Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

shangaijimmy

Sharbo, thank you for popping in and thank you for your kind words! We were all inspired by someone at the outset and that is the beauty of this forum. Lots of support from like minded people, in it for the long haul and going against what seems to be the convention of ignoring debt.

Can i suggest you start with daily TT's? Mine for this month is so far £15.60. This really gets you into a mindset of pennies making a difference, and helps to generate momentum when you feel like you're swimming up hill!

Betterthanever

Happy Christmas!!

shangaijimmy

Well as the kids seem to be calming down and we're sat waiting for takeaway time i thought i would log on and post some initial intentions for 2018. Overall we've had a very good first 34 months of this MFW challenge, and have overcome the first major hurdle which was to get below the £100k mark. Now initially i was looking at a challenge of 120 payments, in which case we are just over 1/4 way there, however (there's always a however)...

I've really love to knock a year, or 12 payments off this, in which case we are a shade under 1/3 of the way there! As i said we've made some amazing progress especially when we factor in adding a 3rd member to our family, had a new boiler, bought 2 new cars, house fully decorated from top to bottom and had 2 foreign holidays. This just shows that we aren't missing out! My thoughts now turn to accelerating our progress.

So in keeping with the 2018 MFW challenge i'm going to set my targets around a yearly OP amount of £8k. Quick maths sets £8k at finding £666.66 per month to OP. Now a quick check of past figures and our average monthly OP in 34 payments is £596.77, and we've only hit the new target figure on 8 occasions! However (yes another one) 5 of those were in the second half of 2017.

If we are to achieve this then our end of year 2018 figures will see us having eliminated £14k in 12 months (i'd just can't make figures work to knock £15k off) and £50k off mortgage debt in 46 months! So although we'll finish on a funny number, £50k in certainly something to celebrate! :j

So that will be the basis of my targets for the first post!

Lastly the plan to turn 120 payments into 108 probably needs to be centred around Mrs SJ's intentions to return to full time work when DD is nursery age, but we have another 20 months until that happens! So those thoughts, ideas and plans will have to wait until summer 2019!

atypicalblonde

Merry Christmas SJ x

shangaijimmy

Well in between making stink bombs, radioactive bubble mixture, peppa pig play house, playing with plastic spinning fighter things and opening my underpants & socks... I made a lovely £1 TT... a Christmas present to myself!

All the best everyone. Please dont stop eating, even when you feel about to pop. Its Christmas Day so find a way!

Kittenkirst

Glad to hear you had a fun and playful Christmas Jimmy

Busy_Mee1

Glad you had a lovely Christmas with your family. Loving your MF plans for 2018

shangaijimmy

Well if ate a phenomenal amount, and didn't quite pop...so all good! DS1 had am lie till 8am! DS2, DD and Mrs SJ are still sound asleep. As are the 2 dogs.

So i'm just drinking tea to try and get my legitimate fluid levels back to normal before lunch, and looking for what MB activity i can engage in today, before family activities begin.

I hope the big man brought you everything you wanted or needed. My next job is to throw out all my previous underwear given the volume of new acquired

Oh, in financial news i have TT'd a whole £1 this morning.

debtfreeoneday

Glad you had a good one and got lots of new pants! :-)

greent

We also consumed a large amount of food here yesterday and came close to popping - but survived to eat vast quantities again today!

Sounds like a good Christmas, Sj
x