My 25 Months Challenge

A_Frayed_Knot

StripeyTightsSpottySocks wrote: »

Hello A Frayed Knot - hopefully this will work as i spotted little speech bubbles and gave one a whirl Your sig is very impressive - i'll have to have a read for tips

Not too many questions at all. My mortgage year is August to July - hence my 25 month challenge.

I had £1000 that i've left to pay to hit target this year - i paid £100 today after Mr SpottySocks gave me his half of a bill i'd paid

I pay the 'odd' amount of the 10% as soon as i can near the start of the overpayment resetting at the start of the year.

Just a suggestion, but you will know your finances better than anyone.

If I was in this position, then I would "borrow" the amount left to o/p, out of my savings pot/EF, then pay back into savings/EF instead of o/p mortgage for however long it takes to replace, as they say "once it's gone . . . it's gone" you have one chance to o/p it, and can't go back to it at a later date.

savingholmes wrote: »

StripeyTights - Well done on the payments and for taking stuff back.

Frayed knot - keep up the challenges - It's even rubbing off on me.

I loved doing this, sometimes only a couple of £'s, I was happy it was at 00.00 and used to think to myself, well that's another £2 I'll not be paying interest on - ever again :j

StripeyTightsSpottySocks

A_Frayed_Knot wrote: »

Just a suggestion, but you will know your finances better than anyone.

If I was in this position, then I would "borrow" the amount left to o/p, out of my savings pot/EF, then pay back into savings/EF instead of o/p mortgage for however long it takes to replace, as they say "once it's gone . . . it's gone" you have one chance to o/p it, and can't go back to it at a later date.

Hello again A Frayed Knot and thank you for your suggestion - it got me thinking a lot - although not about using my EF to pay off the mortgage, I will no doubt explain a lot more in detail along the ways but it can be quite emotional for me - hopefully i've kept that out of my reply :rotfl:

Briefly: when i was younger i supported family A LOT financially and for a very long time too. As well as other things this meant when eventually i was able to stop this and buy our house there was very little in the way of savings / emergency funds. The first redundancy wiped these savings out and then some - several redundancies later, as well as periods of short-time / reduced hours and I don't feel we've ever truly recovered from all these setbacks. We got minimum redundancies and as the companies didn't exist any more have had to apply for statutory redundancy so lost money from all extra shifts we did trying to recover financially :mad:

The cover I'd taken out in case of redundancy didn't pay out and was cancelled as insufficient premiums had been paid by the time of the first redundancy (as stated in their T&C's). To be fair it was the first week we'd moved in pretty much!

Anyways, the savings have only recently been built up to this level and was less than £100 before - it was the only account that never got touched when we were struggling to pay the mortgage and bills etc.as it's not as easy to access. Psychologically I prefer not to touch this account at all and in my mind I class it as the mortgage to help prevent this.

There are debts from using credit to live after being made redundant and these will be being tackled.

When I started to post on here, it was the first time I felt in the right head space to start posting and i'm pleased i did I really appreciate people posting and the support :T

The short answer was probably :rotfl: There is £900 left to pay to reach the 10% limit this month. I will be paying this towards the end of the month and then the 10% re-sets next month

Apologies if you didn't want to wade through all that waffle :rotfl:

A_Frayed_Knot

That is why I said you would know your finances better than anyone.

Similar - I paid a family members mortgage for a couple of years or more, while I was paying rent on my flat at the time. Once they could manage themselves again, I thought, yes I can afford a mortgage,
(always thought I couldn't) so that was the beginning of house buying.

My job is secure and they never have any redundancies, they call reducing workforce as natural wastage, but in fact, have seven vacancies right now, out of 18 :eek: so knew that the financial side was as secure as it would ever be.

I wasn't suggesting you pay off your mortgage, just the balance of the o/p allowance, as whatever you would normal o/p, could go back into that "pot". You would have to work out how many months that would take you to pay that back to your EF, the big bonus being - no added interest on that amount :j so you could work out how much you would save doing it that way, even if it was just half the amount :j

Then again, maybe your CC have a larger interest rate than your mortgage, and your o/p would be best paying that.

It's all in the workings out, and doing what we all call the money shuffle :dance::dance::dance:

Totally understand the security need for the EF, and you do great, telling yourself that it's not yours :T

StripeyTightsSpottySocks

Hello again A Frayed Knot

i do think about all the options in my mind and come up with new plans but have been sticking to the way i'm doing it now.

