Long Term Mortgage Free Wannabe

katsoocam

Well it's been a week or so but we have been very busy with the MIL's party and our BBQ the next day. We came in below budget for both events (thank god for Lidl) and we had to throw very little away. The freezers are stuffed with leftovers so our food shopping for this month should be even better than last month.
Updated financial goals:
1) Future Mat Leave Fund £20000/£28000 71.4%
2) Current Mat Leave Fund £10161.19/£12000 92.4%
3) Emergency Fund £15000/£15000 100%
4) Maternity Childcare Fund £0/£24000
Adding in retirement fund (this is in addition to pension and what we will get from downsizing a little from our eventual family home)
5) Retirement Fund Account 1) £155884.09 (this is in a stocks and shares ISA so fluctuates) 2) £0 (Lifetime ISA, idea being any little bits of cash get swept into this) Total: £155884.09/£1000000 15.6%
Also adding in car fund for deposit for our next car, I don't drive and I am having lessons. Hub currently driving what will be my car and he will get something new.
6) Car Fund £9829.71 (note we also use this account for the payments on the current car, this is a high interest account and we got 0% finance). I don't really have a target for this.
Financial Goals for September:
1) Finish main goal 2)
2) Put at least £1000 towards main goal 1)
3) Open high interest account for emergency fund and first £20000 of future mat leave fund
4)Open Lifetime Cash ISA
Food and toiletries budget for this month is £150 again, mostly because we are low on toiletries. I stocked up at Wilko's, waiting for the order to arrive. It was a 6 month stock up so grocery budget is now £78. We can do it! Madam has a fortnight's nappies as she is now in the size 2 section of the pre delivery stash.
Though the food leftovers weren't that massive, we got brought loads of drink, so we did have a fair bit left. Upshot is we have enough beer for Xmas, easily (also at our house this year), plus enough to keep hub going until then (he is not a big drinker) plus we have 15 assorted bottles of wine and fizz we didn't have before the weekend... We also got lots of baby stuff as gifts - won't need to buy much before she is 9 months.
Goals for this week:
1) Audit freezer contents (our audit is very out of date, plus I just flung stuff into the freezer at the end of the party so nothing would go off, so need to figure out what we have.
2) Finish Xmas present number 2
3) Unpack 3 of remaining moving boxes
4) Put stuff waiting to go in loft up there

katsoocam

FINANCIAL GOALS 2019
1. Get LISA each
2. Start overpaying mortgage
3. Start 'slush' fund for unexpected/non monthly things like water bill, insurance etc
4. Start saving for child expenses fund
5. Top up Emergency Fund to £22800
6. Top Up Maternity Leave Fund to £24000
7. Make slush fund up to £10000
8. PACKED LUNCHES PACKED LUNCHES PACKED LUNCHES
MONTHLY BUDGET 2019 AND ONWARDS
£2600 Monthly Costs
£200 Entertainment
£940 ISA
£1000 Childcare/Classes Fund
£100 Slush Fund
£666.66 LISA (£333.33 each)
£444.44 Mortgage Overpayment
- Any leftover/extras/Locum into emergency fund until it is £22800 (Currently £15000)
- After that to holiday fund until £6000 (repeat per annum)
- After that to next mat leave fund until £24000 (Currently £20000)
- After that to Slush Fund until £10000 then revert to £100 monthly
- After that car fund

katsoocam

Well it's been a while. What can I say, life has been busy. Hub had a work exam (awaiting results), I've got a new job, I passed my driving theory test and I'm now revising for a work exam also. I'm still on maternity leave with my lovely little girl who is doing something new every day and now am on unpaid leave! Eeek!

A few things have changed in our lives. My parents are moving to where we live to be closer to us...who am I kidding, the granddaughter is the real draw! They will be caring for her two days a week when I return to work and she will have two days a week with a childminder. This significantly reduced our projected childcare expenses.

We've been readjusting our finances. At the moment we are just trying to keep expenses as low as possible. It alarms me to be using savings but this is probably silly as they were savings for maternity leave after all.

Things To Do here
1) Revise signature (done)
- going to do this the first of every month from now on
2) Update financial goals/monthly budget
3) Check out any useful challenges that might help motivate me to get to my targets - I already rejoined the emergency fund challenge as we need to increase this.

katsoocam

So this is our revised budget for July onwards.
MONTHLY BUDGET JULY 2019 AND ONWARDS
£2600 Monthly Costs
£200 Entertainment
£940 ISA
£500 Childcare/Classes Fund
£100 Slush Fund
£666.66 LISA (£333.33 each)
£444.44 Mortgage
TOTAL = £5340

I start getting paid annual leave mid June so this will be a small pay cheque and I'm not making any big plans for it, save I will need some of it for my July mat leave expenses.

It's difficult to predict what I will be earning in my new job (overall pay has gone down a bit for the next year, which as I will be changing departments and need to learn/develop new skills, seems fair. However I am on a defined pay scale and the year after will be back up to what I earn now (gross) though my take home will still be a bit less as my pensionable pay will be more than it is now.

