5 years and counting to freedom!

Frugalfamily3

After a break of almost a year from reading and contributing to forums I have forgotten my password and my email account used within is no longer accessible so I'm starting from scratch with a different username etc.

My circumstances are different since last year. My partner and I have sold our respective houses and bought one together. As a result we now have two incomes to pay the mortgage, and with 9 years to go on it, I want to pay it off in 5 max! That way we can retire when we want to, not when the bills tell us

So, itching to get started on overpaying I counted up my loose change yesterday, and adding that to a car tax refund from my old car I'm on the way with £110 ready to pay in on Friday (when I can next get to bank). I've also applied for Internet banking for the mortgage account and will link that to my current account asap so I can Tilly tidy

I'll get back later to add a to do list here and read some diaries to keep myself motivated with money saving. In the meantime it's great to be back and sending a wave to fellow MFW’s everywhere. Let the fun and positivity begin!!!

letsdothisnow

Good luck with your mission I have the same time frame in mind so shall subscribe cheerio

Hollyboll

Welcome wave

and good luck on your journey!

A_Frayed_Knot

Good Luck,

looks like you have started from day 1 - and its so much easier when you have the mortgage account on internet banking, hope it comes through soon.

Frugalfamily3

Thanks for your support Letsdothisnow, Hollyboll and A Frayed Knot. Im really determined but a bit scared now I've committed myself but, nothing ventured nothing saved . So, here are my MFW to-do’s:

Save all my (and OH’s) 1,2,5 and 10p coins and OP them every month.
Tilly tidy my bank account weekly.
Do menu planning to use up food in our 3, yes 3(!) freezers.
Kickstart my couponing habit and remember to use the coupons this time!
Help OH to put radiator foil behind our rads.
When Sky subscription contract up, (December), try to get a better deal.
Ditto gas/ electricity, (February).
Request a smart meter thingy.
Bake bread more often than I do now.
Overpay as much as I can each month, hopefully £200. (I get paid monthly)
Overpay any leftover salary the day before payday
Keep a mortgage spreadsheet when I can work out how to do it.

I'm sure I can gather a few more tips from others on the forums. All comments, ideas and inspiration gratefully received

We are tied into a 3.89% deal for about another 2 years (carried forward from my previous one). We can only overpay a max of £500 before penalties kick us and I'll be lucky to OP half that. According to the MSE overpayment calculator we have to OP £500 a month to pay the remaining mortgage off ( around £69,000 left to pay), so we're facing a huge challenge.

Frugalfamily3

Good morning :wave:

I have some sad news.... Instead of watching a film last night as planned with OH and a bag of maltesers, I spent 2 hours in the garage arranging my freezers and listing what was there! And narrowly avoiding frostbite. It was freezing in that garage!! Why could I not have done this in summer lol. Anyway it's done and I now have one upright freezer with food already allocated on the menu plan, one with food waiting to be, and the chest freezer with bits n bobs of bread for crumbling, sausage rolls and snacky food.

Once I've got 2 drawers empty I'll start buying again but menu plan it before it goes in the drawer!

I'm going to ask the OH to set me up an excel sheet for OPing tonight. I've looked around the forums but can't find one already done. I'm sure I found one in my previous life on here but maybe not. If anyone can help find one or give us ideas on setting one up I'd be very grateful.

Right I'd better get my bahookie outa bed and get to work. I'd rather stay under the duvet and read diaries though

FF x

Jevvers

Well done FrugalFamily3 sounds like progress, hope your OH didn't scoff all the maltesers!

gallygirl

Great stuff ff3, though you do realise your perfectly ordered freezers will soon start breeding loose peas .

Good plans for overpaying and generally living up to your name - my one piece of advice would be to not overpay at the expense of your pension arrangements - keep an eye on the longer term.

Hope there are some maltesers left .

GG

Petal88

Oh FF I'm jealous of your multiple freezers! I've just got a three shelf one which just doesn't cut the mustard.

Well done on convincing the OH to set you up with a spreadsheet I think if you search spreadsheet in the forum search bar, something should come up that you could use!

Frugalfamily3

Hi Jevvers, Gallygirl and Petal. :wave: a Thank you for popping in
I hid the maltesers until I'd come in from the garage. Experience told me to

Good point about the pension Gallygirl. We both have decent final salary pension plans though and plan to save the mortgage money when MF for the last few years before retirement. That's the plan.

Petal, I love our multiple freezers. You can't have too much freezer space. Although we fill it with YS bargains and forget they're there. But....no more!

In other news, I knocked the first hurdle of nsd's flying today by not taking lunch with me this morning. Although there was plenty to make lunch with I spent too much time in the shower and ran late. £1.90 and much guilty feelings later, my shiny new diary is being used as a confessional . Oh and we're having chippy tea tonight cos I forgot to defrost the meat planned. But it's the first chippy tea for ages. Focussing on tomorrow being my first nsd out of the month now. I aim to have 15 nsd's this month...so I'm standing at 0/30 so far.


I can do this, I can..... :eek:

Petal88

£1.90 could be so much worse though! We're only human 15 NSD's is a very impressive goal though, there's no way I could get anywhere near that.

Was it this spreadsheet you meant by the way? https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1157173