2 years to be mortgage free??!!

She_shall_have_music

Morning all,

Long time lurker here, and also had a previous diary under a different username.

A bit about us: there's me (31), DH (35), DS (5), and DD (3). We (just) live in the South East, but in an area with reasonable house prices! That meant we were able to buy a 4 bed house nearly 6 years ago, with a mortgage of just under £130,000.

Fast forward to now and our mortgage stands at £82,223. Happy with our progress so far given we've been paying childcare for one or both children since then. However job uncertainty means I'd like to get it paid off asap to make it easier to live on one income.

So the job situation: I'm in a stable full time job, although with a longer period and more expensive commute than I'd like. DH on the other hand is in a field where permanent jobs are hard to come by. He currently has 1 year left on his contract and this wouldn't normally be extended however due to exceptional circumstances his work have indicated that they're prepared to explore extending it for a year, and this is likely.

Therefore the challenge is: can we pay off £82k of mortgage debt, as well as my £5k remaining student loan in the next 2 years. :eek:
Please do join me for the ride

She_shall_have_music

So, the figures for you all, as I know you all love those

Mortgage amount remaining £82,223
Emergency fund balance: £15000
Mortgage op fund balance: £14000
Currently saving per month: £1500 towards mortgage and £250 to children student living costs fund

We are on a 5 year fix, and year 2 will end in December so just over 3 years remaining. The strategy is therefore to op the maximum allowed each year, which we've already done this year, and then save the rest. I'm aiming to switch to an offset mortgage in 3 years and therefore will be counting my emergency fund in calculations of whether we're mortgage neutral.

She_shall_have_music

I know there's a debate about extra pension contributions Vs mortgage ops and here is our strategy.

We're both fortunate to be in DB schemes at present, and I at least should end up with a pretty decent pension amount by retirement. I also have a fairly large pot of AVCs. I'm currently contributing £120 each pay period to this, with the aim to build it up and have the opportunity to take it early to bridge the gap until my DB benefits kick in. I think 58 is a reasonable target age. DH is contributing to his (less generous) DB scheme and if he stays employed until retirement then he will have an ok pot, enough to live on with SP and half my pension if I predecease him. If he doesn't get another job we will prioritise NI contributions and saving in a SIPP with his earnings (he's likely to be able to do bits of self employed work).

I'm also thinking of paying off my student loan outright, as I've got less than 18months left, and more in savings than the maximum OPs over the next 2 years! I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

She_shall_have_music

A good start to my journey as today has been a NSD. It was also my payday. We're trying to live on my income so that all of DH's income can go on saving/mortgage op's. Next month's budget is now fully funded in YNAB.
I'm really trying to cut down on buying food at work or on my way home from work for both financial and health reasons. I find if I plan ahead I bring healthy food, whereas if I buy food when hungry I choose the unhealthy option. I was bad at planning ahead at the end of the summer so need to get back in the habit. This week as well as bringing lunch on 3 of my 4 days in the office I also baked a batch of healthy muffins and made a spicy nut mix too.
This weekend is looking cheap too, apart from the cost of a dental check up for me and DH. We're seeing friends for afternoon tea tomorrow so I may need to pick something up to take with us but otherwise should be a cheap weekend :beer:
Finance jobs for the weekend:
- get DH to open regular saver for the 5% interest
- chase sky mobile to see why they cancelled our switch - they claimed last week it was waiting for a human to look at our credit report so need to follow up.

She_shall_have_music

So, it is just about possible for us to live on one income but there's not too much wiggle room.
The main categories that have been challenging recently are:
Groceries - have been climbing recently. This is partly due to lack of time to cook and relying on convenience foods. Now DD is at school nursery I have an extra half hour each evening so will be focusing on cooking from scratch
Clothes - have spent loads recently. Partly on kids but mostly on us. We didn't buy many clothes for about 5 years and then went a bit mad in the last 6 months. Plan to reduce is to buy only essentials for me and DH, from our personal spends budgets, and to try and source more hand me downs/second hand clobber for the kids
My spending money - I've fallen into bad habits about buying chocolate or other treats whilst at work. Bad for my wallet and my waistline. I'm going to try to go back to no spend days at work.

To keep me focused I will report on a weekly basis:

- all my personal spends
- how many NSDs (particularly work ones)
- amount spent on groceries
- any clothing spends
- any other money saving activities/wins
- amount of exercise done (just because!)

Hopefully this will keep me on track and help me to think before I buy.

She_shall_have_music

Starting as I mean to go on.

Last week's personal spends were £2.69 because I failed to bring in lunch on Monday :mad: £4.10 on going swimming on Wednesday and£2 on coffee on Thursday. Not bad all things considered, but could have avoided the Monday spend easily.
Only 2 NSDs (Tuesday and Friday), need to improve.
I spent £70 in Morrisons, as well as £6 on the milkman (reducing plastic use), and £2.50 on cleaning products in a zero waste store. They're really well priced in there so should save some money and plastic :j. Morrisons shop was more expensive than I'd have liked but I did stock up a bit so will hopefully all get used in the long run.

No clothes spends.

Last week I skipped 3 times and swam once, as well as reasonable amounts of walking l. Really pleased with this and will be trying to continue.

Have a good week all.

jenni_fer

Happy new diary!

Sounds like a good plan, and a great start!
Like you we are aiming initially for mortgage neutral and the piece of mind that brings.

Good luck!

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary

She_shall_have_music

Hi Beanielou and Jennifer, thanks for dropping in. It's nice to know I'm not talking to myself!

So, we've had our first setback, and a fairly large one but it wasn't completely unexpected. I'm trying to be philosophical about it , as these things will happen, just hopefully not too often!
Our flat roof was replaced not quite 2 years ago and has been leaking for nearly a year. The original guy has tried to fix it multiple times and has now given up. He's offered to completely redo it, or refund us and I think we're going for the refund. So, will need to find another builder to redo it. We expect to pay more as well, just need to find out how much...

On the good side DH has worked out how to save about £25 a month on train fares, by buying monthly season tickets during term time and off peak tickets outside term. This does mean the costs will be up front, most of the savings will be next year.
It also looks like I've underspent the grocery budget by about £85 this month :T. The benefits of not taking DD with me, and the lack of pester power. Hoping this will be a regular reduction, as that will add up

She_shall_have_music

Morning all, and happy October.
Slightly late weekly update here, I planned on doing it yesterday but ended up dealing with an ear infection and head lice instead
So the stats:
Personal spends: Monday £7.50 on tights, Tuesday 35p on a bread roll, Wednesday£4.10 on swimming and £10.20 on a takeaway (a bribe for DS to go to his first swimming lesson), Saturday £13.50 in Wilko including on digital scales.
3 NSDs this week :T
Groceries: £55 in Mr T, £2.85 in zero waste store and £6.50 on milk delivery.
Money saving wins: have managed to save enough to pay for DH's initial 2 month season ticket by using extra income and reorganising the budget so still on track to save £1500 towards the mortgage this month.

Overall I'm really happy with this, I didn't fritter away money and reduced my spending on junk food. This month we managed to end the month with £85 left in the grocery budget, which I've put towards the season ticket.
It was a bumpy week with the house, as I posted earlier we have a leaking roof. We've now negotiated getting our money back for the previous job, and the new roof will cost £100 more which I can cover from the DIY budget. After I was starting to think it was under control some flashing in our main roof fell off! Still don't know how much this will cost but the roofer doesn't think it's a big job thankfully. All extra money for a few months will go towards the DIY budget as we could use it all this month.

I will do a monthly update tomorrow evening when I have time to check the mortgage balance.

Have a good week, and happy money saving