The MFW Diary of McGuern

McGuern

Hello everyone! As many of these diaries start, I am a long time lurker but first time poster!
I have several financial goals that I have been mulling over for a while now, and really need something the help me get going and stay on track, and I think the MFW pages look like the best place to put this diary. Plus, having been reading all of your diaries over the last few months, I can see that you are all really nice and supportive, which makes it a lot less scary

Anyway, onto the important bit, I am 28 and my other half is 27. We both have reasonably well-paid full time jobs at the same company and took the step of buying our first house last June :j We are also getting married in July (sort of MSE, sort of not if I'm honest!), and have a ~3 year plan to move out to Singapore (we have both worked out there for 6 months with our current company), which we will need to save up for. I have always been considerate with my money, as I don't like paying more for things than I have to, however, from reading everyone's diaries, I definitely have a lot to learn!

Our current plan is to try and pay off as much of the mortgage as possible, then turn it into a buy-to-let whilst we are in Singapore. We will likely move when only one of us has a job, and so will need to have a buffer saved up to give the other person time to find something. And obviously, paying for the wedding is coming up pretty quickly!

Our Current Goals:

Goal 1: Pay for the wedding without using any gifts from family.
Goal 2: Overpay £10k on the mortgage between June 2016 and June 2017.
Goal 3: Save a minimum of £35k for the Singapore move between now and the end 2018.

I will put some more detail around the goals in my next post, and will put together my budget/SOA in the next day or so. Now I just need to hit the submit button and the goals are really real :eek:

McGuern

Phew. Submitted my first post, now onto the second and a bit more detail around the goals:

Goal 1: Pay for the wedding without using any gifts from family. The wedding is in July this year and final costs are dependent on numbers / a few things that we are still left to decide on, but the total is around £10-15k :eek: Have money stashed away in a few accounts for this, once I have a spreadsheet up and running I can put exact figures, but we have somewhere in the region of £8k already saved.

Goal 2: Overpay £10k on the mortgage between June 2016 and June 2017. We are lucky to live in a reasonably priced area, and so took out a 10 year mortgage (currently fixed at 3.79% until June 2017) for ~ £105k. The current mortgage payments of £1061 a month are comfortable on our current salaries. We are allowed to overpay 10% of the original mortgage, and we would like to pay off as much of the mortgage as possible, before converting it to a buy to let. Not made any overpayment yet, but have set it up so that any overpayment reduces the term, not the direct debit payment (thanks to reading your diaries!)

Goal 3: Save a minimum of £35k for the Singapore move between now and the end 2018. This is our targetted time to move to Singapore. The big move will all be dependent on us finding jobs out there, so there will be some flexibility on this date.

Right, now to look at the budget and figure out if it's all do-able!

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Welcome to the madhouse . It is a really supportive forum. Looks like some good plans and Singapore has some excellent career opportunities. I've spent a bit of time working out there and it's a great base for travelling.

Good luck.

Tilly

newgirly

Welcome and best of luck with the new diary

McGuern

Thanks Tilly and newgirly, positive vibes already!

So, I've made my first attempt at my SOA. I haven't specifically put anything per month yet into savings, as I just want to give myself an idea of how much I can afford to save right now, and where I can save more money. Any monthly surplus will go towards the wedding for the next few months, and then some split (yet to be decided) between mortgage op, Singapore savings, emergency funds and holiday fund. I have added a few comments so it makes more sense:

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 2 We could definitely manage with only one car, but not sure it's something we are both willing to try just yet.

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 4500 Both of our salaries combined
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 4500

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1060
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 88
Electricity............................. 30 We use less than this so I am following MFW advice and taking monthly meter readings and requesting any surplus back
Gas..................................... 43 same as above. Refund in progress on this one :T
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 25
Telephone (land line)................... 17.4 Sky
Mobile phone............................ 50 this is 2 phones, one contract @ £35pm and one sim only @ £15
TV Licence.............................. 12.5
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 38.2 this is sky with sky sports. Just negotiated and reduced this down from £55pm. Definitely get our monies worth as both big sports fans but not big pub fans
Internet Services....................... 2.5 Sky negotiated down recently from £7.50pm
Groceries etc. ......................... 300 this includes meals out/takeaways. Meals out are our main treat, but can definitely cut down on takeaways, as typically have 2 per month.
Clothing................................ 10 hardly ever buy clothes
Petrol/diesel........................... 80 - 1 tank of petrol each per month
Road tax................................ 2.5 - 1 car @ £30 pa and 1 car @ £0. Very MSE! :
Car Insurance........................... 850 - for 2 cars
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 150 complete guess as cars are quite new
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 100 being new to home ownership, we went for max cover in year 1 on buildings and contents in case there was something that we hadn't spotted. This will definitely reduce on renewal.
Contents insurance...................... 100
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50
Haircuts................................ 13.5
Entertainment........................... 200 - I'm not sure exactly how much we spend/want to spend so will monitor over the next few months
Holiday................................. 0 this year it is wrapped up in the wedding money as the honeymoon
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 3232.6


