Aiming for Mortgage Free!

caeler

Well done on the interview! @rugbymadfamily
I love a good freezer audit!  I do it fairly regularly so I can feed it into my meal plan.  I'm quite obsessive at the moment at being frugal and leaving no waste. 

rugbymadfamily

That's a really good idea doing it regularly, I'm rather sporadic lol. We rarely waste fresh food, very good at only buying what will be eaten or chopping and then freezing veg that would otherwise go to waste. I just forget that I should check the freezer lol. Hoping it will keep the next few weeks spends lower.

Have two second interviews next week, which is great. Should also find out one way or the other about the final interview.

Managed a short but quick run last night, hoping for a bit more distance over the weekend....provided it doesn't freeze over haha!

caeler

I keep a list of key items now on my phone and I update it when I remove an item.  Lockdown has given me too much time on my hands! You are good with the running, I've not run since New Years Eve and I miss it.  Not sure what is stopping me so I will try to pop out even just for a few KM and see how I get on!  I can highly recommend gloves for the cold runs! 

vixx_123

Just caught up on your diary 🙂 not sure on your exact age, but your sound similar age to me. I'm from the DFW board and I my plan to be debt free is when I re-mortgage in 3 years time (debt from house renovations, car loan, kitchen loan...turned into equity in my house 🙄). I also would like to have a family, but seeing a lot of experiences on DFW, a lot of women get into debt when they go on maternity and then nursery fees when they return to work. I just wondered if you'd planned ahead for this stage in your life? 

savingholmes

Well done on the run

rugbymadfamily

vixx_123 said:

Just caught up on your diary 🙂 not sure on your exact age, but your sound similar age to me. I'm from the DFW board and I my plan to be debt free is when I re-mortgage in 3 years time (debt from house renovations, car loan, kitchen loan...turned into equity in my house 🙄). I also would like to have a family, but seeing a lot of experiences on DFW, a lot of women get into debt when they go on maternity and then nursery fees when they return to work. I just wondered if you'd planned ahead for this stage in your life? 

Hi @vixx_123, thanks for stopping by! Yes am also keen to start a family and have recently done 2 different sets of calculations, one is to see how much we would need to save in order to use that savings during Mat Leave to maintain our income and the second is where we could reduce costs if we had a baby (eg likely much lower entertainment expenditure!). In reality, it would probably be a combination of both! Ideally I would rather one of us be a stay at home parent than pay nursery fees but in reality with a London sized mortgage that is likely not to be possible! Although the likely size of nursery fees appears to be not far off the size of my mortgage 😆

I've asked people how they find the money to do it and everyone just says "you just find it", but I've also read several stories on DFW board about women going into debt post Mat Leave which is worrying. We have a slightly unusual situation in that I earn a lot more than my husband, but we do pool all our finances (which I personally think is really impt with kids and would stop one of us going in debt trying to split things) but each of us gets a fun money pot each month for spending on whatever we want, which is more for my husband than me as he wants to spend money on things I think are a waste of money (he's the spender, I'm the saver lol) so this means he can but what he likes from fun funds. From joint account anything over £50 has to be agreed in advance to help with budgeting. Basically, I don't really know the answer, but I think planning and building up some savings will be key!

rugbymadfamily

caeler said:

I keep a list of key items now on my phone and I update it when I remove an item.  Lockdown has given me too much time on my hands! You are good with the running, I've not run since New Years Eve and I miss it.  Not sure what is stopping me so I will try to pop out even just for a few KM and see how I get on!  I can highly recommend gloves for the cold runs! 

Thats a great idea on phone for the list, I've got notes for all sorts on my phone so makes sense. Hope you got out for a little bit, to be honest, most of the time I only run 3-5kms, managed about 7.5kms the other week which was the furthest ever and I was so proud 😂

vixx_123

rugbymadfamily said:

vixx_123 said:

Just caught up on your diary 🙂 not sure on your exact age, but your sound similar age to me. I'm from the DFW board and I my plan to be debt free is when I re-mortgage in 3 years time (debt from house renovations, car loan, kitchen loan...turned into equity in my house 🙄). I also would like to have a family, but seeing a lot of experiences on DFW, a lot of women get into debt when they go on maternity and then nursery fees when they return to work. I just wondered if you'd planned ahead for this stage in your life? 

Hi @vixx_123, thanks for stopping by! Yes am also keen to start a family and have recently done 2 different sets of calculations, one is to see how much we would need to save in order to use that savings during Mat Leave to maintain our income and the second is where we could reduce costs if we had a baby (eg likely much lower entertainment expenditure!). In reality, it would probably be a combination of both! Ideally I would rather one of us be a stay at home parent than pay nursery fees but in reality with a London sized mortgage that is likely not to be possible! Although the likely size of nursery fees appears to be not far off the size of my mortgage 😆

I've asked people how they find the money to do it and everyone just says "you just find it", but I've also read several stories on DFW board about women going into debt post Mat Leave which is worrying. We have a slightly unusual situation in that I earn a lot more than my husband, but we do pool all our finances (which I personally think is really impt with kids and would stop one of us going in debt trying to split things) but each of us gets a fun money pot each month for spending on whatever we want, which is more for my husband than me as he wants to spend money on things I think are a waste of money (he's the spender, I'm the saver lol) so this means he can but what he likes from fun funds. From joint account anything over £50 has to be agreed in advance to help with budgeting. Basically, I don't really know the answer, but I think planning and building up some savings will be key!

Thanks for taking the time to respond ☺️ I also earn quite a bit more than my husband. I freaked out when I did the calculations (debt free then mat leave savings...also how do people afford ft nursery 🙈) because I think I'd be leaving it very late! Good luck with your goals!!

Viking_mfw

My husband is a stay at home dad, because essentially he'd be going to work to pay nursery fees and he didn't like it that much. We similarly have a large south east sized mortgage and I am the breadwinner. We run on a very very tight budget and have sourced almost everything for the kids second hand/hand me downs to keep costs down, and ask for things like Clarks vouchers for the kids' birthdays to keep them in shoes. It did mean only six months of mat leave for me - and I know I'm v lucky to get that at full pay. Basically what I'm saying is, it is possible, but you have to be quite disciplined and also not care about having the latest smartest pushchair etc. 

rugbymadfamily

Hi @Viking_mfw thanks that's a really helpful response. Definitely can see how it can be done with a lot of discipline and I'm absolutely not bothered by the latest gadgets etc, don't buy them for myself so won't need them for babies lol. I've seen a number of parents on here talk about second hand so am guessing there is lots of good quality out there which would be very useful.

Not sure when we are going to get to it, but I think my husband would be stay at home dad as well so it's nice to here that there are more and more of them out there these days 😊