Aiming for Mortgage Free!

rugbymadfamily

It's been a good weekend in terms of spending, had some time socialising with friends (only 6 of us and socially distanced in the garden!) which was cheap as we did a BBQ from lots of meat in the freezer and only had to buy salad stuff and friends bought dessert! 

Did next weeks food shop and it came in at £39 so total for the month (payday is next week for us) was £309 which is an significant reduction from previous months and just over the £300 budget. Target for next month is £250! 

Got an easier few weeks of work coming up so hoping to have sometime to get my sewing started as it hasnt happened yet! Off now to make some oaty bars (tastier and cheaper than the cereal bars my husband eats 3 of at once lol!).

getmore4less

That's big reduction planned, just be a little careful when you using up stock it can bring the bill down for that period but does need to be replaced at some point, that's where reduced produce becomes the big win. 

rugbymadfamily

Yup it's mostly been through changing laziness from lockdown (cooked lovely extravagent meals with lots of ingredients etc) but back to basics now, good solid meals (spag bowls/ chillies / curries / jacket potatoes) and cheaper sides (rice from scratch rather than microwaveable pouches / sack of potatoes which can go with everything) so more about getting back to good habits which we can stick to! Always love and look for the yellow ticket items  for the freezer 😊

L9XSS

Good luck Ruby........my sister bought a house in 2001 in London £341,000 it’s now worth 1.2m........unreal.
Anyway, getting back to you, well done with progressing the overpayments, you will reap in the future what you sow now! Big rewards, plus your house will appreciate probably so it’s a win win, paying the mortgage down instead of the car, makes more sense to me too. Knowing that you own a little bit more of the bricks and mortar and owning the roof over your head, One day you will look back at your diaries and appreciate what you did!

rugbymadfamily

Payday is fast approaching! It sounds terrible but I do find myself wishing the days away in the month so that I can reach the next payday and get motoring with my OPs. But thats not a good place to be, have to live life as well. Octobers budget is all prepared and my main focus is reducing the food spend to £250 and then tracking every penny of what is called "entertainment" in my SOA as I just am not sure where that money goes, some obviously gets spent on coffees / cakes but I am sure some goes in Ikea or random purchases of birthday cards / presents so I really want to focus this month on tracking it to make sure. I've also set up a car "pot" for the first time and intend to contribute to it every month (cover tax, insurance, MOT etc).

For October I have planned £200 OP and £1k into the emergency fund as really want to get it up to c.3 months spend before I hit the OPs harder as whilst my job is currently secure, it is a potential concern. We are very fortunate that my husbands job is completely secure, but it only covers the mortgage and a few bills so need to have those emergency funds set aside.

Anyhow, have taken advice from some of the other posters and done a much longer term forecast as to getting this mortgage done early, but it seems such a long way off. So instead I am focusing on the shorter term goal, our initial 5 year term ends in July 2023, by then on normal mortgage payments the balance should be £298k (76% on original LTV). If we can hit my planned OPs for the next 3 years then we should get this to £279k (72% on original LTV). We are hoping to have children in the mid term future but have built that into the OPs (ie significantly reduced them to account for additional child expenses lol) so, there we go. Thats the goal. £18k of OPs between Sept 20 and July 23, averages at about £550 per month. Know I am only at £200 for now, but thats until EF hits £7k (should be in Feb 21) and then I will reduce monthly savings but increase OPs. So thats the goal. Now to stick with it!

South_coast

Excellent plan, great idea to have a target figure for the rest of the fix and build in some flexibility rather the fixing the amount per month 😀

rugbymadfamily

South_coast said:

Excellent plan, great idea to have a target figure for the rest of the fix and build in some flexibility rather the fixing the amount per month 😀

Absolutely @South_coast! Have built a detailed forecast out for the next 12 months and the OPs range from £200 in the coming few months up to £900 in some months when I know historically there is little on (no birthdays or holidays etc). So each month has its own planned OP that tailors into that month, so hopefully means that I have factored in known more expensive months (eg birthdays) so have lower OPs in that month but can still make a good planned OP, rather than a flat assumed figure each month which doesn't work on some months....if that makes any sense?! I've tried to be good with it as well and assume no bonuses / minimal inflationary payrises so then it is realistic and anything else really is a bonus OP! 

My husband is really getting on board as well which is great (historically he was a spender, whereas I am definitely more of a saver, some of his old money habits were terrible). He has a side job that he does self assessment tax on and therefore a yearly tax bill on and in the past has never saved for it....but this year he is already planning on giving me that money to go straight into OPs and he's going to put the tax aside each month.....feels like the penny is dropping! 

rugbymadfamily

So turns out this tracking your full spend is interesting. We had £150 budgeted for the weekend, which in my SOA falls under "entertainment", we spent £157, but of this, only £20 was actually entertainment! Spent £43 on a new tap for the kitchen (the old one sprung several leaks at once so poor husband spent weekend with his head under the bathroom sink!), £29 on vitamins for the month, £11 in wilkos on bits needed for the house and £50 on a coat stand (much needed as no where to store coats in the house, currently they are just on the floor). So £157 spent, but now I know where it went, rather than just thinking we spent £157 at the weekend. I intend to keep doing this for the full month to figure it out!

Did food shop at the weekend and then got home and realised I had minimal freezer space as there is so much food in there (why oh why did I not look before?!). So, no meat will be purchased for the remainder of the month, food shop will just be for fresh fruit and veg (we even have lots of bread and rolls in the freezer!) and any tins needed. Spent an hour at the weekend organising the freezer and now have specific drawers for specific things so much easier to track. Between freezer organising and tap fitting, it was a rock n roll weekend lol. Busy week coming up at work this week but really want to find time to start my sewing projects (have the materials - just need the time!). Also made some yummy oaty bites which should replace the expensive sugar filled cereal bars and they have already received the "yummy please make more of them" vote lol.

Goals for October (as it is nearly upon us):
- food budget to be £250 (no more meat to be purchased until used up a significant amount from freezer...unless any YS bargins as that saves money in the future!)
- £1,000 into EF, £200 OP in mortgage
- get cracking with Matched Betting (neither of us get any paid OT despite working lots of it but husband has a PT second job so I am going to try some MB to see how much I can make and put it all into OPs)
- track every penny spent

Happy Monday all :-) 

QueenJess

That's where my money goes when I'm not looking.  Bits and pieces for the house and then stocking up on odd things like vitamins/shampoo etc.

rugbymadfamily

QueenJess said:

That's where my money goes when I'm not looking.  Bits and pieces for the house and then stocking up on odd things like vitamins/shampoo etc.

Yup and I just didn't really ever track it in full, as long as it didn't go over the planned weekend spend it wasn't a problem...but be interested to see how the month pans out. Not intending to change how I spend the money allocated as "entertainment" this month, just want to track it and see what's a more realistic entertainment spend vs other things we spend on. Although made me feel better that what I though was just money wasted at weekends, is actually spent on good stuff (well at least it was this weekend lol).