Dream to be mortgage free by 40

Busy_Mee1

Sorry to hear your little boy is poorly and hope he gets better soon. Sounds like you are making the most of an extra day at home.
Excellent strategy for getting the best interest on your savings too - I am already thinking about next year and where to put our savings.

abi_a_mfw_mum

Thanks BusyMee, he was fine actually just needed a day off the childminders. It just meant that yesterday was a long and exhausting day at work for me. I slept for 40 minutes after dinner!

I've been feeling very impatient about progress. I was hoping that today the cash back from our energy switch would be paid, the money from closing our ISAs would appear in the joint account with the interest they've earned and the logins for Internet banking would arrive. So far no progress on 1 and 2 and the post hasn't arrived yet. Patience.....

To distract myself I have decided to set some new goals. Given the change of focus I need new things to track
So... The mortgage is currently about £112660 :eek:. We also currently have nearly £18000 of savings/cash in the bank. My calculation is that our net debt is therefore currently £94,748. The next year is going to have challenges as I'll be on SMP for 3 months and will also have 3 months with no salary. This will affect how much we can save. My stretch target is therefore to get the net debt down below £80k by the end of 2017.
I'm hoping for really good progress this year, and then slower progress next year when incomes fall. I will post a monthly update on progress. Im already looking forward to the end of June/early July update. I think I will also still track my previous goals, but it will all be about money into savings, not overpaying the mortgage.

abi_a_mfw_mum

I've spent a productive couple of hours over the last two days setting up Internet banking, standing orders and direct debits for two of the new accounts. Strangely DH's login for his TSB account hasn't arrived, even though we opened them on the same night so I still need to set up standing orders into and out of that account. Thankfully my TSB card and PIN arrived by today, meaning we could start earning cash back on our weekly grocery shop:j I'm aiming to max out the cash back from those accounts where possible.
That was also our last grocery shop of the month and we've come in £10 under budget for the month :T so that will be tidied to savings at the end of the month.
DH is away for a night next week I will miss him but the upside is a saving of £24 on his train tickets for the week. All in all I should be able to send about £50 extra to savings at the end of the month :j
This weekend we're planning on going to watch the jousting at Kenilworth Castle. Not the most MSE activity but we've spent a lot of weekends recently getting the house ready for baby so need some time off as a family. We'll take a picnic and hopefully enjoy a nice family day out.
Enjoy your weekends all.

abi_a_mfw_mum

My monthly update, I've been looking forward to this Not that I like numbers or anything... At least I'll fit in in the forum.

Savings update:
Maternity leave fund £1200 (increase of £587)
DIY fund £1222.12 (increase of £250)
Mortgage overpayments fund £1900 (increase of £250)
Total increase £1087 :T

Net debt update
Net debt (mortgage - cash) now stands at 92114.52 (decrease of £2633.48)
However the last update was halfway through the month after outgoings but before pay days so this decrease is about triple what we'll achieve most months.

abi_a_mfw_mum

Hi all, I've hardly found time to check the forums this week, it's been busy although I'm not completely sure what with! This week we were both paid and it's month end, so I've had fun number crunching and producing a monthly update. I've even started a basic spreadsheet to help me track the changes month by month, I'd love to produce a chart too, but we'll have to see if I have the technical know how! What I'd really like is a beautiful house shaped chart to colour in like SuperSecretSquirrel, but I definitely think that's beyond my abilities.
All our accounts are now up and running (finally) and the Internet banking details for DH's TSB account arrived today. We should now start to see some decent amounts of interest and cash back coming in monthly to help meet our savings goals.
I also found out today what my annual pay rise will be and that my bonus will be paid at the end of July:j Given that I'm also paid twice in July, and so have budgeted for August out of this pay check I think it should be possible to hit my £4000 maternity leave target by the end of the month. I'd be really pleased if we managed that.
I also ended the month within the budget I'd given myself for personal spending, so all in all a good start. I'm definitely motivated by this diary, and it's causing me to make gradual changes which all add up. I'm surprised at our progress so far. Thanks for all your encouragement, advice and support.

abi_a_mfw_mum

I'm feeling a bit of a mid-month dip, as I think many others are from reading your diaries. I don't want to wish my life away but there's something quite addictive about the beginning or end of month budgeting, account shuffles, and interest payments that I quite miss. At the moment it feels like I'm just plodding along trying to stay in budget and minimise expenses.

