The Scariest Thing I Have Ever Done....

McTaggus

Thanks Lrimas! Hope you can convince your OH eventually! It makes a huge difference not having someone beside you quietly encouraging you to "but we earned it" when you're trying to cut out spending!!

Having read MMM from start to finish, and TEA, I fully agree. Investments (I'm slightly ashamed to say) are new territory for me so I'm trying to do some reading around the recommendations I keep seeing for Vanguard ETF's etc. If you have any recommendations for further reading, it would be really appreciated!

I think in the short term, I at least want to get 25% of the mortgage paid down before I start looking to also diversify my monthly OP's into the investment route, but its definitely something I need to explore.

I also took the (at the time, according to my peers) nerdy route of starting to pay into a company pension with matched contributions when I was 18 - and have been doing so ever since, without fail, for the last 16 years. Will need to check what the balances are and work out how much more is likely to have been paid in by the time I get to the end of my mortgage term too, so I can factor into some of my longer term planning.......

Tropically

It is so helpful to have a partner who not only supports you, but also takes it to the next level and truly wants to accomplish the goal with you. I'm still working on it... It's quite hard in London because it's very easy to have fancy dinners at the Dorchester. There is so much happening all the time and unlimited ways to spend money.

Your trip to Stockholm sounds very frugal, especially given that it's an expensive place.

McTaggus

Good grief - it must be so much harder in London. I'm actually thankful that we decided to move to a tiny village when we came back to the UK, which is a 30 min drive from the nearest town (or supermarket), and which only boasts one restaurant, one pub, a convenience store, a butchers, and a local farm shop! It means temptation / convenience isn't just sitting on my door step trying to tempt me out to spend my money after a hard day at work!

It also means most of our shopping is now local for fresh food like meat and veg, as it is all produced in local farmland. Given the nearest supermarket is miles away, we also only use online shopping deliveries to get other regular household items delivered, which means my days of buying stuff I don't need in supermarkets because I'm a) hungry while food shopping or b) tempted by offers I don't actually need to have in my life are over!

However, one surprising change since moving to the middle of nowhere, is that I have also discovered I have more recently begun to develop an increasingly deep-rooted fear / hatred of "going into town" to go shopping. The mere thought of going to department stores, or having to tackle the jam packed nearest High Street on a Saturday morning has actually started to make me feel positively anxious! As soon as I get back, I have to immediately go for a long walk in the countryside with the dogs to recover! Now, I buy pretty much everything online and avoid having to do it like the plague. Rewind just a few years, and I would have been there, every Saturday, for the WHOLE day! :eek:

I know deepest, darkest countryside living isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I do wonder if it's subconsciously been the catalyst that got me onto this track in the first place - before I even consciously decided to make a change. Its almost like by removing myself from most of the influences has helped me to realise I probably didn't need them as much as I thought I did. Huge kudos to you Tropically, and anyone else, who gets onto this path and manages it while still living surrounded by such vast temptation (and social opportunities) every single day - I am in awe!

atypicalblonde

Hi McTaggus,

I have just read your diary & will be cheering you on. MMM is very inspiring indeed, I have re-read a number of his posts several times over when I need inspiration.

I hope hubby has calmed down over the food bill, though I have to admit it would take me a while! We've never spent over £100 on dinner for the two of us and even that seems a lot nowadays. Steak from the butcher, cava on offer and cauli cheese (homemade of course) - all enjoyed on my sofa in pjs - much more fun IMHO.

Best of luck sweety x

wantabetterlife

Loving you diary mctaggus..you are doing great. We have also moved to the country recently and completely agree, when you are not surrounded by all the counsumerism it changes things for the better...I can notice it in my husband and kids too.

chickadee

Hello McTaggus, :wave:

I stumbled across your blog and it is really interesting. It doesn't matter that you're in the SE and therefore salaries and mortgages are much higher than elsewhere, it's all relative. Just another zero on the end of the numbers, we all have the same goals.
I'm in the NW so probably the polar opposite of your situation, and I work for a charity as well so salaries in my sector are much lower, but the principals are just the same.

