First home/Forever home! 19 May 2019 at 7:18PM in Mortgage-free wannabe 65 replies 5.9K views

Finchy2018

We bought our property in February. FTB's our mortgage was £204,000 and I want to pay this off ASAP.

Our house is a lovely 1 bed EOT which we put a 15% deposit down on (South East house prices for you!) We don't intend to have kids so perfect size for hubs, 2 cats and I - I can't really see a reason for us to ever need to move.

So. Plan is get the mortgage paid off! Our mortgage is £650 and our rent used to be £795 so we can certainly pay the difference. I do have £60k in a couple of savings accounts but I want to keep this if I can.

Currently the mortgage balance sits at £202,658, so going to knuckle down and pay off as much as possible before our fixed rate ends in 2 years.

I get a quarterly bonus with work so will put 50% into mortgage and keep 50% as I want to continue to build my savings too.

julicorn

Happy new diary! Looking forward to seeing how you get on. We started at a very similar amount to you (although our plan is to move into a bigger place in a few year's time).

That's a pretty big savings pot you've got there as well!

LeighofMar

Welcome. Sounds like you're off to a great start already. Congrats on your lovely home.

Finchy2018

julicorn wrote: »

Happy new diary! Looking forward to seeing how you get on. We started at a very similar amount to you (although our plan is to move into a bigger place in a few year's time).

That's a pretty big savings pot you've got there as well!

Thank you both! The savings is inheritance sadly, so not through my own hard work, but it has allowed us to get on the housing ladder, and I'd like to put at least some of it towards adventures!

I've just checked my online account, over payments so far total £1145 which I am happy with, I'm hopeful to put atleast £400 in this pay cycle, but I'll be able to work out a better figure once I see my payslip.

I have a couple of credit cards to clear which are at 0% and used for house stuff, but once that is done I'll stick the money I was paying into OPs too.

I was really good this weekend, only spent about £20 as I didn't go out, will try to continue that trend for a while as it's also helping the diet along too!

I'd like to look and see if there is anywhere else I can make savings, I'm sure food shopping is one, I just need to give up Ocado and move to cheaper delivery service, so going to test out Sainsburys this week and see how they fare.

new_mortgageeee

Welcome and well done with progress to date! I’d recommend a SOA (statement of affairs) to identify savings (google stoozing SOA for a good one that formats for posting to MSE). If you want some feedback on it you can post your SOA here and people will usually advise.

I use Sainsbury’s if I need a delivery (no local big supermarkets) and have always been happy with them. Even when they delivered a couple of items on or past use by dates (and I didn’t spot it to reject the items at delivery) they offered me a refund without question. The delivery seemed to be much cheaper than others when I did a comparison a year or two ago.

Best of luck with your MSE plans!

Finchy2018

Thanks! I will do an SOA and see if there are savings to made somewhere. Will post that up shortly.

Finchy2018

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1 (we have 2 but Hubs is company car and they pay for everything)

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1795.38
Partners monthly income after tax....... 300 (he earns less than me, so this is his contribution)
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2095.38

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 648.3
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 142.38
Electricity............................. 61.47. (Gas & Elec, our account is £100 in credit)
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 32.19
Telephone (land line)................... 45.99 (telephone, broadband and TV)
Mobile phone............................ 6
TV Licence.............................. 12.83
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 290 (based on last month)
Clothing................................ 25
Petrol/diesel........................... 50
Road tax................................ 20.13
Car Insurance........................... 42.05
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10
Car parking............................. 78.4
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 13.33 (Building and contents)
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 59.83 ( for both, and income protection)
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 30
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 300 (absolute guess, need to track this)
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1877.9


Assets
Cash.................................... 57215.4
House value (Gross)..................... 240000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 7500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 304715.4


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 202678...(648.3)....1.74
Total secured & HP debts...... 202678....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Tesco..........................2296.93...64.43.....0. (just paid a chunk off last night form savings)
MBNA ..........................1209.3....41.18.....0


I think I'll pay off the cards and then work on building savings up and over payments.

Finchy2018

This morning I opened a new savings account not associated with my current account. This way I won't be tempted to just borrow from my savings for things. I will need to be more regimented with my approach to budgets.

Food shop arriving tonight and will test out Sainsburys next week.

My only plans for this long weekend are a friends birthday at theirs, so I am hoping it will be a low spend weekend. Once my payslip arrives I can work out what money is going to go where on payday.

I might look into eBaying some old clothes, I don't really have anything else worth selling, as my possession are mostly books and video games. I don't have spare shoes/handbags etc.

I have £150 in an account I forgot about, so could keep that where it is, or use it towards CC, Mortgage or savings.

Finchy2018

Moved £20k to new savings account (max I could send in one go) Once my remaining balance is up to £5k I'll send that over only about £400 to hit that.

I've cancelled a lot of subscriptions I just don't need, which should have saved around £50.

Payslip arrived, bonus is nearly an extra £300, so will split that between savings,OPs and CC next week.

Created a spreadsheet for tracking spends/savings/credit card balances.

Hoping for a quite weekend spent mostly at home, I need to put up a blind and tidy up the cables around our TVs, but I think that's a job for tomorrow, I'm pretty shattered after my run today, it got rid of my hangover but has wiped me out!

newgirly

Hi welcome and good luck with the new diary

Finchy2018

Thank you!

Got up this morning and went for my run before it got too hot. Nipped to M&S to get brunch stuff and cooked hubs and I sausages and beans.

Looks like I should have £250 left in my account come payday so will split this between this payday OP, Savings and Cc.

I feel like our freezer is over flowing so I'm hopeful this week's Food shop will be a smallish one. Need to make up some lunches for the week ahead.

Another day at home today. I'm not feeling 100% so will chill with some video games.

I have some Jack Wills gift sets I recieved from Christmas. I'll probably never use them so will either see if I can eBay them or donate to a women's refuge. The latter is probably what I will do.

The big cat is off for his first adventure outside, he's not been fussed about going outside since we moved hopefully he comes home! Little one is still recovering from surgery so I won't let her out my sight but I will start letting her out next week i think.