Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

NewGirl

Thanks for sending me the links! I'm having a play around with them now and have PM'd you.

I'm kind of in a bit of limbo at the minute with my living arrangements (not homeless or anything), but things seem to keep changing which makes it difficult to budget for. Currently staying with my parents for the past couple of weeks, so on the plus side I don't have many bills or expenditure.

I think what I really need to help me identify where I'm wasting my money / help me control my spending is to find an app or something that I can record on a daily basis my spending and what I'm spending it on. Then when it shows that I'm spending too much on cosmetics I can hopefully stop! Does anyone have any recommendations for an app?

Just had pay day and I've sent an overpayment of £280 and my mortgage (£300) comes out tomorrow. It's not the biggest mortgage in the world but there is only me paying it off! I hope this forum can keep me going!

debtfreeoneday

shangaijimmy wrote: »

Thanks for all your support people!

But :shhh: don't tell Mrs SJ as she'll want to buy 'stuff'

:rotfl:Does your good lady know about this diary???

Hope all went well with the scan!

shangaijimmy

NG - Just replied to your PM. I'm not too sure on spending app's buts i suspect there are loads out there. We're now very disciplined with our spends, so i allocate certain amounts and we're trained to not go over (in the main!). The only derailers to plans are those pesky kids...! On those standard and OP amounts if you could keep that rate up i'd guess that you'd be halving the term and knocking 1 month off the term with every monthly OP. We're standard payment of £687, with an average OP of £465 and at the minute that knocks a month off the term each time. I therefore know that if we keep this up our 20yr term will become 10yr.

Debtfree - she knows, but wouldn't really know where it is as she's never been on the site. Mrs SJ has nothing to do with money or budgets other than knowing how much she has for weekly spend and weekly food shop. Anymore info and she panics. Our arrangements are that if anything happens to me she has to take our 'black box' to my dad or my sister!! As for the scan - there is only 1 in there so i class that as going well! We're 1 week further along than we thought so our due date is 29th Jan. She'll has a c-section will bring it forward then by 7-14 days.

Moneywise - its last day of the month, so i may post my accounts in work today rather than tomorrow. Mrs SJ's bonus and back pay so i'll do some maths and get my bonus £70 ish paid and make the necessary adjustments to my signature!

Enjoy your day all

SJ

shangaijimmy

Quick update. I did some maths and paid a bonus £86 OP about 10mins ago. Agonizingly i'm £10 off colouring another brick in on my house!! But i will resist the temptation. at the minute i'm averaging around £933 net reduction per month, so if i pay the £10 now then next month i'll have the same anguish as i'll be £70 away. So although it mentally kills me i'm avoiding chasing those £1k bricks for the time being. Quite how long i'll resist though im not sure! What i do know is that for the next 24 consecutive months i will get to colour a brick and hopefully by 24 months time i may have found a plan adjustment...

Well brief update, as ran out of time to post full July accounts, but rest assured these will do done either tonight or tomorrow morning.

shangaijimmy

A very good month money wise that keeps us very much on course for 10years, and now drifting in 9yrs mode. So here goes.

Highlights

• OP's - £551.44
• Net Reduction - £1015.56
• Daily Interest reduced to - £7.14
• Cumulative Interst Saved - £1316
• Closing Balance - £131,010

Lowlights

• Can't think of any!

Interesting Observations

• 5 months of OP's - £2670.57
• 5 monnths cumulative net reduction - £4768.00

Horizons

• £120's could be 1 month away
• Next 24 months I should colour a brick in everytime

Challenge Monthly Progress
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-RWg-v4lfUuSnNaVi16bEh2SlE/view?usp=sharing

ourcornercottage

SJ you are so organised! I think you are doing so great and as we have similar (ish) figures (mine is a little more owed and a little less paid off every month) its really helpful reading your updates as it makes me strive a little more!

Thats a fantastic months work!

atypicalblonde

Those accounts look great SJ, well done you. I'm very pleased Mrs SJs scan went well. Have a great weekend x

shangaijimmy

OCC & ATB - thanks for your support. I too am a regular lurker in your diaries and it definitely helps to keep ploughing on. The 2015 challenge has also been a great help to me, especially in getting going, and after watching the 3yr challenge i'm definitely going to get involved in the next one. 3yrs is about the limit that i want to look forward as anything else just seems too big and far away.

A major motivation for me at the minute is thinking that when this current 2yr fix ends we should be at about £114k and 50% LTV which seems amazing. After that being under 100k doesn't seem that far off then.

I will say that i feel i should comment more on other peoples diaries, so its something i going to make a conscious effort to do from now on.

But for now, its look forward to sending gas and electricity readings tomorrow (always do this on the 1st of each month) and then early next week start reaping the current accounts savings interests and monthly rewards and that then starts the month of August's OP's!

debtfreeoneday

Great month, great progress! Everytime I read in here, I think I must produce a house to colour in myself! Glad scan went well.. I did have a scan and had two in there, so I know what that feels like!

Luckyinlife

Love the way you analys everything makes me take note of to keep an eye on everything hard work to do it all on my own well thats my excuse hehe

well done massive OP as well