The Mortgage Free in Three - Take 4 challenge (MFiT-T4)

PennyJar

Hi,

Just submitted form, but realise I am really late off the mark and will be a slow started until Jan 17.

PennyJar

hiddenshadow

Submitted my form for a current balance of £139,700, making my progress so far £19,800, exactly 22% towards my goal. Loving all the round numbers there, because I'm just that sad.

trix-a-belle

Its that time again folks! Thank you for all your update forms, everyone is doing great! Its a marathon not a sprint so great to see some streaking ahead and some taking their time, we will all pass the finish line eventually.

Chart 2

shangaijimmy

Still in green, woo hoo! Thanks for doing this!

Well done everyone, let's keep sticking it to those banks!

tattycath

Thanks for the chart.
Unfortunately, I'm in yellow. This isn't unexpected, we've had a lot of expense lately.
Hoping to catch up during the course of the challenge.

FreedomGirl

Hi,


Oops - sorry I missed the deadline. Only managed 4k GBP, think I need to try harder.


But I don't want to become super-tight. Anyone share any tips for streamlining their spending.


I might switch to cash only in wallet. Has that worked for anyone ?


FG


FG

PennyJar

Hey Freedomgirl,

Definitely working for me - I allocate £100 cash into different envelopes every week:-

Food -£50
Car tax - £10
Car maintenance - £5
Cleaning - £1
Hair - £5
Petrol - £25
Other - £4

And keep accumulating it - strictly using what's left in the envelopes. In time I will do this by keeping money in bank to maximise interest - but to develop good (new) spending habits I'm sticking to this for now. I've also put mine and DH debits cards away so we have no choice but to use cash from the envelopes.

Hope this is useful.

PennyJar

tattycath

PennyJar wrote: »

Hey Freedomgirl,

Definitely working for me - I allocate £100 cash into different envelopes every week:-

Food -£50
Car tax - £10
Car maintenance - £5
Cleaning - £1
Hair - £5
Petrol - £25
Other - £4

And keep accumulating it - strictly using what's left in the envelopes. In time I will do this by keeping money in bank to maximise interest - but to develop good (new) spending habits I'm sticking to this for now. I've also put mine and DH debits cards away so we have no choice but to use cash from the envelopes.

Hope this is useful.

PennyJar

I love this idea. Thanks for sharing PennyJar.

Welshlassie

I use YNAB (You Need a Budget) which does this, but virtually so I don't have to take the cash out of the bank. That way I can keep it in one place and just check the partner app for how much I have in my category budget to know if I can afford something.

Has revolutionised our spending.

PennyJar wrote: »

Hey Freedomgirl,

Definitely working for me - I allocate £100 cash into different envelopes every week:-

Food -£50
Car tax - £10
Car maintenance - £5
Cleaning - £1
Hair - £5
Petrol - £25
Other - £4

And keep accumulating it - strictly using what's left in the envelopes. In time I will do this by keeping money in bank to maximise interest - but to develop good (new) spending habits I'm sticking to this for now. I've also put mine and DH debits cards away so we have no choice but to use cash from the envelopes.

Hope this is useful.

PennyJar

FreedomGirl

PennyJar - that is a really interesting approach, simple yet effective. I used to run lots of savings pots with IngDirect (remember them ?)


I think the two areas where I could improve are
- my personal spend (out and about in London)
- our home spend (food, and wine)


The latter is all done off a communal account so I guess a starting point is looking at the past six months transactions.


And, seeing as I generally use my Switch card in London, I'll also be able to see what I spend.


I think I'll go off and look at the "data" and set a budget based on that


Thanks again for getting me to think in terms of pots..


FG