Assets
Cash.................................... 8500
House value (Gross)..................... 117000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 5000 conservative estimate, but likely to be the value when we sell in a few years
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 130500


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 98918....(1060).....3.79
Total secured & HP debts...... 98918.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Credit Card....................2573......25.73.....0
Total unsecured debts..........2573......25.73.....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 4,500
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 3,232.6
Available for debt repayments........... 1,267.4
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 25.73
Amount left after debt repayments....... 1,241.67

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 130,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -98,918
Total Unsecured debt.................... -2,573
Net Assets.............................. 29,009

Created using the SOA calculator at stoozing.com
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

turtlemoose

You've got 850 a month for your car insurance - is that 850 for the year /85 a month? makes a big difference to your spare cash figure!

McGuern

Turtlemoose you are correct, 850 is for the entire year, well spotted! I checked it so many times before posting as well!

So the real total is:

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 4,500
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). [STRIKE]3,232.6[/STRIKE] 2453.6
Available for debt repayments........... 1,267.4
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 25.73
Amount left after debt repayments....... [STRIKE]1,241.67[/STRIKE] 2020.67!!!

The amount left per month is definitely higher than I feel it is in reality, so the money fairy must be taking our money somewhere that I haven't yet realised.

In other news, I have consulted the "Mega Wedding Spreadsheet" and I think we have just under £10.5k left to pay for the wedding. However, there are a few things yet to be decided, so it *may* come down. From my small amount of experience with all things wedding-related though, I will add an extra £500 to that total, bringing it to £11k. So we need to find £2.5k between now and July.

Goal 1 suddenly feels very doable! This diary is helping already :j

greent

Is £100pm correct on home insce? I know you said you went for max cover, but we have accidental insurance on everything (a must with 4 kids ), named specific items, garden and garage insce, legal cover - and ours is £35ish pm for buildings and contents (5 bed house) - with only 2 years no claims and with a 'known' insurer (Ax@) x


Good luck with your goals - all exciting stuff!


xx

McGuern

Argh you are right, I have put in the annual amount. I think I kept confusing myself as I was copying the amounts from the MSE Budget Planner. I find that much easier to use as I can put annual things in annual amounts and it works all this monthly stuff out for me.

My MSE task for this evening: I can get a reloadable gift card for Sain$burys with a 4% discount through work. Not a lot but every little helps right?! We buying one with the equivalent of what we think we spend on groceries for 4 weeks, and then see if it actually happens!

McGuern

The other item I have been mulling over for the last few weeks or so is what kind of spreadsheet I need. I have a feeling I am going to end up taking lots of bits and pieces from different places to create something for myself. In keeping with the Mega Wedding Spreadsheet, I will probably have a Mega Money Spreadsheet, where I'd like to :

Track a monthly budget - something similiar to MSE Budget Planner except...
...Highlight month to month when big annual payments are due. So I guess an annual budget split by month
Track savings in pseudo-pots across a couple of accounts so I know where I am against my goals
Mortgage Overpayment/Balance/Interest Tracker, I think I have found something good for this, I just need to play around with it a bit more to understand how it works.

If anyone has a spreadsheet or a technique that they can recommend I use (for free, of course!) for any of those elements I will be very grateful!

McGuern

Had a very MSE day today! Did lots of batch cooking so we now have 3 double portions of bolognaise, one double portion of chicken curry and 4 chicken and mushrooms parcels settling down in the freezer :beer:

We also cancelled $ky as they decided to notify us just 10 days after renegotiating that they would raise our prices by 8%. After a debate on the live chat, it's being cancelled as we are still in our cooling off period and we have gone through t0pcashback and gone with Virg1n, similar price overall (and can keep $ky sports, our main reason for going with $ky in the first place, plus we get £154 cashback (already tracked) :j

I think we are going to become one of those savvy/sensible people who switch between the two every 12 months to keep on the new customer deals!