Simple, sustainable and slow: Glenda's MF marathon 13 May 2019 at 8:03AM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Mortgage-Free Wannabe 83 replies 5.3K views

GlendaSugarbean

I've been lurking about the mortgage and debt-free boards on here for a while, so decided it was time to start my own diary .

Background: after a few rocky years due to kids and illness, I'm now in possession of my own home (finally, in my mid 40s) and a shiny year-old mortgage with a 25 year term. As I'd prefer to be without mortgage payments into my late 60s, I've started OPs. I'm the main wage earner for my little family, the mortgage is in my name only (DH covers part of the household bills), and I don't have a huge amount of cash to spare. Hence the theme of simple, sustainable and slow (much like my RL exercise routines :rotfl:).

Simple: I started with a regular £37 monthly OP (rounding my monthly DD to £800), and after a year I have now upped this to £850. I'm topping it up with weekly TT, aiming for around a tenner a week. If I can find more spare in my monthly budget I will up this again.

Sustainable : rather than throwing everything at the mortgage (much as I'd like to), I'm also building up my emergency fund and have savings pots for home maintenance, holiday spending, Xmas and birthdays. I've also cleared my CC and overdraft and do not intend to get into any more debt if I can possibly help it!

Slow: One year on, and if I carry on with the current OPs my mortgage term reduces by about 3 years. I'm not going to be able to pay it off quickly without some major windfalls. So the aim of this diary is to keep me focused and accountable as I slowly chip away at the total.

Will be back later to update my plans for the rest of the month .

GlendaSugarbean

Toolkit: the usual stuff! Weekly tidying of the pennies into an OP pot using YNAB, keeping a close watch on the grocery budget, NSDs and LSDs. Managed my first NSD of the week today. I also use Monzo for my weekly spending, and round up any spends into a separate savings pot.

Trip hazards: impulse spending, especially on requests from the kids. I work full-time, so it's tempting to spend on fun activities at the weekends. We have loads of free entertainment options, so I need to make better use of them.

Status report:

Mortgage £166,037.20 / £171,000

Emergency fund £1620 / £5000

NorthernMonkey1

If you get a yearly pay rise, every year, increase what you pay off by your pay rise amount. You wont notice that you didn't get a pay rise, but your mortgage will

Kat78MFW

Hi Glenda - love the name of your diary. You are making fab progress and I will be following with interest.

GlendaSugarbean

Northernmonkey: that's a good idea, but my pay rise this year has gone to increasing my pension, as I need to make up for a few years of part time work and low contributions. Now up
to 8% (which my employer matches), so next year I'll think about splitting it - good plan .

Kat: it feels like very slow progress! Bit if I can find an extra £50 a month, I'll be OPing 1% of my mortgage over the next year. It's s start!

GlendaSugarbean

Have paid that pesky £36.20 off, making the mortgage a nice even £166,000. A week until I get paid but I have cash left over for groceries and a bit extra.

Next pay day will show my increased mortgage DD but the pension changes don't kick in until the month after, so no idea what my take home pay will look like (maths, not my strong point).

Now at £46.20 OP so far this month .

GlendaSugarbean

It's been a mixed couple of days, weekly grocery shop cafe in under budget but I've had a few unexpected spends and still on 1 NSD this week. Must do better!

Will think of cheap and cheerful party ideas for the weekend as we are hosting Eurovision :beer:.

I hate the week before payday. The less spare cash I have, the more I want to spend.

GlendaSugarbean

I'm using the Monzo app to round up my spends into a mini savings pot - at a whopping £3 so far this week :cool:

GlendaSugarbean

Chugging along until I get paid next week and the New Plan can commence .

A_Frayed_Knot

Great idea - rounding off and rounding down - it all helps.

Every time I op'd, I thought to myself, "I'll not be paying interest on that - ever again" :j

GlendaSugarbean

That's a great motivator A Frayed Knot. I think I need to play around with some interest calculators.

Confession time: budget has had to be tweaked due to a slight overspend ... on our Eurovision party :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: