Getting a Grip and Saving towards the mortgage

Busy_Mee1

It has been a busy week and a bit dull on the MSE front. I had a lovely shopping trip on Monday but it definitely wasn't MSE - I did however manage to get some shoes for the wedding today that won't cripple me or make me 7ft tall. I also went to the H@llmark outlet shop and bought birthday cards for the next 6 months - they were all under 99p each.
The rest of the week was NSD apart from the couple of days in London, where the only spend I can't claim back on expenses was for 2 cups of tea @ £1.95 each

I have now managed to use the TSB contactless cards for £100 each - so that should be an extra tenner in the pot.

Yesterday was slightly irritating, I discovered I had left my specs in my hotel room in London. Luckily they had found them and agreed to post them back, but it cost me £4.10 for the postage:( I also had a letter from Tosco CC charging £12 for a missed payment - annoying when I had rung up to change the DD bank account when setting up one of my new accounts. Anyway soon solved with a phone call and they refunded the £12. And finally I went to get my ISA passbook updated with this year's interest only to find it isn't due until after 30 April

I have been rubbish on the exercise front, I didn't manage to get to the gym or run this week but I have done 7000 steps per day which has clocked up the Bounts point. I have earned 375 in my first week -and you need 1389 for a £5 gift voucher. So should be able to earn one every 4-6 weeks.
It is my nephews wedding today and we are all looking forward to it - it should be a lovely family day:)

Busy_Mee1

The wedding on Saturday was lovely - a very happy family day. I do think as you get older you start to appreciate how precious days like that are, particularly as our parents are now getting older and are not in the best of health.
There has been a change of plan work wise today and the scheduled meeting got cancelled - bonus day ! So I am sat here with a bit of time on my hands and as usual I am pondering on my plans toward being mortgage free. I noticed MvM had been doing the same on his diary and it inspired me to record my thoughts - in my experience if you write down your goals they are much more likely to be achieved.
I have two dates to work towards, the first is November 2019 when OH will retire - this is non-negotiable, he has declared he won't be working any longer. The second date is April 2020, when I may retire (this will be the earliest date I would consider). Therefore working to the second date I have 4 years or 48 months to save as much as I can towards the mortgage. We won't have paid our gigantic mortgage by then - the mortgage has 8 years to run and I intend to allow it to run the full term unless rates change during that period. But we both have good pensions and lump sums, so providing I can also save a good sum we should be able to pay the mortgage off if we wish or continue to pay the monthly payment whichever is most advantageous.
So to cut to the chase I want to have saved £100,000 by April 2020:eek: I currently have £36,000 and so need to save £64,000 in 48 months or 1,333 per month :eek:
I set a target of saving £1000 per month when I first started my diary and have met that. I have increased this by stealth this month because I have set up standing orders amounting to £1150 into regular savings account - so I now need to try and dig out another £183.33 per month. Some of this will come from the odds and sods account (cash back, rewards, Tilly Tidy's etc) but I need to find another £80+ This should be fine when DD is no longer on the pay roll, but it doesn't look like she will starting her job until July. In the meantime I need to try and tighten the belt without the OH noticing:whistle::whistle:

Busy_Mee1

The first interest and cash back has arrived in our new S@nt@nder account- £10.18 interest and £6.19 cash back. That's £11.37 profit after taking off the £5 charge.

Also £2.44 cash back into 1st TSB for using contactless.

All shuffled into the O&S account:T:T:T

Busy_Mee1

I have been pondering how I can dig out more money to save to hit the £1333 per month target and then I remembered I will have some annual interest to add in from my fixed rate ISA and my regular savers ( around £800 a year), also if I manage to switch my 2 donor bank accounts twice this year that would make another £400...so around another £1200 a year.
So £1150 a month into regular savings accounts = £13800 per year +£1200 in annual interest/switch bonuses = £15000 per year.
Means I need to find £83.33 a month for the O&S account to give me £16,000 per year.
This looks fine on paper but this is a leap from saving £12,000 per year so it is going to feel tight I think.... I will need to see how it goes. The OH gets a bit grumpy if I am too tight:rotfl:

Busy_Mee1

O&S account has currently got £113.68 in it this month. This has been made up as follows:
£15.85. Expenses
£ 5.82. Interest Newcastle BS
£10.18. Interest S@ntander
£ 2.44. Cashback TSB
£ 1.19. Cash back S@antander (after £5 charge)
£12.00. B@rclays Blue
£30.00 Energy switch cash back
£36.20. Various Tilly Tidies

There is still a week to go but realistically there will be only one more Tilly Tidy after food shopping tomorrow. But I am really pleased with this, already beating my £83.33 target and I haven't had a full month of cash back and interest from the new accounts yet......it is amazing how all these small amounts add up :T:T
In addition I have £110 on my M&S gift card - £100 from the switch and £10 monthly reward, £45.31 on my B@rclaycard cash back CC and £78 tracking in topcashback.
I am definitely pleased that a bit of effort to make the most of every £1 is paying off

EatingTheElephant

Hi Busymee, just found your diary and I'm impressed with all the focus and organisation. I'm sure you will hit your target.

I would love to hear more on your house building adventure too. We have considered that as a way to achieve our goal too as we are both quite handy, any suitable plots we've seen have been very expensive though so I don't think we will be going that route after all.

Busy_Mee1

Hi ETE thanks for dropping by. My tale of house building is quite a scary one financially because it cost far more than we envisaged and we ended up borrowing up to our limits everywhere we could - the mortgage, a loan, 0% credit cards, from family and even the kids ! We did however end up with the house of our dreams, but a lot of debt that took about 3 years to clear until we are now left just with the mortgage (albeit a large one !) and a couple of 0% credit cards that aren't worth paying off( that I count as part of the mortgage). So it was very stressful and a lot of hard work at the time- but when I look at what we have now it was worth it.
We also struggled to find a decent plot of land so ended up buying a rubbish house on a decent plot and knocking it down. I see some good renovation projects around here too - people transforming rubbish properties with fantastic extensions and face lifts, which might be another option to consider. I am going to creep over to your diary now to subscribe now so I can see how you get on

EatingTheElephant

Wow what a journey that has been! What an amazing achievement. Plots do seem so far and few between and a lot seem to get snapped up by builders and property developers

Busy_Mee1

I feel like the wind has been taken out of my sails this week. I have had a horrible virus that seems to have developed new symptoms everyday - sore throat, snotty cold, hacking cough and now backache. Feel bleugh Work has been busy and I have had to drag myself through the week.
Also our builder has found a slot to do some building work and painting that needs doing on the house. We have been waiting for a while for him to fit us in between jobs ( he charges less because we do this). But it is going to cost us c£4K :eek: and I am going to have to withdraw some money from savings:mad::mad: As most of you MFWers will know this is very painful.
I keep telling myself that the house is our biggest asset and we need to maintain and improve it but it is still painful. This means I probably can't meet the new goal of £16 k this year and will need to do the maths again once the building work is paid for.
On a more positive note I have signed up for OnePoll and have £5.20 in the account - free money for doing some very dull surveys.

It is pay day tomorrow so I can announce that in April I saved £1150 into the regular savers (6-5% interest) and £119.11 into the O&S account.

TGI Friday tomorrow and a long weekend :T

EatingTheElephant

Hope you are feeling better soon. Enjoy the long weekend.

It's ok to change/update goals if life happens