It sounds like you and DH are really on the same wavelength now which is good to hear. I'm still trying to convince my DH that we don't need to be going out for meals quite so frequently (not at Dorchester prices though, thank goodness!) but he still says the 'we deserve it' thing too often for my liking. What I believe we really deserve is to be able to make our own decisions about when and where we do things and for me this is about becoming financially independent. I too found MMM and after binge-reading it like you it just makes so much sense. DH rolls his eyes when I'm reading it but I think all he sees is the badassity stuff, he doesn't see through the americanised 'cult' thing as being just a characterisation and read the real messages in the blog. I have also found JD Roth's Money Boss blog quite interesting. He's a friend of MMM but what I like about him is that he's very open about having made stupid mistakes in the past, like spending thousands on comic books or investing in crazy shares on whims or 'tips' from people and losing the whole lot.
I'm now mortgage-free and paying off my car loan which should be gone by May 17. Then I'm looking to really start hammering the investments with the aim of retiring in 8 years' time. By then I'll be 58 but this is about 10 years earlier than I would have done otherwise. Even the car loan makes me cringe now. I don't live far away from work but I bought a brand new car. I didn't really need it but I 'deserved it!'
Oh well, hindsight is wonderful. I'm glad you saw the light earlier than me and good luck with your journey. It sounds like you really have your head screwed on now. Well done on your progress so far and I like the diary.:T

McTaggus

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments, it's so lovely to find like-minded folk! Congrats on being mortgage free Chickadee! Sounds wonderful!!

It's funny how other people (outside of the MFW board) react to the idea. We had a family gathering recently, and I shared "the plan" as well as the reason why I would like us all to agree to not buying Xmas presents this year. My father is over the moon and it turns out he's a secret MMM reader too, my mother (bless her) thought it was a "lovely idea" and is now sending me articles she has cut out of the newspaper about how its better to pay off your mortgage than to have savings, and my younger sister (drowning in debt and still a spend-a-holic) just looked at me like I had turned into an incoherent dribbling idiot and said "but why would you do that when you have so much money you can just spend on other things, like finance an awesome brand new car or something, because yours is already 10 years old......"

I don't think my sister is going to become a convert any time soon....

In other news, an unexpected and unplanned financial set back happened this week. The field at the very end of our lane was put up for auction by a local landowner. Some of our neighbours started a bit of a local community action group, with the intention of buying the land via private sale, so as to protect the green space and therefore the value of our houses on the lane. However, the action group didn't between them have sufficient funds so started a bit of a fundraising appeal from the other residents and we agreed to commit some funds as our house would be as affected by any if planning permission was granted on the land.

So, my emergency saving fund, which had been partially earmarked for investments, has been depleted now that we have secured the private sale of the land. In many ways, it is an investment in protecting the value of our house, but equally it is also now dead money...... Ho hum, not a lot I can do about that one, but a little bit gutted about the short term set back. I shall keep looking to the longer term and thinking it's a drop in the ocean, but still disappointed to see both savings depleted and the short term plan having to be suspended.

Onwards and upwards! After all, there will always be set backs along the way - even if it means we don't hit 10 years, it's still a journey to not doing this for 31 years!

McTaggus

So, despite the set back that has come from investing in our "community asset" (which is now the subject of debate as to what to do with it in the future), I have been relentless in my pursuit of changing my ways! Some have been more successful than others, but I'm reminding myself that every change is a step on a far longer journey to happiness than can be achieved in just a couple of months:

Step 1: A first foray into the world of Ziffit. We cleared out our library of old Xbox games, DVD's, Blu-Rays etc., most of which hadn't been touched since they were first watched!! Total accepted value, GBP195 now pending payment into my bank account! Hurrah! That will pay for the new carpet in the youngest's newly finished bedroom (which we spent all of last weekend painting!)

Step 2: Facebook sales. I had tried Shpock before with no success, but was astonished to sell both an old TV and now defunct bunk beds within an hour of each of them being listed. Total value GBP65! Hurrah!

Given I used to just bundle everything off to the charity shop (the perils of being time poor!) I'm delighted by our little haul! Clearly the way forward for the future!!

No more further OP's aside from the regular GBP500 overpayment so far, but we're still laying the groundwork for doing so in the New Year. Have also cut the "relax with wine" expenditure (hubby less happy with that one) but we're sticking to a new revised budget and hopeful that once Christmas is out of the way we'll be in a much better place!

That's it from the McTaggus clan for now - hope you are all well!

