FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

wynnvegas

Hi FB,

A days countdown is the very thing. I think I started at about 500 days and it flew in - the last 100 proved the hardest so I can appeciate your impatience to get shot of the thing! You're doing a great job.

Cheers,

Billy

Froggy-G

Countdown!! Woohoo! In days, hours, minutes, seconds? :j

financialbliss

gallygirl wrote: »

ooohhhhh, below 26.5k :j

My next BIG milestone is the 20k target. Suspect that's January or February next year, but would be nice to end 2011 at a round 20k.

wynnvegas wrote: »

Hi FB,

A days countdown is the very thing. I think I started at about 500 days and it flew in - the last 100 proved the hardest so I can appeciate your impatience to get shot of the thing! You're doing a great job.

Cheers,

Billy

Thanks for the support.

Froggy-G wrote: »

Countdown!! Woohoo! In days, hours, minutes, seconds? :j

Froggy-G - I looked at these a while ago. I wanted to add one to the start of this diary to automaically count down, but I could not find one that linked into the forums and still worked. If anyone spots one that works directly in these forums (instead of a link to another site), I'd love to add one to post #1.

FB.

financialbliss

Been on the computer on and off for most of the weekend, except nowhere near MSE.

Regulars may recall that I use Microsoft Money to track and manage my finances. I’ve been skirting around managing the credit cards for some time. I’ve partially entered some receipts, entered receipts for some months and not others etc, so I’m in a bit of a mess.

I’m my own worst enemy here as instead of just entering “Groceries” as a weekly shopping spend, I’ll analyse the receipt and break down into toiletries, clothing, shoes, food, etc (and I’ve got a fair spread of categories), so, I can tell (or should be able to if the receipts are up to date) who out of the family is getting the most spent on them for clothes, our toiletries and food spend etc.

Have had word with myself and have been getting organised over the last few days. Managed to get the Barclaycard completely up to date and in doing so, balanced MS Money back to the credit card statements for the months January to July 2011.

Our other card – American Express is currently looking like a savings account in MS Money as it has a credit balance due to payments coming through from the current account, but not a full list of transactions to match.

Aim for the coming week is to enter the remaining receipts and balance this account.


Anything else noteworthy for the previous 7 days – managed to get drawn into the Travelodge £10 room sale, which was Thursday this week, but in the end at the point we were booking, there were no family rooms for the location / time we wanted, so instead of skipping a short break, we took 4 nights at £19 a night – total price of £76 in the October half term.

If you’re a QuidCo user, I noticed that Travelodge UK are now in there as a cash back option – spotted that before we made the booking and got 1% (ok only 76p) off the booking price. Better in my pocket than theirs.

If you’re dropping in from the MFiT-T2 challenge, then I’m also intending to give that some attention in the coming few days.

Financial Bliss.

financialbliss

Very, very quick post as I was hoping to be tucked up by 10pm this evening - Five hour drive in the morning and we were hoping for an early start (7am !!! :eek::eek::eek:).

On the Amex front (previous post) - managed to get most of the receipts in now, but didn't manage to balance the account - aim now is to get receipts in and balanced before Sunday 31st July.

Back next Friday evening (29th July), so my diary will be a little quiet - not that I'm posting more than once or twice a week at present.

FB.

financialbliss

How a week off work flies by. Spent almost 100% of my time with the family and hardly got any time to myself to sort out any of the things I wanted to.

Got back late on Friday and have been busy since. I've just managed to log onto Nationwide to grab the mortgage interest and calculate the interest breakdown for July, which is as follows:

Opening Balance: 33,304.75

Overpayments in Blue.
Interest in Red.
Balance in Green.

Month: Payment (Std / OP) / Interest (day) / Net reduction / Balance

January: 1,000.00 (929.33 / 70.67) / 131.57 (4.24) / 868.43 / 32,436.32
February: 1,000.00 (929.33 / 70.67) / 115.64 (4.13) / 884.52 / 31,551.96
March: 1,000.00 (929.33 / 70.67) / 124.43 (4.01) / 875.57 / 30,676.39
April: 887.41 (887.41 / 0.00) / 61.27 (2.04) / 826.14 / 29,850.25
May: 887.41 (887.41 / 0.00) / 61.62 (1.99) / 825.79 / 29,024.46
June: 887.41 (887.41 / 0.00) / 57.87 (1.93) / 829.54 / 28,194.92
July: 887.41 (887.41 / 0.00) / 58.04 (1.87) / 829.37 / 27,365.55

Totals: Payment / Interest / Net reduction.

Minimum: 887.41 / 57.87 / 825.79
Maximum: 1,000.00 / 131.57 / 884.36
Average: 935.66 / 87.21 / 848.66
Grand Total: 6,549.64 / 610.44 / 5,939.20

Balance outstanding: 27,365.55

Also got 850.00 put aside at a higher interest rate than the mortgage, so that's an effective balance today of 26,515. Funds in place for direct debits tomorrow - hopefully the mortgage payment will have cleared by Wednesday, so an update in order by then.

FB.

financialbliss

Quick post before I turn in. Another early evening at the Bliss residents. Not! :eek:

Good news is that the mortgage payment cleared earlier today. Mortgage itself stands at £26,483.64 and with £1k put aside at a higher than 2.5% rate speciically marked for the mortgage, that's an effective balance of £25,483.64.

Done the usual charts upload and signature etc.

While I'm here...
Just realised that our AA savings account bonus rate ends next week and we're looking to migrate our limited funds to another savings account. Looking for instant access with a reasonable rate.

The sums we're talking about ~ £3k, if the rate is 3.0% or 3.15% doesn't really matter that much. Just had a quick look at ING Direct - we've used them before and had no problems.

If anyone has any recommendations or there's any accounts via cash back, then I'm happy to study the details.

Thanks,
FB.

financialbliss

My earlier post suggested we would open an ING Direct savings account - our AA savings 12 months bonus expires this coming Friday (12th August), thus we're shifting the savings elsewhere.

Mrs Bliss attempted to open an ING Direct account earlier this afternoon, but got the message - "your details are recognised as being an existing customer", although this was in 2009. Quick 0800 phone call later and the 3% AER savings account has been opened / reserved. Just need to post an initial cheque deposit and further details to come through once that is received.

Turns out you have to have had a break of just 6 months to then be treated as a new customer.

We're probably going to sent an initial cheque deposit of £250 and send the remainder through electronically once the details arrive.

Still need to close the AA account. Intending to do this on Monday or Tuesday evening.

FB.

financialbliss

Quick post beore I turn in for the evening.

AA Savings. As mentioned previously, we've put a closure request in to AA savings this evening for the savings account we hold there. Will be actioned tomorrow and will have funds in 3 days time, ie Thursday. No indication at this point in time how much interest we may receive.

Reclaim tax. Mentioned this in passing a few weeks ago and nothing since. Mrs Bliss had an Egg savings account, but was taxed, so we're looking to claim the tax back. Had put this form in a few weeks ago, but I think the HMRC website suggest leaving it at least 4 weeks before we make any enquiries, so I'll leave for now.

American Express CC. Was our 12 month anniversary since this credit card was opened On Saturday. Have about £167 in cash back waiting to be credited back to the account. As we've never received any cash back on this card yet, I'm mildly curious as to when this will be received. Should have been credited on the 6th, as that was 12 months, but I suspect it may be the August statement date. Checking this card every few days. :beer:

FB.

financialbliss

Just double checking that I'd made at least one post this week. Previous entry was made on Monday, but I had a few things to mention and didn't get the time.

More tomorrow, as it's late and it's a school night (for me)!

FB.