Diary of my new life !!!

hypno06

Morning benben - just catching up with your diary, hope you are ok!! You sound as though you are doing fantastically!

benbenandme

Today I spent £2.20 on lunch, there weren't many options available today so I went for macaroni cheese and jelly. Not a favourite of mine and wasn't particularly nice When I got home I was really hungry and have had a small kitkat and a bourbon biscuit I will try and be good tomorrow as I'm meeting Tigzem for lunch on saturday and I'm gonna have whatever I want then
Nothing to add financially although this evening I will try and figure out where my bank account is up to so I can see if I'm still on track for the month

benbenandme

I have just bought my train ticket for when I go to see Take That next week :j :j and pigsback are offering 50 points for every £ you spend with south west trains, so it cost me £21.50 but I should get £10.50 back in points and they are supposed to be credited within 24 hours. I am currently on 955 points so that will take me up to 2000 points, so I can order another 2 x £10.00 vouchers before christmas :j :j

Madcatgirl

Hi Benben. I've been reading your diary for a while and just want to say well done on paying that much off the mortgage! Saving money is my hobby as well, although my only debt is £8grand of student loan, the majority of which I still have in an ISA, I'm always looking out to find new ways to save. My latest is cashback clicks which are addictive!

Well done so far - have you thought about your mortgage pay off challenge for next year?

benbenandme

Madcatgirl ... I had a think today about my pland for my mortgage and will post later on once ds has gone to bed with all the details when I'm not distracted
Today I spent £2.30 on lunch. I got another £2 coin in my change so thats gotta go in the pot :rolleyes:
My stuff from Avon was delivered today and all the kiddy stuff smells divine! I've got that lovely its-friday-night-and-I've-got-two-days-off-work feeling ... I've just had a cup of tea, put the heating on and now am gonna settle on the sofa for 10 minutes catching up on here

Sea78

I can sooo relate to the friday feeling Great, isn't it!

I loved getting my Avon order - brilliant stuff - and the fact it was so cheap also made me v happy!

Hope you have a good night

Sea xxx

benbenandme

I've just had my first proper electricity bill through (no gas, I have storage heaters), and it was £61 for 3 months .... I used to pay £70 a month in my old house (non-existant insulation!), so when I moved in here I have been putting £50 a month into my savings account ready for the bill .... only now I will still have £90 left over :j :j :j I'm not gonna move this money into the mortgage pot though as I expect the next bill to be higher as its the winter, but I have still only put one heater on so far so I'm hoping it won't be drastically higher
I'm going to set up a proper direct debit for it though for £25 a month and then hopefully that will pretty much cover it through the year. This would mean i have an extra £25 a month to go into the mortgage pot, which leads me on nicely to my mortgage musings today. I will start a new post for it as I could ramble on a bit ....

Sea78

That's great news - and sensible to keep the savings for the winter months - means you'll be able to relax (a little) about the energy bills for a while!

Sea xxx

benbenandme

Okay, so, my thoughts on my mortgage situation ....

12 months ago when I was thinking of my aims for 2007 I was a pretty unhappy person. I set several aims / challenges and have managed to meet them all which has massively boosted my confidence as I'd had a pretty tough year last year. So, even though I aimed to save £200 a month I wasn't too sure whether I owuold manage to keep this up all through the year, especially as I planned to move house.

So, back up to the present and I have managed to not only save the £200 every month but also a bit more too. I got my letter from my mortgage company this week confiming my mortgage has now gone down to £56785 (was £60k when I moved in June). I am soooo proud of achieving this and it has made me even more determined to do even better next year

As part of the mortgage-free-in-3 challenge on the mortgage board I sim to reduce my mortgage to £50k by April 2010, however having done some calculations today I am hopeful I can do even better than that. Anyone who wishes to leave now before the really dull bit please go ahead, I just need to log it all down so I can look back and make sure I am staying on track ....

So:
June 2007 = £60,000
Nov 2007 = £56,785
Aim to pay off the £785 to get this down to £56k by 1st Jan 2008.
Aim to save £200 per month again in 2008, but also as my mortgage is now smaller more of my monthly payments will be going towards lowering the actual amount of money and less will be going on interest. Approx £100 of my mortgage payment will now go towards the capital figure. This will give a total of £3600 over the course of the year.
AIM: Jan 2009= £52,400
Continuing in 2009 with the same amounts, (total of £300 per month), my mortgage will be £50,600 by June 2009 which is when my fixed del runs out and I will be looking for a new deal. So, I am looking to get this down to £50k by then, so I would need to find an extra £600 over the next 18 months which hopefully won't prove a problem.
AIM: June 2009: £50,000
This would mean that I would reach my mortgage-free-in-3 target 9 months early, so I would hopefully be able to continue lowering it further.

Obviously there are tnnes of things that can affect whether this is achievable or not, but this is my aim! I know I am committed to trying to do it, it just depends on unforeseen circumstances but my life seems a lot more settled now and I am enjoing my job and know my incomings and outgoings. So, this is it, first part of it is to get the mortgage down to £56,000 by January 1st.

Sea78

This is fantastic Amazing how things have changed.

So glad that it's all gone so well and that you feel so much better about things and yourself too. You have every right to feel amazingly proud!! the changes and amount you've saved is amazing

sea xx