Toddling to a mortgage free future

Jrose1927

I find the food shop is key with my savings , we used to pop to the shop if we fancied something one night all of a sudden your bank balance dwindles ! now stick to a strict meal plan each week we've saved so much money! 

Great read so far and good luck on your journey il be following 

Bargainhunter30

Thanks Jrose.  I need to keep up the discipline with the meal planning.
So I'm suddenly feeling motivated again after several days of studying our finances (or lack of). I've started Matched Betting again, or rather casino offers using the TeamCasino £1 week trial.  Day one and four promotions completed in under 2 hours and so far I'm up £25.55! Every little helps.  I'm hoping to make enough to pay for a kitchen revamp - we have a man coming to quote for painting all our units and new worktop and sink.  Our new neighbour used the same company and the pictures look amazing.

Bargainhunter30

So day two of Teamcasin* complete, 15 offers done and £102.48 profit made 

Bargainhunter30

Oops input a figure wrong so day two was actually £77.48 profit.  Loosing streak day three, which included doing the offer where I have another day to complete before receiving bonuses, so 24 offers and down to £57.05 profit 

Start of day four and I've completed the last stage of the 3 day offers (play £5 per day for three days and receive a bonanza box at the end of the week - Thursday).  Hoping Thursday is profitable as I'm now down to £37.55 total profit  Oh well ups and downs they say and at least I'm still in profit!!

Bargainhunter30

Just got back from a weeks holiday visiting family.  Very spendy but enjoyable week and hoping we haven't blown this months budget.  Holiday has meant a break from Teamcasin*, however back on it tonight.  At the end of the three day offers I was up to £92.42.  Fast forward a few hours tonight and I'm up to £146.42, yay!

Bargainhunter30

TeamCasin* update: After my last post, I did a handful more offers and ended up with a huge £83 win.  Then ended up with 3/4 days of disappointing small loses and having to chase bonuses on live chat.  I've spent the last couple of weeks wondering if it was worth it, anyway today I decided to try again.  After less than 3 hours I'm up £36.02 taking my total to £278.64 and restoring my faith.  Will try again tonight or tomorrow.

Bargainhunter30

I had written and lost another post last week, but can't really remember what I wrote and after the last week some things just don't seem as important.  So life update: Loads of changes here, myself and partner currently both Furloughed and luckily receiving 80% wages.  We're keeping busy like the majority seem to be doing, catching up on DIY that we never normally have time to do and landscaping the garden.  Feeling extremely lucky that we are in a good financial position and fingers crossed my family are safe.  So grateful to all those on the frontline. 

I've also had way too much time to think about the future and finances.  I've realised that although I have a budget, I don't really stick to it and tend to buy as I please.  Hopefully we already have enough saved to pay for the rest of the house improvements that we need to do, we are just waiting for a couple of quotes and obviously it will be a while before anything gets done. After the work that needs to be done on the house is paid, then we can concentrate or rebuilding our emergency fund and OP's.  I've calculated that we can still achieve mortgage freedom by the time I'm 40, but it will be tight and require saving about 50% of our already tiny income.  But the last week has really shown that we really don't need too much to live on, especially whilst the kids are young and they just love us spending time with them, it doesn't matter what we are doing.

Up to £322 profit on Teamcasin* now after todays amazing £2.40 win.  121 offers now completed and have been doing about 12 no risk ones a day for last few days.  

Bargainhunter30

Obviously way too much time on my hands, so I've dug out all the mortgage paperwork to see how far we've come!
Mortgage start date Nov 2014  - £90,545 over 25 years (total to pay back £148,012.08).
Re-mortgage Oct 2017 - 78,295 over 23 years
Re-mortgage Jan 2020 - 55,000 over 26 years (total to pay back £83,770.19 by January 2046)!!!
Current Mortgage Outstanding - £54,508.16 a reduction of £36,036.84 in just over 5 years!  Trying to calculate how much interest we've paid so far, however I've had to send off one of our statements to apply for a new boiler grant, so will wait until that comes back before I get that shock!

Bargainhunter30

Time is flying at the minute, even though we've really not been doing much in the BH household. Glad my OH is also home as have had a tough few days with DD not sleeping, which always affects how I'm feeling and my mental health.  But life could be so much worse and we are very lucky here. We are currently landscaping the garden,which was a job we thought we would have to pay a company several thousands to do. But with all the spare time we've been doing all the labourous jobs by hand instead. Removing all the old grass and weeds and prepping the soil ready for seed at the end of the summer. Hoping to put in a bigger patio, but will need to wait for the professionals to come in for that I think.
Trying to start a veg garden, but so far only lettuce has been successful 😂

Miss_Money_Magnet

Hi BH30
Ive enjoyed reading your diary.  Ive been tempted have. Go at matched betting a few times... following your progress with interest.  Good luck on your journey