Dream to be mortgage free by 40

abi_a_mfw_mum

Thanks turtlemoose, I'll try and have a look at that. Although DS will not need an ERF seat, he's so tiny. He's only just 9kg at 2! At the moment we're planning on buying a Ford Cmax, which we think should have enough leg room for 2 rear facing seats. We're off to look at one tomorrow which looks like a particularly good deal, so I'm hoping to bag a bargain there.:) It is a dealer approved car too, so less risky.

abi_a_mfw_mum

Well this diary is certainly keeping me motivated so far. Today I've posted an ad for the spare gates on gumtree and applied to upgrade our credit card to one that gives 0.5% cashback. It should all add up.
I also think we should open a Santander 123 account, but I may have to work on DH, as he'll probably be quite reluctant to. He likes saving money, but not too much hassle, and I think he'll take some convincing that it's worth it.
Right, off to order fold over elastic so I can whip up some cot sheets from our old ones.
Enjoy your evenings all

abi_a_mfw_mum

We bought a car! Well, agreed to buy one and can pick up next Saturday. I'm glad we've sorted it, and think we've got a pretty good deal for both the price of the new car and the price they're paying for our car although I was disappointed that this dealer wouldn't haggle at all. It feels like a LOT of money but we have enough to cover the cost in cash, minus the part exchange of our car, and still hopefully cover a few extras such as floor mats and gap insurance. I'm pleased that's out of the way, and hoping it will last a good long time so that most of our cash can go to overpaying the mortgage for now.

This weekend is going to be expensive. It's DS's birthday on Sunday and we have both sets of grandparents staying. We are putting them to work tomorrow on various DIY jobs though. Still, we will have a takeaway on Saturday evening, plus some friends coming round on Sunday for a birthday tea to cater for, so it's not going to be cheap. Still, it's all budgeted for so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Enjoy your weekends all, whether hectic like ours will be or nice and relaxed.

User1489

I'm also in the MF@40 club - May 2023 for me so 7 years left And it's all going to plan (touch wood) and writing a diary on here is a fantastic way of making yourself accountable for making it - keep it up

abi_a_mfw_mum

Thanks for all your replies and encouragement everyone. We had a relatively expensive weekend what with family staying and a birthday party but it was almost all budgeted for so I'm not too worried. The only thing we bought unbudgeted was a gazebo for the garden for £40 but I've been wanting to sort out garden furniture this year and this will probably be my birthday present from DH.

I also thought I should lay out my priorities and starting point for my goals. My initial priority is going to be to save up for my maternity leave. At the moment I'm a long way from that goal but I get paid 4 weekly and July is the month I'm paid twice :j We budget for one salary payment to cover a month so that whole salary payment can go to the maternity leave fund. At the moment a set £250 a month is going towards overpaying the mortgage and our DIY fund. I would like to overpay at least an extra £1000 by December, ideally £1500 but any additional savings I would like to put towards the DIY funds, or we'll never be able to afford the house renovations. Also, although we're saving money towards overpaying the mortgage we haven't actually made any overpayments yet as we've stashed the money in a regular saver paying 5% interest, and the mortgage only charges 1.69% interest. It's the same bank too, so it slightly feels like they're paying us to borrow money :rotfl:
So, as of May 16 we have £319/£4000 maternity leave fund, £1,400/£4000 overpayments fund, and £700/£5000 DIY fund. I intend to try and report on these goals monthly to help me see my progress.
Sorry for the extra long post!

abi_a_mfw_mum

It's been a surprisingly cheap week. With 3 parents visiting I expected an expensive week but they bought so many extra bits of groceries/takeaway pizzas etc that it worked out quite cheap. I'm even left with leftover beef which MIL brought down, which is currently simmering to be a nice goulash. It will even give leftovers.

DH was paid today :jso I can update my goals. I've done a good bit of category shuffling, and I'm pleased at the amount that's been added to the maternity leave fund. So:

Maternity Leave fund: £603.99/£4000 (+£284.99)
Mortgage overpayments fund: £1650/£4500 (+£250)
DIY fund: £950/£5000 (+£250)

I'm aiming for over £1000 in the maternity leave fund by the end of June, hopefully £1200 as long as the repayments from the utility supplier gets through.

abi_a_mfw_mum

Is it just me or are there not enough hours in the day? I've been meaning to update this for days and haven't found the time.
The focus has been on getting ready for baby, and we're beginning to get there. I sorted through the baby clothes on Monday and I think we have enough neutral baby clothes for the first few months. I'm therefore trying to stop myself buying lovely girls outfits on FB selling sites, at least until we see what people buy when baby is born. I think we've also nearly finished reorganising the house to make space, which seems to have been a bigger job this time than when DS was due!
Unfortunately I've realised we've got a few unbudgeted or under budgeted spends coming up, including one off line rental, garden furniture and a boiler service so I'll have to start finding the money for those. Still, overall I'm happy with the progress on the goals and not too worried.

abi_a_mfw_mum

I tried an experiment today and have planned our meals for the rest of the month and done a HUGE stock up shop. It felt quite scary, as I spent £125 :eek: but hopefully that means that the grocery bills for the rest of the month should be very low. Today's shop included all our meat, fish, cheese, toiletries and household items, store cupboard essentials and nappies so I don't feel we did too badly for the money. I was slightly reassured when I checked what the likely price of the remaining ingredients for our main meals would be on my supermarket and found that they'll likely only cost us £20ish for the rest of the month. We will also need to buy milk, bread etc but I'm hoping that the weekly shop will come in under £20 for the rest of the month.
Also, my cash back credit card arrived today which was good timing, so at least I earned 0.5% cash back on the shop.
Changing utility supplier is going ahead nicely, and we should switch next week. That means we should get the money we're owed by our current supplier this month. It's likely to be around £200, as far as I can calculate, so that will come in very handy.
On the downside trying to make fitted cot bed sheets has been a disaster, so I'll have to buy some. It means I've wasted money buying elastic, but at least it's only £5. I'm also having no luck selling some garden gates I'd hoped to get rid of, and may have to take them to a metal dealer:(
This weekend DH is at a church men's day and I shall be joining some of the other mums at a nearby NT place. We're members and we've agreed to take a picnic so it should be a nice relatively cheap day out. I doubt I'll avoid buying cake from the cafe though...

michelle09

Snap! Also nearly 28 and aiming to be MF by 40.

The best thing about the big grocery shops is going less frequently - makes it much harder to pick up little things.

abi_a_mfw_mum

Hi Michelle, thanks for saying hi. It's nice to hear of others my age trying to be mf. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being too sensible... I'm not sure my twenties have followed the conventional path.
I agree about not going too frequently to the shops, my weakness is buying junk food when at work!

I managed a NSD today (apart from petrol for the car), with a nice healthy homemade lunch. I've also got lunch sorted for tomorrow so hopefully will avoid spending too much. I can definitely get better at taking lunch to work with me... At least for the 5 weeks before my maternity leave starts.