Ultimate goal is completely debt (mortgage and debts) free by the end of the 25 months - Completely impossible on paper :eek: But that's what's great about these boards - they encourage you to try I have been surrounded by people saying not worth paying a little extra off mortgage as makes no difference so refreshing to be on here

couple of small wins - reduced priced meat and fish bought and 2 freebies we will use :T

StripeyTightsSpottySocks

Hello All

i meant to pop on here yesterday but was completely exhausted and most vexed by technology not doing what it should that i was up well into the early hours trying to finish work that should have been done :mad: Gave up and went to bed - was exhausted and still the same today (underlying health issue) ended up finishing the work a few hours ago and have barely moved from the sofa all day Body knows i've done too much - i don't think i'd manage a full time job even though the decision to go part time wasn't mine:o I should really have another bash at getting a referral from the docs but when i'm this run down i don't have the energy to ask and when i'm feeling a bit better it feels silly to ask Oh well!

Still, a few things to report in My foray into town yesterday fortuitously coincided with a yellow stickered bonanza :T Several others swooping up the goodies but i got a BIG bag of meat with some great savings on :T
12 packs of very, very good quality bacon less than £12
3 packs of very high quality sausages just over £3
1 Turkey joint £1.50
4 very large Pork joints £4
2 packs chicken 1.5 kilos each £2
in addition to this was mince and steaks all at similar prices :T

I will not keep it all as family will benefit from the savings too but a good shop nonetheless.

In less good news it was raining and when i took shoes off noticed my foot was wet - checked shoes and they''d gone at the heel so into the bin they went - like trainers so unable to be repaired.

Despite IT being most frustrating i decided not to waste anything as planned so before midnight set to on straining stock i'd made and rounded up bottom of fridge veg and made soup :T

Ate leftovers for tea yesterday, brekkie was at work :T and today stuck to meal plan and organised for tea tomorrow too :T

Luckily won £10 so made a note in my sig to pay it off card - can't do it yet as statement produced so i have to pay at least the minimum.

Still shattered going to have a minute now then see how everyone is

savingholmes

StripeyTightsSpottySocks wrote: »

Hi savingholmes - thank you for stopping by - do you have a diary? I will look out for it

Hi Strpey
I have a diary on the DFW board - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/76061708#Comment_76061708 I try to stay positive. We have CC to clear and am slightly over-paying on the house. By this point in 2 years time - 1) cleared the CCs, 2) have a 6 month emergency fund, and have 3) started investing / save money towards rural dream 4) started seriously overpaying the mortgage / or saving towards mortgage neutrality

savingholmes

Well done on your overpayments

Nichelette

Congrats on your YS haul. I stock up if I get the chance too. I'm one of 4 kids so I distribute to the others as well, though my husband gets really embarrassed! If you're lucky M&S discount 90% in the last hour which is amazing if I'm lucky enough to catch it.

StripeyTightsSpottySocks

hello all - i've had an appallingly rubbish day and just want to sit here and cry

i need to remind myself at least isn't a health issue - although i have felt so very stressed today - and i do not use the word lightly. I haven't been able to eat and am waiting for the tension in my chest to subside

It is for many people probably nothing major but i feel so frustrated and i didn't want to come on and moan There have been several things but one will be ongoing for several months So I need to see the opportunity for dealing with lifes worthies in a positive way that doesn't take most of my day / night like it has done today. Worthies was the best name i could come up with that the system would allow :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: as in 'i am worthier than you, my needs are worth more than yours, therefore i'm just going to do what i want and you can live with it' :mad::mad:

StripeyTightsSpottySocks

Anyways, on Saturday night before i could sleep i was inevitably thinking about money and this was my first chance to post.

i can't remember what i decided but think i should just put down the amazingly large figure of.. drum roll

£115,000
So the target for about 2 years time is to muster up £115,000 but if we don't have a plan how will we get there? And i have seen many people post that you should aim for your main goal because aiming for that can only be good however well you do x

So:

£115,000
less 14,400 usual payments
£100,600 - see it looks better already
less £19,200 additional payments
£81,400
less £9,300 already saved
£72,100
less £1,200 will save
£70,900
less £800 should receive at least this in bonuses
£70,100
less £1500 reduce food shopping bill (average of about £15 a week. I have a voucher i should be able to use for food at £50 so that's 3 weeks and more taken care of. Holidays will happen so no food spends for us then, just the cats so savings again and generally using what we have and eating of stores)
£68,600
less £20,000 Matched Betting / winnings - to be started this weekend
£48,600
less £20,000 second job. Finish application this weekend
£28,600
less £100 cashback
£28,500
less £500 selling items i no longer need / use / want
£28,000
less £200 Birthday / Xmas money 9some family always give money so think it should be this much based on many, many years experience
£27,800


to be continued...