Five year plans for my little family

ZoPig2016

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking about on here for a while now and enjoy everyone's diaries so much. Having just had a baby and finding myself repeatedly coming back here in the wee small hours while I'm feeding her or cuddling her to sleep (more of the former and less of the latter atm) I thought I would start my own with a few challenges to keep me entertained. ;:j

So my mortgage is on my first home where I live with husband and new daughter. We borrowed 163k against a 180k purchase price nearly three years ago, it's now down to 151,391 as of 31.05.16. The value, according to Property app, is now 210k, which I think is optimistic, I'd say 200k is right. The five year fix at 4.68% ends July 2018.

This isn't our forever home and was never intended to be. We wanted a starter home that would allow us to start our family and get us started towards building our own wealth instead of someone else's via rent. So far, so good! In the long run I would like a bigger house in a nicer place. So my mfw journey will be a long one yet.

My first goal is to pay it down to improve LTV so that when the fix ends we can remortgage at a more favourable rate. I am thinking that if we go for two years then, that sounds perfect for wanting to consider moving house.

So to get cracking on this, I am starting this diary to get me inspired!

A_Frayed_Knot

Congratulations, a new baby and a new diary

Lots to read on here and lots of hints and tips to get that mortgage down.


Good Luck

try_harder

Welcome and good luck.

ZoPig2016

Thanks for the welcomes!

So to start me off in June/July, my initial challenge this month will be to see if I can make enough overpayments to meet the interest accruing between yesterday and 31st July. According to my mortgage spreadsheet, that's 772.20. A stretching target indeed but I am if the view that if you say you will run a mile, you might run one mile - if you say you will run a marathon, you could run ten miles, even if you don't make the full 26.2!

So where is this money coming from? Some thoughts:
- I have been very lazy since I started my mat leave about grocery shopping. I now order a delivery instead of going to the supermarket to save DH a trip and with that I stopped planning meals as meticulously as I did before baby arrived. This has led to a lot of waste as I've been in the habit of buying what I fancied and not really considering what goes with what meal wise. So I think with some meal planning I can get this expense down considerably.
- related to the above, I have a freezer full of good, healthy meals that I batch cooked before baby came. However we have maybe eaten one a week, not quite what I'd intended, we need to get on with scoffing them up!
- also related will be to eat up the cupboard food, most especially to whip up some homemade desserts instead of paying for pre made. I am thinking 20 mins to make a batch of buns, some jelly, a quick batch of custard etc will be doable and good for me. Doing normal things for a short while is immense fund for me atm!
- eBay some stuff. I have a few bits from pregnancy and birth that I don't need now, like the TENS machine that I optimistically bought and then forgot all about in the haze of labour, the hypno birthing cd, the bikini for the birthing pool that I got nowhere near! I also have three jewellery boxes to flog.
- baby needs room for her stuff, so much stuff! I might sell some of our many books. I haven't succeeded in reading a book for years, with my job etc. New baby doesn't make me think I'm suddenly going to start getting through them. So a declutter will be just the thing.
- the biggest thing will be to stop spending tbh! I have treated myself postpartum to loads of stuff to redecorate our bedroom (when you're at home all the time, unfinished projects seem all the more important) - it won't get done until later in the year but it's all ready and waiting. I also needed some bits for baby that I hadn't anticipated like a bigger bath, more bibs etc. I also needed some nursing approriste clothes for myself, more chargers for the tablet now it gets used 24 hours etc. I need to lay off cheeky orders!
- I have been on ipsos I say for a while but have been lazy about surveys, however now they're a way to keep myself awake at 3am while she feeds. I've joined swagbucks too. Vouchers from them can help me cover the odd expense, most notably my garden needs some love when I'm up to it!
- I have a bit of money left over from May's pay, however conscious that my postpartum spending on cards needs to be paid off too.

So to start us off:
- 10 quid cashed in on I say for a voucher, used to buy some grass feed and weed killer. Paid that off on 22nd with a cheeky Tilly Tidy before payday, 25.19 overpaid.
- my usual 50 quid standing order overpayment comes out today, payday for me.

So that's 75.19 as a flying start, of 772.20. 697.01 to go!

newgirly

Morning zopig, I hope you managed to get some sleep after that late post

Best of luck with the new baby and new diary, being so sensible when first stating out makes such a big difference, I wish I had been so clued up!

ZoPig2016

Thanks newgirly, I'm up again now with baby! Hard work but so worth it, she makes me laugh so much already at just five weeks old. :rotfl:

Also re being clued up - my parents paid their mortgage off via hard work and ploughing all of dads bonuses into the house when I was a teenager, they set me a fine example. Hope to do the same for DD.

lincoln-potter

Hello ZoPig,

Good luck with your diary & LO.

Having good role models in parents is definitely a stepping stone to financial freedom.

enjoyyourshoes

Have you looked into the cost/benefit of remortgage?

Do a like for like comparison and see if the potential savings on interest over the term to July 2018 outweighs any early repayment charge.

ZoPig2016

Fair point and that's something that only fleetingly crossed my mind, LTV now is 75% down from 90% so could be favourable. Food for thought, I'll consider this, thanks !

enjoyyourshoes

We went down from 3.49 % to 2.29%,

Stopped the overpaying and are now utilising both the reduced mortgage saving and the previous overpaying to fund a number of regular savings accounts which earn 6% pa.

ZoPig2016

I have had a quick calculate and worked out that if we got the best deal on the market for 75% we could indeed save £3k over the next two years if we kept the payment the same by overpaying. However it would cost 8.5k in fees which I don't have so to borrow enough to cover that too, we are over the 75% LTV mark. Will consider again later with 80% deals instead.

Successful no spend day yesterday facilitated by sleeping until 2pm to make up for missed sleep in the night, Also distracted in the evening by voting and then fiddling with the spreadsheet to come up with the above conclusion.

Feeding the small one, off to watch referendum results and content some more surveys to bag those vouchers!

Thanks again enjoy yours for the steer!