Our additional financial goals are as follows
1) Increase emergency fund until it is £22800 (Currently £15000)
2) Holiday fund until £6000 (currently £0)
3) Increase next mat leave fund until £28000 (Currently £20000)
4) Increase Slush Fund until £10000 (Currently £0.01)
5) Increase car fund until £10000 (Currently £7752.67)

Realistically we are only going to manage additional goal no. 1 in 2019 but I'm ok with that.

katsoocam

Excitingly I hand overpaid my tax by quite a chunk this year due to mat leave. I am waiting for my p60 to arrive to claim my rebate. I suspect the money will go on car seats, a birthday party and the first chunk of money for the tax free childcare but still: I'm excited!

katsoocam

Trying to get back into hardcore money saving.
Went back to work in a new job in August. More money for less hours and I pick my own shifts - fab as I can plan around Hub’s shifts and make sure our little girl always has a parent there at bedtime!
Goals at the moment: still trying to save up a full emergency fund, a maternity leave fund (or a fertility treatment fund depending on how things go) and as ever, overpay the mortgage!

katsoocam

We have made a few changes over the last few months that have saved us quite a lot of money ( and have turned out to be helpful in the current situation). 

Since August we have had a weekly fruit and veg  delivery from a local market. This is fab quality and price compares very favourably with Aldi. Delivery is free. 

We started also getting milk delivered in Jan. The milk itself costs more, but I loved the convenience, the saving in plastic and the fact that the milk comes from six miles away. 

Despite the increased cost we actually save money. Why? Well firstly because we just get the milk we need (instead of going once or twice for big four pinters we get three deliveries a week and we can tweak our order up to the night before. 

But mostly because we stay out of the shops. No more wandering in for milk and coming out with £10 of stuff we don’t need. We now grocery shop monthly, stocking the freezer with meat/fish/bread and the fridge with cheese and yoghurt. 

My husband was cynical, but when we trialled it we saved about £40 a month!
It requires meticulous meal panning but I have always found this essential for money saving anyway. 

£480 a year isn’t a lot to some people but for us it’s the difference between affording a holiday or not as our budget is tight. 

katsoocam

Exciting news as my contract got extended until 2024 and I get a pay rise in August - £4200 per annum. Of course after tax and pension that will be significantly nibbled down but hey, it’s better than nothing! 

katsoocam

Really worrying about money at the moment. On the face of it we are doing ok - no debt but the mortgage - but competing financial goals are making me feel like it is impossible for us to get financially sorted. 

Firstly we remortgage in two years. I had such grand plans to overpay and we haven’t 😂. I would really really like to be on the 60% LTV ratio for our remortgage. But that means, unless the housing market is really strong in 2022 and our house is worth a lot more than it was when we bought it, that we need to find £30k from somewhere. It’s not impossible but there are other things potentially going on that will make saving a lot difficult, and I’m fretting about that.

We are also, and I appreciate this is in direct contrast to what I have said above, considering purchasing a log cabin type holiday home in North Wales. This would mean avoiding expensive school holiday prices for holidays and we would use it as an asset and aim to rent whenever we weren’t there ourselves. It’s a putative idea and we are going to stay in the park in March (worldwide viral outbreaks permitting) to get a feel for the place and to crunch the numbers. 

We still want to extend our family - currently one little 25 month old, working on number two, and ideally we we would have at least three! However if we have another now number one would be eligible for free hours at nursery (the big expense of child ownership I have discovered!) before number two went so that would be a big saving. It still means mat leave savings as my husband doesn’t own enough to cover the bills completely so we need to put money aside to cover those extras while I am off. 

There are other things - the PCP on my car is up in a year. We promised ourselves a nice ten year anniversary holiday (2026). 

Writing this down has actually made me feel a lot better. I guess I will take the usual approach to this - make a chart to colour off squares as we reach each savings goal, go for a ‘no spend’ month when we use all the food in the freezer (helped by the fact that all the home grown fruit and veg is ripening nicely!) and do a thorough money makeover to check we aren’t spending unnecessarily. And then just try hard for those incremental gains. And then it is just the little engine that could mantra...‘I think I can, I know I can, I think I can, I know I can’. 

South_coast

I can totally relate, and often find myself lying awake at night thinking of all my grand plans for my money and how I am ever going to achieve them with the finite amount available each month. For me, it really helps to concentrate on one goal at a time and pile everything into that, as I get very dispirited when I see not-much happening on lots of different things at the same time. Why don't you have a sit down with your OH and list it all out with approximate costs and put it into an order of priority. You might then need to change this order as some things will have a fixed deadline, like the car or the anniversary trip, but just seeing it all written down will no doubt help as you'll know exactly what you're up against. 

Overall though, as long as you know you're spending wisely and you know where it's all going, it's all contributing to the greater good one way or another. You can do this 😀!