Start As I Mean To Go On [Gorg's MFW]

Gorg

For some reason I miscalculated and it's actually £700 down - so that's a little better!

Luckyinlife wrote: »

Have you worked out how much capital you acually pay off each month ? say for arguments sake its £300 OP to 500 least then its comeing down 6k a year

I hadn't, but after 2 payments we have paid £1700 and reduced it by £700 - so it looks like £350 to capital and £500 to interest at the moment?

I also liked the idea in someone else's thread of making a 'brick chart' where each brick is, say, £1000 and you colour each one in as you pay that off.

bexster1975 wrote: »

Ah, but £400 you never pay interest on again! Keep going

Bexster

Thanks for the encouragement!

Luckyinlife

Ya the brick chart is great idea im going to do this with DS but draw it and stick it on the fridge or white board

Dont get disheartened with the interest we all pay it :[

Gorg

I've been doing 'cash position' calculations - between husband and I, we have eight bank accounts and two 0% credit cards, and a certain amount of each credit card has debt to be shared jointly (furniture etc.). I also have a 0% fee-free overdraft on one of my accounts, and we move money around a fair bit depending on where we need it. So I like to make sure that if we paid everything off right now, we'd still be in the black - both jointly and separately.

Anyway, I did one two months ago and another one today, and in those two months we've managed to save up £1500 pretty pleased with that!

Gorg

Happy New Year all!

Christmas was an expensive one! Between Christmas outings, presents, and travelling around (in a hire car no less), the bank account is a little worse for wear. Not to mention the January sales spending... although I was fairly well-behaved and only bought things which I needed to buy over the next couple of months anyway.

Time to get back on the savings bandwagon now though. Aiming to make a chunky dent in the mortgage this year - 5k extra would be great.

Husband and I both joined quidco, to use for purchases we would be making anyway. We've made about £60 cashback so far between us (pet insurance renewal, taking out a credit card, booking husband's flights for work, and some craft supplies). So that's a start.

Gorg

Oh wow, things have really changed since my last post!

Let's see... about 5 months after my last post in this, I got made redundant. Luckily we were able to scrape by on husband's salary and my redundancy pay, but we had to do a lot of re-budgeting. The last two years have seen me get a job, leave that job because they didn't actually have the money to pay me (and they're still paying me back even now), start up my own business, get another job, and then leave that job because between that, my business, and the diagnosis of a chronic illness I was left a little dead, which forced me to take the business full-time.

Luckily, the business is relatively successful. I'm not making anywhere near what I used to, but I'm also not in a constant state of stress, and I do take large chunks of time out to manage my illness which limits my income a little.

However, this means that the financial goals I had aren't really being met. There's no excess income going against the mortgage because there's no excess income. I'm pleased to say we did get a car though! We went for a 3 year old used car, as per the recommendations from some of you, for around £7k paid for for by bank loan borrowed at 3% over 5 years (works out at about £120/month).

There's also a fair chunk of debt now - a few credit cards at 0% with chunky balances. They don't have to be paid off until 2019/2020, but I'm working on payment plans now to make sure we don't get hit with any interest from them. The charges are a combination of things - a new dishwasher from when the old one completely broke, grocery shops from when I was unemployed, my husband's new laptop to replace his 8-year-old one (that he is paying off himself), and flights and hotels for a friend's wedding later in the year that there was no question of missing.

So. New goals:
- Keep paying the mortgage
- Keep paying the bills
- Make sure there's money for food
- Do not get any interest on any credit card

Not quite as lofty as they were, but I'm incredibly thankful that my redundancy and illness didn't cause us to lose the house!