Up for a laugh? A 23 year old's guide on how (not) to be mortgage free

themadvix

Finding balance is key! Enjoy the extra wiggle room in the food budget - life is for living as well as overpaying....

Blibble

bugslet wrote: »

Been away last week - work not jolleys:(.

Good luck on the promotion Blibble, that will help with the budgetting.

I promise you, you can't live on noodles, not without killing each other:eek::p

It's more trying to live on veg curry and kievs! We're both quite big foodies though, so it's one of the things that's more important to us.

Going to play around with some revised figures at some point this week, and re-allocate budget accordingly. Toying with the idea of taking off some money from the wedding budget (saving £500p/m each works out over £23,000 by the time we have the wedding, before any family contributions :eek:), but will have a chat together.

Filling in the application form tonight - I'll approach it like all other applications in my life & buy a bottle of £3.49 Spar white wine and hope for the best :beer:

kimplus8

WOW! this is massively inspiring to read. You are 23, have a mortgage, saving for a wedding and want to throw money at ur mortgage debt. You are doing far better than most of 23yr olds I know. You and your fianc! should be darn proud at what you are achieving.

ViolaLass

£23k is quite a phenomenal amount to spend on a wedding though.

Yes, it's your choice, yes you're saving it (yes, you could boost your pension quite a bit with some of that, or cut your mortgage or eat fewer noodles, or all three).

Blibble

kimplus8 wrote: »

WOW! this is massively inspiring to read. You are 23, have a mortgage, saving for a wedding and want to throw money at ur mortgage debt. You are doing far better than most of 23yr olds I know. You and your fianc! should be darn proud at what you are achieving.

Stop it, you'll make me blush. On a slightly more serious note, though, society seems to have this idea that all young people are reckless and financially irresponsible. Which is sometimes true. But for every 20-something that is, there's another 5 who are screwed over by society and have to do what they can to get by. We're exceedingly lucky to be in the situation we're in, with a decent education and full-time work, but I think you'd be pleasantly surprised by how many 20-somethings really are inspiring. It's just a shame that it's all too often out of necessity.

ViolaLass wrote: »

£23k is quite a phenomenal amount to spend on a wedding though.

Yes, it's your choice, yes you're saving it (yes, you could boost your pension quite a bit with some of that, or cut your mortgage or eat fewer noodles, or all three).

^^This. It's a daft amount, I realise that. Part of me is always thinking "we never do anything for ourselves, we should have one day in the year which is just us", and part of me thinks "if we were more reasonable with the wedding, we'd have another 10k to chuck at whatever we wanted". I've not reconciled that one yet, and don't think I will for a while. But at least the savings are there, whichever way we decide to crack on with it

ViolaLass

Blibble wrote: »

^^This. It's a daft amount, I realise that. Part of me is always thinking "we never do anything for ourselves, we should have one day in the year which is just us", Not really true,
though, is it? You went to Paris, for example, and ignored the budget. and part of me thinks "if we were more reasonable with the wedding, we'd have another 10k to chuck at whatever we wanted". I've not reconciled that one yet, and don't think I will for a while. But at least the savings are there, whichever way we decide to crack on with it

For that kind of money, I'd want a LOT more than one day 'all about me'. And I'm not sure I'd want to eat poorly for months to achieve it.

It's totally up to you, of course, you're not borrowing to do it and you're otherwise being pretty sensible. I just wonder whether you're being totally honest with yourself and really thinking through the choices you're making.

You don't have to splurge just because society tells you you're being really sensible (Not saying that's the only reason you're doing this, just trying to provoke you to think).

Blibble

I'd just like to stress - we're not eating poorly to get where we're going (cheap, yes, but homecooked meals 7 days a week). We're just buying chicken thighs rather than breast, mixed mince rather than 15% beef mince, and chicken liver now and then to keep costs down.

It's all a question of sacrifice, though. If we decided to jack in the MFW dream tomorrow, we'd still just about be able to put that much towards the wedding. I'd rather have the *option* of doing a large-scale wedding and deciding against it, than not have the option at all.

I do take your point about Paris, though. Perhaps this'll be the second thing we do for ourselves :rotfl:

daisy_1571

Blibble wrote: »

Stop it, you'll make me blush. On a slightly more serious note, though, society seems to have this idea that all young people are reckless and financially irresponsible. Which is sometimes true. But for every 20-something that is, there's another 5 who are screwed over by society and have to do what they can to get by. We're exceedingly lucky to be in the situation we're in, with a decent education and full-time work, but I think you'd be pleasantly surprised by how many 20-somethings really are inspiring. It's just a shame that it's all too often out of necessity.



