Getting a Grip and Saving towards the mortgage

michelle09

Wow, well it's definitely counteracting any extra spending on the holiday!

Busy_Mee1

And back down to earth with a bump .... and a slightly late October update

Monthly Savings £1567.58
Total Savings £57803.23
Mortgage. £243,033.29
Savings:Mortgage 23.78% (creeping up slowly)
Savings offset mortgage to. £185,230.06

Average Monthly savings. £1578.87

So again and slightly surprisingly we have exceeded £1500 again this month, it just shows that planning and making good choices does pay off.

So we are still on track to hit the £60k mark at the end of December, in fact on current savings rates we should well exceed that at £60,800. Now under normal circumstances I would be looking to stretch that to £61k but we need to spend a bit of money on the house, which I will update on next time. So still sticking to my £60k target for now

Also boo :mad:to the interest rate raise announced today. Can't really complain though as our tracker is only 0.69% above base rate but it is a big mortgage !

try_harder

Morning Busy Mee1 .Pleased to see you properly back and so pleased too that you have had such a wonderful holiday and even managed to do a little Christmas shopping thats brilliant
Are you back at work this week ? I expect you are
Another great month and on target for £60,000 by the end of the year almost at the 25% mark thats a huge achievement .
I think our rate is 3.79 at the minute and that small rise in interest rates will put our payments up from £626 to £676 a rise of £50 a month .
Have a great day working or at home.

Busy_Mee1

So back home and back at work (although having a gentle re- entry into the world of work to be honest).

So I will gloss over how much was spent on holiday but we will have rather large Halif@x Clarity credit card bills this month and next.

We also need to spend some money on the house, as a glass fronted wardrobe door cracked just before we went away ( it was me being a bit heavy handed when sliding it). We also had some storm damage whilst we we in whilst were away and need a new garden gate. We still also want the fireplace....I have a vision of Christmas by a fire :rotfl:

Luckily the wardrobe is covered by the insurance, but there is a £300 excess. The gate and fireplace will obviously have to be paid for. A friend of ours has offered to do the gate, so hopefully that will be mates rates.

So I have a list of things for the house I want doing before Christmas:

Wardrobe - need quote for replacement door
Gate- friend will come round to have a look in a couple of weeks
Fireplace - need to sort out tomorrow
Frame for photos - need to order

Money wise - I will need to find £300 excess for wardrobe door, £300ish for gate and £2000 for fireplace. I have £1700 in the emergency fund and £200 deposit to come back from villa, so I should be able to scrape enough together for the fireplace. The other £600 will need to come out of savings I think. I am not going to compromise my £60k target by December though.

So there needs to be a huge belt tightening this month...and I am going to allow us a budget of a £100 per week for everything....food, and cash spends, so £400 for the month :eek:. This should be OK ...gulp. I will let you know how we get on.

try_harder

Oh you will love an open fire especially at Christmas you cant beat it and its good to have treats too you have worked so very hard all year just one problem with an open fire and that is i tend to fall asleep in front of them ,any excuse hey .
£60,000 is a brilliant amount and im like you too with these numbers my OCD is going through the roof lately and my pile of notebooks and calculator are forever by my side goodness knows what anyone would think if they knew but its working so well it cant be bad .You can do it at £100 a week i know ,it can be done definitely.

Busy_Mee1

So not three hours ago I was saying that we would be tightening our belts this month and then I popped to M&S to collect the order I made whilst on holiday and spent £45.05.

In my defence they had a lot of half price offers on Christmas biscuits and chocolates and some good YS stuff. So included in that were

2 Tins of biscuits @£4.50 each
Tin Swiss chocolates @£5.00
Bottle of Port @ £8.00
3 packs of Christmas cards, buy 2 get 1 free - 20% off with sparks cards
2 Beautiful flowering azeleas YS £2.80 - one for me and one for MIL ( brownie points !)
YS Bread and Ready Meals

In my defence all bargainous and I have nearly finished my Christmas shopping now - just the elderly male parentals and Mr Mee to buy for now......what do you buy for men who have everything they want ?

Try Harder I really don't need any inducement to fall asleep at the moment - I am blaming it on the Jet lag

michelle09

At least you have some Christmas stuff sorted already? You still have at £55 for the rest of the week!

Busy_Mee1

I feel quite focused on the finances again, hence the mid week post. The finances are suddenly challenging again , which makes me think I ought to keep things tight to keep me interested :rotfl:
Anyway spent this week £45.05 M&S ( mostly Christmas stuff)
£10.53. L!dl. (3x sausages, 2x wine, 1x muesli and brown sugar)
£14.98. H@meb@rgains
£34.79 @ldi

Total 105.35

We have overspent by £5.35 this week but hopefully we can claw that back across the rest of the month. I still have some cash in my purse from before we went away so won't need any cash until the weekend.

In other MSE news I have done the bank account patrol and swept up the interest and rewards into the savings. I have also claimed another £66 from TCB and I am waiting for the S@ntander Lite cash back to drop in this month, from when Mr Mee ran amok with Apple P@y. I think the £500 from the bank switch will be payable in January - will just need to make sure I jump through all the hoops to make sure the T&Cs are satisfied. The deposit from the villa hasn't been paid yet -but I will chase that tonight.

I had a bit of good news this morning in that my role is going to continue until next June. I have had a bit of a torrid time over the last year with useless but damaging bosses, but our new boss is excellent and I feel completely different about work now. A real lesson I think for the future, in that it is just as important who you work for, as much the job itself. In financial terms this is also good news because this role pays just under £300 a month more than usual.

Think that is all for today, although I have been thinking about targets for next year. It looks like we will hit the £60k mark by the end of the year, which means we will have saved £18k towards the mortgage this year :j. The obvious target for next year will therefore be £20k :eek: I need to keep the focus up because Mr Mees retirement date is getting nearer.

I know we are very lucky to be in a position to save this amount , but as I keep reminding Mr Mee these are not real savings as we owe the money to the mortgage company and this will give us the choice of whether to keep our house or not.

try_harder

You are amazing Busy Mee1 you are doing so well £18,000 saved in a year is brilliant and to hit the £60,000 mark too by the end of next month is so good too and of course a lovely round number which i know you love .
Have you picked your new fireplace yet ?I was thinking about you the other day when i was looking through a magazine with some lovely open fires in it .
Good to hear that alls going well at work it makes all the difference im sure .

michelle09

£18k in one year is really impressive, well done!

Does Mr Mee agree? Sometimes OH comments on how much we put against the mortgage and remind him that it is money we have to repay eventually, it's just cheaper to do it quickly.