Our Patch of England

Cinny91

Hello Anybody!

I staggered around this forum as we saved for our house deposit, although my diary fell flat - a mixture of being busy and unable to update from home - in December of 2016 we hit our £20,000 savings target. I didn't actually think we'd make it, but a mixture of work bonuses and my DH's sheer determination pushed us across that line.

Then, in July of 2017 we completed on our first house purchase! A 1910's end terrace house, a stones throw from my Parent's and everything we were after. We decided to stretch our mortgage budget to the maximum and secured a 19 year term deal on a £125,000 loan, which currently stands at £121,441.20 (and a £729.84 pm payment) Our interest rate seems so much higher than other people who took mortgages out shortly after us - but it's all good and obviously we were happy with it when we signed the papers!

We also have a loan, taken out by my DH before we were married. The balance is currently £8980.92 and we hope to have this paid off in May (a nice forum manager said I could keep my "own" DF badge ) so in May I'll be DF x 2. Funny how mortgage is classed as the necessary debt, and completely separate from a debt free status?

Regardless - once the loan is paid off we can work towards our first mortgage over payment :T We haven't set any firm goals yet, but as our loan currently soaks up £972.78pm (a mixture of repayment amount + what we're saving to pay it off) we are toying with what might be a slightly insane, burn out inducing, £1000pm target. We can be slobs with our budgets, and I do feel we have a tendency to be a little throwaway and careless when it comes to out-of-bill spending. These are all areas I think will be the making or breaking of any longer term financial goals. We're very stereotypical in that we make good money, but lord knows where it goes to.

So, until May (with eyes on a June OP) I'll be working hard to pull as much money as I can together. I think the fun will really start once all our spare money can be focused at the mortgage - however a diary will be great to keep us on track for our DFD and not leave us thinking "well, another month on the loan won't hurt"

A little more about us - We're a family of 3 (plus pup) and we live in the East Midlands. My DH works full time, and I've got a neat 60/40 split between home life and my working week. Our LO recently turned 2, he's an absolute tornado. I think he's brilliant, but I'm obviously biased, he's been a blessing and a half.

Hoping this is the start of a fantastic journey!

missplant

looking forward to reading your MF journey

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary

michelle09

Welcome. Best of luck with your OP journey!

Busy_Mee1

Hello Cinny and welcome.
Congratulations on your new house and being nearly debt free. Most of the folk on here try to balance paying the mortgage off, with "having a life", but I find setting yourself mad targets does focus your mind. It makes you properly examine where your money goes and make conscious choices about where you spend the money, rather than it just leaking out. And don't worry if you don't hit your targets .....we don't send the boys round or anything :rotfl:

jwil

Good luck

Cinny91

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone

It's "my" payday today, slightly lower than normal as I had 2 days off last week with the snow but only booked 1 holiday down to try and balance my wage a little. Still, we've moved £156.21 into our loan payoff savings so we've got £6164.71 in there now. We need to basically contra the loan balance in May to pay it off and we're currently £1870.63 short - but we do budget £500 in savings for this each month so it's only really £870.63 short. If anyone can follow my horrible writing style!

Busy Mee1 - :rotfl: Glad to hear I won't get put on some MF hit-list!

The life/plans balance is what we generally struggle with, we're a lot better since we've moved. We don't have to drive 30+ minutes to get somewhere fun, we've got parks and a gorgeous market town on our doorstep now. We're "investing" some of our birthday money in passes to the local Children's adventure park, and I have a NT membership for days on my own with LO so there's going to be loads of entertainment for almost nothing this year.

Easy day today, LO and I have been for dinner with my Grandparents like we do every Friday and spent this afternoon in the garden trying to do some kind of tidying up. Easy and cheap tea tonight of sausage and veggie-hash-waffle-things. I never understood hiding vegetables in plain sight until our potato-fiend of a child came along. Honestly, if it's not potato (or sausage) he's not interested. Also tried to do a bit more work on our mortgage goals but it's still a work in progress, hoping to sit down properly with DH tonight and figure it out.

greent

Welcome to the MFW board
x

Kittenkirst

Happy new thread

wishingthemortgaheaway

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Have you ad a play around with the mortgage overpayment calculators, I find them incredibly motivating and if you are looking at £1k a month payment I think you'll be mortgage free in a blink.

And, even if you decide to lower payments later, higher payments now have a bigger effect on interest saved.

Do you pay out for childcare? If your little one is 2, don't forget that 15/30 hours (term time only) childcare kicks in the term after they are 3. This could be a saving that could be swept into the mortgage or savings, or could just loosen the budget up a little.

Keep posting.
I break huge things down into little steps, works for me, maybe not for everyone though.

Good luck
Wish.

Cinny91

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

Do you pay out for childcare? If your little one is 2, don't forget that 15/30 hours (term time only) childcare kicks in the term after they are 3. This could be a saving that could be swept into the mortgage or savings, or could just loosen the budget up a little.

We're very fortunate that he spends my 3 working days with my Mum, so we don't have any real childcare costs as they won't take anything from us for their time. We try to take them out for a meal at least once a month to say thank you, and we're toying with the idea of getting them a NT membership as a surprise once we've paid the loan off.

Like the idea of breaking things down into steps, I think I'm naturally a "big picture" person and can get disheartened by semi-disregarding the mini mile stones.

Taken some chicken out of the freezer to start defrosting in the fridge ready for tea tomorrow. We're having my parents over for tea for mothers day, our first plan was to order a take away but bar a few store cupboard staples we used up making our last curry, we've got everything in the cupboards to make it from scratch so we're taking that route instead. We've also got some over ripe bananas so I'll force the kid to "help" make some banana muffins for pudding. His favourite part of baking is pulling a tea bag out of thin air while my back is turned and trying to adding it to the bowl :doh:

Another semi-quiet day for us two at home. DH is off to watch football so we're meeting my friend and her daughter for cake and a catch up, the restaurant we're going to has an indoor/outdoor play area so they'll be able to burn off some steam. Hopefully the rain will clear so they can get some fresh air, if not I'll bundle LO up when we get home and at least brave the garden!

Also P.O.A with DH is to look at a mortgage OP calculator this morning. He's very numbers driven, so I think it'll get the cogs going to see the payoff charts. Hopefully we'll get the time this weekend, probably Sunday evening, to sit down and write up a S.O.A too. So many letters!