^^This. It's a daft amount, I realise that. Part of me is always thinking "we never do anything for ourselves, we should have one day in the year which is just us", and part of me thinks "if we were more reasonable with the wedding, we'd have another 10k to chuck at whatever we wanted". I've not reconciled that one yet, and don't think I will for a while. But at least the savings are there, whichever way we decide to crack on with it

First before I say anything - it's your money and you do what ever it is that pleases you :beer: I'm only commenting to give you another viewpoint to consider.

From a standpoint of more than twice your age and with our silver wedding anniv far behind us - we prioritised the marriage part above the wedding part. We had the ceremony, a meal with our main family (14) and then onto the local golf club for the evening dancy part with buffet halfway through. Fantastic day, lots of lovely photos, time spent with the people we wanted to talk to and celebrate with. We are no less married than someone with 6 bridesmaids, doves, themed tables and a strictly choreographed day (which always winds up running late and is just incredibly boring for the guests however) as long as the 2 people getting married are happy that is all that matters and most people just smile and bear it. Or drink a lot lol.

I think if you re read your comment above and think about it - part of the reason you are never feeling you do things for yourselves might be cos you are allocating all your free money for tasks. If you let up slightly on the saving and 'allowed' yourself to enjoy a little of it each month then you might not feel this way ?

Take 'wedding' out the equation and ask yourself how you would spend £23,000 if someone gave you it - a 6 month holiday? Improvements to the house ? Money towards a next house ? Or just keep it in the bank ? Now think again about spending all that on half a day.

Suggestions
Keep saving towards it but make a game of trying to get the day sorted as frugally as possible while still doing the things that are important to you and allocate whatever amount you don't spend to a project. Half your wedding savings but keep saving the other half allocated to something else so you can still use it if you want but your mind will concentrate on the lesser amount while you are planning the wedding. Save £300 and give yourself £200 a month to allocate as you please, some months it might be on fancy food, others you might overpay, others you might still put it in wedding.

You've got along life ahead of you sweetie, if you want to get married don't plan it years in the future just get on and do it and then enjoy the rest of your lives. The longer you are living together the less difference there is after you have got married and in a way even less need to spend huge amounts on the day itself. Use the money as a real proper treat for you both rather than spending £600* a head at some ritzy place for people you might not even still be seeing in 5 years time. (*figure plucked from air for dramatic licence, not what you are necessarily considering spending :rotfl:)

All meant with kindness and just to give you other ways of thinking.

Daisy xx

(Ps my first flat cost £18,500 !!!!!! :eek:)

(Pps I think viola was responding to your post that you were fed up eating the way you were and that both of you think food is important to you rather than making her own comment on your standard of eating)

ViolaLass

Another thought for you: have you considered the wedding budget in terms of work hours rather than money? e.g. if you earn £10 an hour, it's 2300 work hours.

Since you do overtime (and surveys, which pay poorly), are there other things you might prefer to do with some of that time?

Tropically

I’m going to voice my controversial opinion about why you should spend that on a wedding. I will be spending about £40k on my wedding but I’m a little bit older than you and down south (so more expensive).

Weddings are a celebration and party with family that home improvements or a holiday just cannot replace. Our wedding will not be a ‘day about me’. It will be a day when I get my friends and family together in one room, to laugh, dance, drink and be merry. I would simply not get as much joy out of a new bathroom compared to creating wonderful memories with my family and friends.

You are already being sensible with money, you don’t currently have financial problems – no debt, a secure mortgage, good jobs etc. I wouldn’t advise someone to spend a bunch of money on a wedding if they had problems that took priority.

If I had to choose between being mortgage free in 2040 instead of 2041 and sharing a special moment and time in my life with my grandparents who won’t be around forever, I would 100% chose my grandparents. I don’t get that many opportunities to gather my friends and family anymore and I don’t want the only reason to see everyone together at once to be funerals. Yes, we should see everyone individually but lives are busy and complicated, and there are only rare occasions to all be together – weddings are one of them.

Plus, they’re just plain expensive!! Even just paying for food and booze for everyone adds up. I didn’t realise how much things cost for weddings until I started to plan one myself. The only way I could cut down the budget is to invite fewer people (or have less food and drink – not going to happen).

The more I plan our wedding, the more I realise that weddings are about love, family and community rather than my partner and me.

Anyway, off my soap box.