Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

shangaijimmy

Its been an immensely successful 6 months for us on the MFW front and i thought i'd give a brief discussion on each month.

January
A typical new year that i decided to really tackle our finances (again) and re found MSE after a 3yr absence (how dare i!). This was the single best decision of 2015. Immediate action was to remortgage to a better rate of 1.99% and reduce the term by 2 yrs.:money:

February
Significant overhaul of monthly budgets and a goal of allocating 1/3 of income to mortgage payments. This would see us paying the mortgage off in 10yrs knocking 12 off the original term. We cancelled Sky completely (i must say i haven't missed it in the slightest, though i do use father in laws sky go account for Rugby League) as we have an android box (with xbmc loaded) that we use for movies anyway.:T
We also reviewed all our savings at this time, increased my private pension contributions by £30per month (effectively my pay rise) and opened several current accounts to take advantage of the better interest rates.
Finally we made the decision to try for baby number 3 :eek:

March
All plans set to action! We started with a huge month and overpaid by £625.02, for a net reduction of £1,082.42, with a daily interest of £7.41! :j
My diary was born and with it the idea of posting at least 3 times per week.:T
I also decided to tackle the gas and electric and made my first effort to submit meter readings of the 1st of each month.:cool:

April
After a fantastic first month we consolidated really well. I started to collect small change with the initial decision to overpay whenever i hot the £10 mark, but have since reduced this limit to £5 for more frequent payments and added motivation. Mrs SJ has bought into my whole plan, but she does need frequent nudges and reminders!
In April we overpaid by £558.32 for a net reduction of £1024.91, and a reduction in daily interest of 5p:beer:

May
April quickly rolled into May and the whole process seemed smooth and effortless. Confidence was very high
However with no significant decision or changes to make the end of the month seemed a long way off and with this my enthusiasm dipped somewhat. I continued with the utilities monitoring and monthly amount reduced by £12 so very happy :rotfl:
We looked into solar panels but have been turned down due our roof having 2 dormer windows which means we couldn't get an unbroken run of panels.
Mrs SJ confirmed that she is in fact pregnant and number 3 is due in January. Still shell shocked at the speed of it all!
The month ended with overpayments of £472.44 for a net reduction of £933.40 and further 6p per day daily interest reduction. :beer:

June - Not quite finished but i know what our numbers will be
Gas and electric have been switched which (apparently) will give us a saving of £20 per month, but we'll have to see about that. :cool:
We had a fast start to overpayments but it now seems out numbers have leveled out to a consistent £470 per month which we are ecstatic about. So June will finish with £464.35 for a net reduction of £934.14 a daily interest reduction of 5p to £7.25 (Januray it was £14.82 and at its highest it was £15.88 :eek:).
Significantly we will be 59.74% LTV :j

Summary
The years target (for this challenge the year is actually Mar-Feb for mortgage product reasons) is to reduce by £11k, which equates to £916.67 per month
For the first 1/3 we have reduced it by £3,974.87 and are £308.20 ahead of schedule :T

However the crucial thing for me is the systems we have put in place to maintain motivation, enable us to stick to task, better utilize our income and still live is significant. As i said at the top the single best decision was stumbling back to this forum. The tips, advice and motivation are phenomenal and starting a diary makes it more real and enables an outlet for the taboo subject of mortgage debt!!

Next Steps
In all honesty we're still in consolidation phase. I keep targets to bite size chunks and i don't want to look past the next 20 months which is the length of our 2yr fix.
I joined the 2015 MFW challenge for this year and have been monitoring the MF in 3 yr challenge to see if its right for me next time round, as i don't want to disappoint by not completing.
I have some small budget adjustments to make to cover maternity pay but Mrs SJ has a superb scheme whereby she get 26 wks at full pay, the 10wks at statutory. Our intention is to take the full statutory period so i have about £1k to find, but this is over the next 12months.

So there it is. Our 6 month brief review, here goes the next 6 :beer:

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

It sounds like an exciting journey. Very good luck with it,

Squirrel xx

lippy1923

Awesome 1st half of the year. Keep it up

System

Cracking 6 months for you all. Great news regarding baby no 3 also.

VB

shangaijimmy

Squirrel, lippy & Vinny - cheers :beer:

Its great seeing that e-mail alert in work that someone has posted on my diary. I then can't wait for brew break to log in! Those little comments really do help to keep motivation for posting.

3 days to payday, 3 days to paying out day, 3 days to overpayment day :j
9 days till spreadsheet and June accounts posting day :money:

shangaijimmy

Had the dreaded yearly check up at the dentists and was so relieved to here him say i didn't need any treatment! Partly because of the pure fact its dental work and we all dread it, but also partly due to the fact the financial impact of todays visit was minimal:D

Other than that very little has happened. Yesterday was a lovely NSD, and today nearly was (dentist is classed as an essential and therefore budgeted for) until i spent 79p on a bone for the dog and 49p on a horrid henry book from the charity shop for DS1. Though i did promise him a charity shop treat for hoovering his room yesterday, and he is only 6! Fortunately he always wants books :j

Just having a brew whilst DS1 has a play on his games console before a trip to the opticians, and DS2 is having an extremely rare afternoon nap. I'll be sure to wake him up after 30 mins else he'll never go to sleep tonight :eek:

Tomorrow should be another NSD before payday on Thursday, but we also have 1 nervy thing coming over the horizon - namely car service and MOT on Thursday. Its all budgeted for but it still makes me nervy

Utilities switch is underway and will be completed in 10days time. Naturally the £30 cashback will go straight to mortgage :j

Off to read some diaries and may be back...:beer:

Goldiegirl

Hi, just wanted to say I'm very impressed with your planning and reviewing. Good luck for the next 6 months - you seem very focussed, so I'm sure you'll do well


Congratulations on the baby news too :beer:

shangaijimmy

Thanks Goldie.
I've just snatched some time to look at budgets to plan for maternity cover, and fortunately it'll wont affect our attack on the mortgage at all. Provided i can convince Mrs SJ to keep her purse at home...

shangaijimmy

Opticians was fine. DS1 who's only 6 was amazingly good and patient. His prescription has changed slightly which means new glasses but he's very happy as he picked Avengers ones!

Spent the evening outside with a dog walk and a trip to a little park with stomp rockets and flying discs. Both boys ready for bath and bed after that so i got the chance to watch the end of the cricket :j

Busy day ahead tomorrow as we have a visit to DS2's nursery to get all the details for September, then straight to work till 8.00pm! Very little staff this week so i'll be chasing my own tail for most of the day!! At least it'll be a NSD and i have leftover home made chilli for lunch :T

shangaijimmy

Great evening to come from work to - I to of Mrs SJ that I wasn't prepared to decorate our room until she'd de cluttered every draw, space, box, wardrobe. Well she has and she's been ruthless!

I still feel we've got a phenomenal amount of stuff but hey ho!

My part of the deal is decorating this weekend and I must admit I never thought it'd be so soon!

In other news, all is quiet money wise. NSD today and a net gain with 20p road kill to the small change jar. Which reminds me I have £5 of small change to overpay tomorrow:T