MF Dreams...Take2!

LauraWxx

Hi MFW’s...

It’s my second time here having started a diary many years ago. That seems like a lifetime ago now, marriage, baby and a new house/mortgage since then.
Life is beginning to settle down again (DS now 20 months old) and it’s time to turn my attention back to making better use of of our money. Ultimately we want to overpay both our mortgages with the aim to clear the flat mortgage and reduce the house mortgage and then potentially look at moving in a few years to a larger more expensive house without a massive impact on the mortgage.

Key stats-
2 Mortgages:
1 home we live in - £154k mortgage / house value £210k ish
1 flat we rent out - £80k ish / flat value £100k ish

The flat mortgage is first on my list, currently looking to remortgage on a BTL. Got a few £k in savings which I plan to lump in and get the mortgage under £75k for a lower LTV.

After the new flat mortgage is sorted then I have a number of other focus areas in order to free up more cash each month in which we will use to overpay. Focus areas:

1) Car finance - I have a car, of which the finance payments are a rather pricey £600 per month. When I got the car we had no children and weren’t planning on having any. We could easily afford it and although we can still comfortably afford it, I just don’t want to waste money on cars anymore. It is currently in negative equity by about £2k-£3k, so cannot do anything on this too quickly. Plan is to continue paying the finance and keep running the settlement v valuation figures until they come closer together. At that point swap it for something cheaper. Ideally looking to halve my costs so circa £300pm.

2) Food shopping budget - we currently budget £500pm for 2 adults, 1 toddler and 2 dogs. The dog food accounts for about £50pm, but somehow we seem to go over the remaining £450pm easily by £100-£200 per month. I seriously don’t know how we do it. So first aim is to just manage to stick to the budget and then perhaps look to reduce it.

3) Bits & Bobs spending - I seem to fritter away nearly £300 per month. This is the amount I allocate to myself for clothes, make up, meals out etc. But I often have very little to show for it other than meals out.

Looking at salaries on paper, we should be in a better position than we are, my salary is £47k for 4 days per week and husband is £37k.
I do a lot of extra hours, which is part of the whole doing 4 days (which actually means I just do 5 days work in 4 days for 4 days pay). Occasionally I request my day off to be paid if I have worked a lot over the weekend. This adds an additional £200 ish to my pay packet for each day I claim so worth doing.

well done if your still reading this far, I’m mainly looking to have a repository to get my thoughts and targets down. DH is on board but doesn’t really have much input.

LauraWxx

As per previous post, car finance I can’t do much about at the moment other than keep an eye on the figures.
Food shopping, we are trying to meal plan more and stop giving up on the intended dinner and ordering a takeaway instead.

The activity that I am mainly focusing on at the moment is my bits and bobs spending account.

I transfer £300 each month into this account and historically I have had to top it up a few hundred pounds every couple of weeks.

Ideally this money would go towards clothes, days out, make up, nails etc and £300pm should be sufficient for that.
However it seems the reality of it is being spent in the shops at work.
I work in an office block that has a subway, Costa, McDonald’s, sandwich shop, Tesco express etc
I can easily spend £30-40 per week just at work.
Lately I have been making a conscious effort to take my lunches in to work to reduce how much I spend. However I am still tending to buy a drink each day and a snack a couple of times a week. Estimate around £10 per week spent currently.

Of a weekend we go out a lot. We had national trust memberships for Xmas and I am trying to make more use of these to give us free days out.
So far, we have managed a few of these days and I’m hoping when the better weather comes, it will be a weekly activity.

NSD’s are the dream although I rarely get many. Must try harder

msmoneypennyplease

Hi Laura W,
You sound like almost exactly the same position that we were in around 5 years ago so I’m following with interest. Similar salaries and mortgages. We managed to pay off the mortgage on the flat quite quickly so hopefully you’ll do the same. We are now in the bigger house with bigger mortgage, sold the previous house and kept the flat. Does your wee one go to nursery?

LauraWxx

That’s inspiring to know you have paid off the flat already!
Yes my little boy goes to nursery 3 days per week which sets us back around 500ish per month. We both take advantage of childcare vouchers to the max limit and then top up with cash.
How are you finding the bigger mortgage?
We have a lot of surplus money each month but for some reason I’m always nervous about actually committing It to something. I like the idea of op’ing enough that the mortgage on a bigger place shouldn’t change too much.
Then we have the question of another baby. DH would love a second, I’m not so sure and it will def delay things MF wise.

LauraWxx

Today has been spent going through info with mortgage broker for BTL remortgage.
A small ‘tilly tidy’ (her diary was on the go my first time on here, so nice to see she achieved her dream) which I am trying to get into the habit of doing daily.

nyc_451

You have achieved a lot, very inspiring... Well done and good luck!

LauraWxx

Thanks BlueMango, feels like we have wasted a lot of time. I was speculating how far we would of got on our MF journey if wedding, baby, life and too much shopping hadn’t got in the way. Glad to be back focused now though.

Confirmation today that I am claiming for two extra days worked this month so that is an additional £400ish net that I should see in my salary at the end of the month. Updated my spreadsheet to reflect that.
Just chucking everything in savings at the moment until the flat BTL mortgage is sorted as I will most likely need to put in a few ££ in order to get it under the 75% LTV.

Till tidy about to happen as well.

LauraWxx

We have managed the unthinkable- we have managed to survive the week without doing a food shop :j:j
As a result we are on course to actually stay within our food shopping budget this month which I think will be the first time ever!
We have £187 left in the food shopping account, I am going to Asda this morning and try to get enough meat etc for the remaining 2 weeks until pay day and then will only have to do a small top up shop for fresh stuff next week.

Additionally I have squeezed fuel this week, had budgeted for another 3 full tanks but think I can prob get away with two tanks for the rest of the month so again I may (for the first time ever) stick to my personal spending budget for this month as well.

Small (£10) OP made the other day, I did say I was throwing all our money into savings for the flat BTL remortgage, this is still the main plan. But I also want to make some little op’s to keep the momentum.
Op went to house mortgage which is broken down into three charges (various borrowings), the smallest one is just under £8k and on 3.33% so this is my first pot to tackle. I think once the flat is remortgaged then I will throw all our money at this £8k pot to try to clear that ASAP and then move on to the next highest pot.
Been thinking about it and whilst the rent covered the flat mortgage, I think I would rather op the house mortgage so when we look to move in a few years we have more equity to play with.
I will post a full breakdown of what we owe and what we pay soon - once I am on laptop not phone!!

Job for the weekend is review gas & electric provider. Current provider have recently put the prices up and were now estimated to pay £140 per month. This seems horrifically high to me so going to have a shop around. Any recommendations on sites to use?

Happy Friday :beer:

LauraWxx

Reviewed current G&E account and it seems we are in debit, (assuming due to winter period) so I don’t think I can move till the account is back on credit. So will wait for warmer months and in the meantime try to reduce our usage somewhat.

Big Asda shop yesterday, £177 although £40 of that was clothes for our holiday which I have transferred from the holiday clothes pot. Leaves us around £50 for a top up shop of fresh stuff next week

LauraWxx

Ps anyone know how to change signature on phone version? My savings are sadly not at the level my signature is saying they are!

Tartan_Mum

I have an iPhone and you go into “Your profile” at the top of your thread. Then into “Your settings” then another settings option and finally you should see “edit signature”.

Hope this makes sense. It feels slightly hidden!