Jinxii

Hi McTaggus, just wanted to say I've just finished reading your thread and it's really helped to assuage the fear of taking on a monster mortgage! My partner and I are in our mid-twenties and about to exchange on a property that comes with a £385K whopper (68% LTV), and although I am super excited I am also quite overwhelmed with the amount of money involved. Our mortgage is over 25 years but I'm very keen to have it paid off ASAP (and dabble a toe or two into the world of investments!)

Please keep posting, I'm finding your outlook and approach very inspiring!

McTaggus

Happy New Year my fellow MFW's!

November and December last year, hubby and I decided to spend the month laying the groundwork to help us get 2017 off to a flying start as far as our MF journey was concerned. Now Christmas, historically, has always been a very spendy time for us - particularly also given Mr McTaggus has his birthday precisely one week before Christmas (double-whammy) - but we decided that this year it was going to be different and that we didn't want to hit January with our pockets more than empty and our overdrafts / credit cards battered and bruised to the extent it would take us months to recover our financial footing. As a result, we decided to have a very MMM chat with our close family members about Christmas presents - in that there wouldn't be any and that we didn't want any. The only people we would be buying presents for would be Mini-McTaggi, and even they would have a limit set on how much would be spent on them. Mr McTaggus would still have a birthday present, of course, but the agreement was that party attached to it would be approached in a more MMM way this year.

The first chat was with my Mum and my spendy sister, which was actually received with open-arms. The second chat was with the MIL, which was a slightly more difficult one as she insisted we had to have SOMETHING and refused the plan. Hubby decided to send her and the FIL the MMM article about Christmas presents, which they read, and then promptly emailed out to all four of their own children (hubby included) to say they had decided that presents would only be bought for grandchildren and no other presents would either be bought or expected. :beer: WIN! The final conversation was with the Mini-McTaggi, where it was explained that as we had bought the house this year and had to spend a lot of money getting their rooms sorted and still had a lot of work to do on the house, then they would be getting smaller presents this year. Bless them, all of them instantly responded saying that the most important thing about Christmas was spending time together, not presents. Maybe it makes it easier that we aren't ever allowed them on Christmas Day and they get a tonne of stuff at home, so Boxing Day presents from us are just bonus top ups, or maybe all the work we have been trying to do about educating them about the value of money has actually sunk in more than we realised. Regardless, bless them, they were angels!

Fast forward and can you believe it, 10th of January, and it looks like both Mr McTaggus and I will be inside our overdrafts at this time of year for the first time ever and without having to spend a penny on credit cards during the festive season :T In fact, I'm not just within my overdraft, but somehow seem to be likely to net out at the end of the month with over £1,300 left as a result of my resolute "changing of my ways" throughout December .... :j Half of the left over will go against the renovation of the room we have planned for tackling next month, and the other half will be paid off the mortgage in a lump sum.

Hubby has also set up his first overpayment direct debit to the mortgage of £200 :T We are now set to make fixed monthly OP's of £700, in addition to the standard mortgage payment of £2,500. Having run the numbers through the Overpayment Calculator, that knocks another 2 years and 4 months off our payment terms, and gives us a grand total of a 10 year 4 month saving on our total mortgage term (down from 30 years and 3 months to 19 years and 11 months - can't believe it!). Clearly we still have a way to go to reach the 10 year goal we're aiming for, but if I can continue my non-spendy ways (and prove to myself that the December - January leftovers in my account haven't been an odd fluke!), then I think we can improve that position significantly! It's great to know that every incremental £200 added to our monthly OP knocks 2 years off our term...! It's a great way to feel like you're making progress, even if the total goal feels such a long way away.

Next step is to check my Council Tax and see if I have my direct debit spread over 10 months or 12. If its 10, then I'm also going to add that money (it automatically gets set aside for bills on a monthly basis because of how I have set my money to move between different accounts) to the mortgage as overpayments - that would be an additional £290 I can OP from Feb and March pay checks!

So, starting this year with some numbers to reflect on...

Current outstanding mortgage balance: £519,653
Minimum Goal for 2017: Get below the magic £500,000 mark and into the £400,000 brackets (this will also get us below 90% LTV and might open up some more deals for us when our fix comes to an end in April 2018)
Minimum Monthly OP Commitment: £700
Stretch Target OP Commitment: £1,000

Wishing you all the very best with your goals this year! :wave:
McTaggus