan back.

Anyway, must dash as being surrounded by boxes is driving me insane already so need to get them listed on eBay and back in the attic.

saver03

Well the OH got paid a few days early so just had a play around with budget and figures and have popped £500 into his ISA :j ssssshh don't tell him though :rotfl:

I want to firstly save the spending money we need for New York, even though it is 10 months and 3 days away. (not that I'm counting or anything) Although I do need to figure out how much spending money we will actually need, but I do work on the theory that I would rather take too much than not enough. We were talking about maybe having a cheap week away someone warm in summer but that would depend on the finances and if we have saved the New York spending money. Holidays are our weakness but they are our only indulgence really, well that and the odd takeaway! We are hoping to strike a happy balance between living life and moving into our forever home.

Next plan is to pay back MIL before the end of the year, and that is something that I really want to accomplish. I think I would forgo a summer break to be able to do this, but not too sure what the OH would say about that. But if my eBay sales do really well I don't see why we can't do both.

With that being said I need to get back to eBay to continue with my listings as I still have a couple of boxes cluttering up the living room and lots more money to make.

saver03

Was just updating my status as we have paid another £500 off MIL loan and £100 to my mother, so thought I would motivate myself and bore you all with an update.

EBay sales have been coming in dribs and drabs but just checked paypal account and there's just short of £150 in there :j Just need to finish off getting all my buy it nows on there, and that will be done today. And then I move on to my auction listings and pray for bidding wars and lots of money!

There has been a set back to my plans and that is Madonna coming to Manchester. Just checked on Ticketmaster and tickets are £192.50 :eek: And here's me trying to reduce the spending on the credit card, we do pay it off every month, but just think of the lovely Tesco points I will get :rotfl:

saver03

Well maybe not doubts but I am thinking that while we have a low mortgage payment we should take all the holidays that we want. Even though this morning I was cursing the neighbours as I was woken up with them shouting at what I hope was the dog :mad: I think maybe it's the grim weather we seem to be having that is making me want to go to more exotic climes. But we aren't getting any younger, I am still in my prime at the young age of 35, but the OH is 44 now :rotfl: So I think we should go on holiday while we are still able to get around well, as I love sightseeing and experiencing new adventures. But then with the OH being later on in life, trying not to use the phrase old, we should be thinking of mover sooner rather than later so he doesn't have to work into his 70s. We would be OPing so hopefully we would pay the mortgage off our forever home a lot sooner. I'm going back and fourth in my head, and here was me thinking it would become clearer writing it down on here!

Either way, holiday or forever home, we will still need money so I better get off here to finish off my eBaying as it won't sell if I don't list it.

I'm still hoping for a lottery win as that way we could do it all, and much more, but the odds are against me so I better learn how to get the balance right.

egoode

I think it's a really hard balance to strike between holidays and longer term plans. In my 20's I probably focussed a bit too much on the holidays so now trying to get the balance back more to the long term plans.

However I definitely don't want to have a life like my Mum's where she always planned to do things one day but ended up dying just before her 60th birthday and hardly did any of the things she planned to do one day. Luckily though thanks to me moving to the UK she did at least travel to the UK and other places in Europe like she always planned to so she did get some of her wishes.

Good luck with your plans and hope you can strike a balance you are happy with.

saver03

egoode wrote: »

However I definitely don't want to have a life like my Mum's where she always planned to do things one day but ended up dying just before her 60th birthday and hardly did any of the things she planned to do one day.

This is my biggest fear as I would hate to be on my death bed with regrets. I think that I am worrying about this more as 2 of my nan's sisters are struggling with secondary cancer and 1 doesn't have long to go. Plus, someone that I grew up with also has secondary cancer and 2 years ago was given 18 months to live, and she's younger than me. I know how your health can change so quickly and debilitate you, as I have Crohn's disease and for a number of years it was hell and has left me with a permanent ileostomy. Since my last operation, where I had my colon removed, we have been on holiday at least once a year and we do such adventurous things. I think it is my way of saying that the bag won't stop me living my life and I can still do everything, like paragliding or going down the biggest water slides.

But then last night I was dreaming about my annoying neighbours so that is clearly playing on my mind. I shouldn't jinx it but both sides are quiet at the moment, even the dogs! I don't mind as much when the dogs are barking it's just when the left side shout at poor Dylan. We only know the dog's name as the "man" of the house shouts at him a lot and I think he wouldn't bark and get so excitable if they actually took him out for a walk :mad:

Anyway, enough of my ramblings I still have lots to list on eBay. The only thing for certain is that if we go on holiday or buy a new home we will need more money, and as we haven't won the lottery yet eBay is the way to go

saver03

I now feel slightly nauseous at the price that I paid for 2 Madonna tickets. I won't tell you the amount as it is :eek: and also very shameful

I have buyers remorse now but I will use this to spur me on to get lots listed on eBay. I don't want to have to take money out of the emergency fund, which is a fixed rate isa, as I fear that if we touch that we wouldn't stop until it was empty.

I keep thinking of how we could have better used that money, paid it off the MIL loan, OP mortgage, had a holiday _pale_

RIGHT! What's done is done so I am going to stop feeling sorry for myself, as quite frankly I don't deserve it, and get off my a$$ and eBay until all my stuff is listed.

saver03

Well I must say the guilt of yesterday's ticket purchase really worked wonders for my motivation :rotfl:

My mother, being the Saint that she is, says she will lend me the money to pay for the tickets and add it to what I owe her. This does stop me dipping into my emergency funds but then I do need to stand on my own 2 feet and deal with the consequences of my spending. My mum said she won't need the money back for a couple of years, thankfully, so she told me to put it in a savings account instead of paying it her back. And then I got to thinking that while we have 6 months of outgoings saved now when we move to our forever home we will need a larger emergency fund. So my plan is now to pay the MIL loan back before the end of the year, 3 months early :A And then use the extra £500 a month to top up my ISA until it gets to £20,000 and that will be my emergency fund and the money we owe my mum. But I will hopefully be able to put more than £500 a month in and reach the target a lot sooner. And then once we have that fund sorted we are going to save our excess money to use as a deposit on our forever home as we want to have at least 80% LTV.

Anyway, enough of my rambling as words alone will not help us. So I am now off to eBay like a man woman again and come Sunday I am hoping for crazy bidding wars, or even a lottery win!