A Journey of Many Pounds Starts With a Single Penny

LadyGnome

Final bit of the dividend came through this morning so third OP of the week :j. Another £19 to the mortgage, pots and bills. It looks like one of the bill shortfalls will be covered this month so it will be a 4 way split from next month.

I spent a bit on my son for his school trip next week but I've decided not to take that out of my pocket money as MrG doled out the children's pocket money this month rather than me so I have offset it against that. So I'm counting it as a NSD.:D

£19 closer to mortgage freedom - result!

15 days to the end of the Xbox squeeze

debtfreeoneday

Triple OP's - well done!!

LadyGnome

debtfreeoneday wrote: »

Triple OP's - well done!!

It certainly cheered me up!

Low spend day on Fri - 47p only.

The first bill shortfall is now only £12 so that will be cleared by the end of June. The second is a bit of an unknown as NGrid came out yesterday and repaired our gas meter after a friend who is a CORGI engineer spotted a problem. It is possible that the gas bills have been affected by that so MrG is going to have a chat with the energy company. We are still going to switch as the current tariff is rubbish. I still think we have been wasteful.

I have been cogitating (always a dangerous thing to do;)) and I am hatching a plan to get the mortgage paid off in just over 11 years. I pay school fees so in 5 years time when the elder Gnomeboy finishes I should be able to ramp up the mortgage payments. Even if he goes to Uni it should be cheaper than what I am paying out now. In 9 years time when the younger GB finishes I should be able to hit it really hard.

The first 5 years are based on me reducing the mortgage by £1300 pm (scheduled and OP combined). My average over the last 18m has been £1301.84 pm. Considering the balance is reducing and my next fix is likely to be lower than the 1.74% I am currently paying I think that this is an easily achievable figure.
The second 4 years I would hope to manage £2000 pm reduction as I will have more spare cash and the mortgage would be smaller. That would leave a manageable balance for the last 2 years.

That would clear the mortgage 7 years early.

Obviously now I have sketched out this plan I will be trying to beat it every month!:D

14 days to the end of the Xbox squeeze

EatingTheElephant

Great going (with a triple OP no less) and fantastic plans.
Not long now until the end of the Xbox squeeze.

brizzledfw

Wow..that'd be an amazing OP! I have tried for that and so far come up short, but keen to hear how you might do it.

Have a great weekend x

Busy_Mee1

Loving the plan LG and targets too, sounds great. I just love how we are all plotting and planning

LadyGnome

Hello everyone, thanks for your comments and good wishes.

I am still slightly in shock that it might be feasible to get rid of the mortgage that much earlier. I was playing around with a spreadsheet and when I started plugging in the numbers I realised what might be possible.

My current scheduled payment is £1431 pm then I OP £200 each month. Monthly Interest is around £380 pm and dropping. So it doesn't take much extra to hit the £1300 pm on average per year and I normally add extra OP each month. Hopefully, when I refix in Nov I will get a lower interest rate (current rate offered by BS is lower for people whose fix is ending) which will bring my monthly payments down and OP up. The LTV is below 50% which helps.

At the end of the 5 years our costs will reduce so it should be possible to ramp up the OP to £900-£1000pm (extra £700-£800pm).

Once both boys finish school then I think we can live frugally for 2 years and chuck everything at the mortgage.

LadyGnome

Plan for the week

Stick to Diet
Monday - Done
Tuesday - Done
Wednesday - Done (apart from a bit of someone's birthday cake in work)
Thursday - Done
Friday - Done
Saturday - Done
Sunday - Done

Search out new broadband provider
Sort out gas and electricity bill with current provider and find new tariff.

12 days to the end of the Xbox squeeze
(I will be very glad when this is over)

brizzledfw

Sounding very positive LG...have a great week

LadyGnome

Thank you Brizzled and you.