MissCreative's journey to financial freedom!

juststuff123

Hi PennyJar,


I'll look it out. I'm 33 too!

MissCreative

Hi Juststuff thanks for your comments.
I'll pop on over to your diary and have a look at the list of regular savers.

We do already pay for what comes up with the money from the previous month, like this month instead of overpaying we're having to pay for car repairs.
I just need to build up an emergency fund really, so if we overpay all of our leftover/unbudgeted money at the beginning of the month and then something pops up towards the end of the month (like more car repairs - hopefully not!) we have that to see us through.

I don't want to have too many bank accounts, but I am going to add to my spread sheet though, with 'pots' - one for an emergency fund, one for service charges and one for holidays :T helps my brain separate the money!

PennyJar

I know what you mean - my brain is freezing up too with all these envelopes ha ha I could do with a good spread sheet.

I like the OP calculator but wish there was a way to break it down month by month so I knew exactly when I would be able to reduce the mortgage by £20, 000.

Thinking of knuckling down a bit more than planned...

P.s it was a good outcome for me and DH lol

PennyJar

MissCreative

The links Gurj recommended have instructions for building your own spread sheet of monthly payments where you can input how much you want to reduce your morgage by and it will tell you how much you need to overpay every month.
There's also a more detailed one where you can input what you overpay each month and it will tell you how much your mortgage and interest will be be afterwards.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/572849
I'm finding it so fun (and kind of depressing! ) to play around with :rotfl:
It's how I know I need to find an extra £206 on top of my projected overpayments to reach £139,999.99 by December 31st

MissCreative

Got kind of annoyed at the news this morning when they said interest rates are most likely going to be lowered.
Sucks to be on a 4.34% 5 year fix!
But I guess in a way it's good because when I come off the 5 year fix the interest rates will most likely still be pretty low

Spent £1.05 on a big bag of ice on the walk back from swimming this morning as I needed it for my protein ice cream.
Our friend should be paying us £2.50 for an extra meal tomorrow though as he liked the sound of BBQ pork quesadillas
So that will be £7.50 that can go towards the mortgage or emergency fund this month.

Should be getting the car back today so hopefully everything is working properly and we'll pay the huge £1250ish bill.

Oh! I switched energy suppliers last night. I used the MSE energy club switching service which was a doddle (I'll let you know if the actual transfer is just as easy - probably not!).
We should save around £14.50 a month on our new deal! :eek:

Also going to pop in to O2 on Saturday to see what they can do with my contract now it's just rolling. I'm currently paying £16.20 a month for 1000 minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB data.
I've seen offers on MSE for £5 a month for 250 minutes, 5000 texts and 1GB data - so I'll see if O2 can match that or at least get close.

PennyJar

I feel the same being on 3.49%, but at least I know we'll be quids in hopefully when the fix ends...in 2020 :rotfl:

But stuck with the spreadsheets at the moment as my laptop is being used in work and we only have tablets at home.

I can't wait for pay day in 10 days time...when I can stash what's saved this month away hoorah:cool:

MissCreative

It's funny when you do all your calculations on your budget spread sheet at the beginning of the month with your DH, move all the money where it needs to go, notice a week later that your joint account has a bit too much in it, and realise one of your formulas is wrong in your spread sheet!!!
It's the good kind of wrong formula though - I was dividing the £470 rent we're getting from our friend by 2 twice, so we're actually up an extra £235 per month! :eek: :T

So I've managed to up my planned overpayments and savings additions each month, and if nothing goes wrong, we'll be able to hit the £139,999.99 target before Dec 31st! :j
Plus hopefully we'll have enough put away for a skiing holiday next February/March

I love it when a plan comes together

In other news, we received a rebate from our energy company of £140 because they've been charging us too much each month, and I decided to apply online for the FlexDirect account and have been accepted.
After moving the £140 and the extra money from having a wrong formula, we now have an emergency fund of £2194.14 and with planned additions to that next month we'll be at Nationwide's 5% interest limit of £2500.
Towards the end of next month I'll open a TSB 5% account and start popping any more savings into that

Making £9 from a colleague today from selling 3 books I was clearing out.
Spent £2.50 from my personal budget on pizza yesterday, though I still have half the pizza left to snack on today and tomorrow

PennyJar

Hey MC,

Awe that's so good...I wish I'd slipped a calculation, but unfortunately 'Penny' knows to the penny our ingoings and outgoings (Penny lol :rotfl: my profile name makes me sound so old haha). Only thing I can do is up my income...I am due an incremental pay rise when I get back so will add that to the pot...and will probably get extra little bits in here and there.

Best way for us is to make our income work as hard as it possibly can...still on the case with the electrics which is our biggest downfall. We have a big item in the house which uses a lot of power all year round...but DH doesn't want to lose it, whereas I'm not that bothered to keep it.

Keep up the good work:T:T:T:T

MissCreative

Normal mortgage payment has been made this month - down to £144,245.08 now. Not really planning any overpayments this month as it all went to car repairs, but any money we get from cooking our friend meals (so far that's £12.50) I'll most likely add to the mortgage or the emergency fund.

Went shopping yesterday and picked up a couple of yellow stickered things, but there weren't many good deals at 11.30am.

Here's what I bought:
3 bottles of sparkling water
Alpro almond milk
Orange juice
Heck chicken sausages
2 pots of creme fraiche
Reduced bean enchiladas
Reduced steak pie
Reduced mini burgers
Smoked bacon
Curry sauce
3 tins of tuna
Tin of chickpeas
Tin of baked beans
2 pots of houmous
Lime juice
2 packs of pitta bread
Popping corn
Pack of mini soreen loaves
3 onions
1 cauliflower
3 peppers
1 courgette
Pack of satsumas
2 carrots

And all that came to £26.26.
This will do all my lunches and snacks for the week, plus DH's lunches and our dinners until Thursday (we have friends visiting, and then DH is going to an Audi Festival and I'm having a girl's weekend, so everything will be up in the air!) and it also made last night's dinner.
Our friend already paid us £2.50 for a meal we made last night with that shop, and I'm expecting he'll have at least 1 more, so that brings the total of the shop down to about £21.26 :j

The meal plan will be:
Last night: tarte flambe
Monday: toast/protein ice cream -- houmous and pitta/chicken sausages, sweet potatoes and veg -- steak pie with chips and veg
Tuesday: toast/protein ice cream -- baked potato, beans, cheese and tuna/bean enchiladas -- creme fraiche pasta with bacon
Wednesday: toast/protein ice cream -- houmous and pitta/leftover creme fraiche pasta -- chickpea and veg curry
Thursday: toast/protein ice cream -- houmous and pitta/leftover chickpea curry -- ???
Friday: toast/protein ice cream -- houmous and pitta/leftover chickpea curry -- pizza night
Saturday: toast/protein ice cream -- ??? -- ???
Sunday: protein ice cream -- something with eggs perhaps? -- ??? (most likely from next week's shop)

Snacks this week will be crisps and fruit for DH, and I'll have mini soreen loaves, tuna with pesto, chicken sausages, and I'll make tortillas chips from last week's leftover tortillas

PennyJar

Hi MC,

That's a really good shop - we are still spending £50 per week even with the stickers...but I have filled the freezer so should be able to spread the costs a bit over the next couple of weeks.

Pay day is so close and yet so far lol

Will feel loads better when another chunk goes into the pot.

PennyJar