On the up side I am now on maternity leave :j so no more car park fees, and a nice saving on fuel costs too. We also had a wonderful free day out at Chessington world of adventures on Saturday thanks to my Dad's work family fun day. We not only got in free but were fed as well, meaning all we bought was a kids meal for DS on the way home. We've also had our refund from our old energy supplier, which was a huge £454 :eek:. Unfortunately it's pretty much all been budgeted on DHs work expenses. These will all be repaid but it takes time so I like to budget for it and then count the repayment as income when it arrives.
We seem to be on track with our food budget this month, and I'm also trying to stock the freezer for when baby comes, so I should have a couple of weeks of meals in the freezer by the end of the month. If I can do all that in my £200 budget I will be very pleased.

What do you all do to beat the mid month slump? Any ideas how I can keep making progress gratefully received.

Busy_Mee1

Hi Abi - just catching up on a few diaries. You are right we all do suffer a bit with the mid month slump, I always save any Topcashback for this period( sad I know) and eB@y can fill this void too. That and general spreadsheet fiddling keep me focused. I hope you are managing to get your feet up during your Mat Leave - is your little boy still going to the childminders ? You must be getting very excited to meet your new baby too

User1489

Mid month slump sucks. Payday chunky overpayment feels great and makes me feel in control. After that, there's 4 weeks of tumbleweed. I have to take a step back and live life before I forget!

So yes, some spreadsheet tinkering.

Some investigation on how to get extra cash in the door - currently looking at exam marking for my professional body.

Meanwhile, I decided to challenge myself with as many No Spend Days (NSD's) until payday. Since I started I managed all but one. when I went down the boozer - in fairness, I spent £20 which is what I made on eBay that weekend, more by luck than design but I'm still fairly neutral. If i complete the challenge I will have saved £150, and if I continue to make lunches at home I'll save about £200 per month every month in the future which is incredible.

Also went through next months "wish list" to spend my fun money allowance on. Got a free ticket to Brighton Pride by helping on the work stall in the park, saved £25, cheaper earphones, saved £13, online contact lens retailer 90 pairs for £50 - normally pay £22 for 30 pairs etc. So cutting future spend there too leaving me with more fun money to do other things

It's not about being a hermit and never spending, it's about being smart and spending cash effectively in the right way at the right time.

Good luck! You're about to be a mum, so chill out, and if you can muster the gusto, put yourself into MFW mode - if not to make money, to save it

MvM

abi_a_mfw_mum

Hi BusyMee and MvM, thanks very much for your replies. It's good to have the support and ideas from others. I've been keeping up with both your diaries for inspiration.
This week has been surprisingly busy, given I'm on maternity leave and DS is at the childminders 3 days a week still. Not cheap unfortunately, as I had a day in London meeting my mum and sister, as well as buying a few bits. I also succumbed to Amazon prime day to replace an old slow computer we'd been using as a sort of TV with a new HD TV, Amazon fire stick and an external hard drive to replace the storage we had. It came to £166 in total, which is good for what we got. We were planning on replacing it soon, so I'm not unhappy with that.
To keep myself motivated in the mid month slump I've signed up for a couple of survey sites to earn some extra pennies. So far I say is working well for me, but I keep getting screened out of global test market ones. I intend to try and do one MSE task a day, at least on the days DS is with the childminder. Tonight I will sign up for another survey site, and tomorrow's tasks will be to find out why a direct debit hasn't cleared from the Club Lloyd's account and to leave negative feedback on Quidco to try and prompt the new energy supplier to pay the cashback as they're taking an age about it, for no apparent reason. The estimated payment date was well over a week ago now. Other jobs are baby related, such as using the leftover baby budget to stock up on nappies, cleaning the baby gym and sorting through mountains of hand me down clothes. So fortunate to have lots of hand me downs, I've only bought one outfit I found new with tags in a charity shop and I've got more than enough clothes in at last 0-3 month.

abi_a_mfw_mum

I had quite a money saving win this morning. I went to stock up on nappies in Boots. Through various deals and a £5 off if you spend £20 voucher I bought 268 nappies for only £15.26, which works out at just 5.7 pence a nappy:T Added to that I got 102 advantage card points, and paid on my TSB contactless card, so got 5% cashback. That number of nappies should last around a month, given how many newborns get through. It means I can add about £10 left in the baby budget to savings pots, so that's good.
I also got to the bottom of the missing direct debit, and its not going to be taken until next month. This might mean I don't get any interest this month from the account, which is a bit annoying but it's not the end of the world.
I have also bought some cheap shorts for DS in the gap sale, as well as some lolly moulds. In this weather I felt the need for ice lollies so made homemade lemonade and turned some into ice lollies Definitely worth it in this weather!
I've also sorted the baby clothes, done some washing and hung it outside to dry and even had a nap. This evening I'll clean the baby gym, wrap the present for DS from the baby and then I think the baby related jobs are done :T
Hope you're all having a good day, and enjoying the weather (or keeping out of it like I am!).