No going back....gaining £s and losing lbs...

Allotrope

I've started a couple of diaries here because I don't really know where I belong. I'm debt free except for my mortgage, and I'm now looking to achieve several goals at once.... save towards my (hopefully) early retirement, save towards my DDs future, and pay off my mortgage (currently just under £30000 but with a 22 year term and I want to retire in about 15 years).

My mortgage interest rate is low at the moment (1%) so whilst I want to build a pot to pay it off, there's no point offsetting when I can get a higher interest rate in a current account! So, my plan is to build up a stash of cash, enough to max out extra pension payments (£300-500 a month) and put money aside for my mortgage to pay off when interest rates rise.

If I can achieve a goal of saving £650 a month, I could put £400 in pension pot, £200 in a stocks and shares ISA for my girls and £50 overpayment on the mortgage. That's an outrageous amount of money to save, but I'm going to try!

Any advice gratefully received because this is quite a lofty goal for me.:T

Allotrope

So January so far I've managed to get quite a few pennies here and there but none to go towards my savings yet!

So far I have got:
£25 from Swagbucks
£104 from fleabay selling
£10 John Lewis voucher from my credit card rewards
£24.24 back from a Vodafone error
£45 gift vouchers (Accessorise and Waterstones)

But I have also switched broadband provider. It'll save £10 a month, but I paid upfront for the landline so all the extra cash has gone to that. I'll see it back later down the road...

And the vouchers will only come in handy when to need to buy pressies.

January is a tough month for me - I pay a lot of things termly (childcare etc), so no savings so far. But no debt either, and many Feb & March expenses paid too.

Kittenkirst

All sounding very positive so far Allotrope!

michelle09

That's great, and yeah, at 1% you might be able to get savings higher than that!

Allotrope

Thank you KK & Michelle. I have to admit I've been avoiding tackling my finances for a bit (years when it comes to pensions!) then I suddenly realised I'm 42, and as a teacher I know I'll struggle to teach too far beyond 55. That's only 13 years away! So I want to be well clear of my mortgage and have a decent pension. I went into teaching late so if I stopped contributing now I'd only have £4000 a year pension :eek:

So I'm bucking up my ideas and overpaying to as much as possible!

Allotrope

Feeling a little bit smug...I did my weekly shop for £28.28 and paid using vouchers I'd saved up. I budget £60 a week so if I can avoid buying any more groceries til next Sunday I can stick that £60 in my savings pot.

Menu plan this week is:

Sun - baked potatoes with leftover bolognese (skipped a roast this week for sake of budgeting)
Mon - veggie shepherds pie
Tues - at a friends (we used to go out with the kids to eat but now we take it in turns to cook and it's her turn.
Wed - sausages from freezer, wedges and broccoli
Thurs - spag bol
Fri - the ex shops and cooks
Sat - prob lunch out then tea will be chicken stir fry (chicken in freezer and will buy a £1 packet of stir fry veg) with noodles

smallholdingsister

Rooting for you because you must be a chemist with a user id like that!

Allotrope

Yup! Chemistry teacher here! And you?

smallholdingsister

Oh yes. I used to be Alchemilla.

Allotrope

So I've had a bit of good news today - I fronted some cash and hadn't budgeted on getting it back... just in case it didn't arrive this month. So I got it back today and have been able to put £200 into my savings. So that's £200 / £800 for January! Still a way to go but I feel better now I've started I think £800 might be too tough though... we'll see!

jodles16

Best of luck Allotrope! Sounds like you have some steady plans and whatever savings you get will be put to good use!

Jodles