decided its time to knuckle down.

chappers

Having decided to do Martins' budget calculator I was horrified to see we were blowing £1600 a month on the highlife, even after I included all our holidays, Christmas and going out, in the budget planner( took me ages as I went through a whole years spending). Felt a bit silly when there are people on here living on £4K a year. So have decided to use that as a figure on top of what was put in the planner, This means basically not spending any money for 4 days a week on average, based on our current rate of spending.

Now the good bit, it means we have a whopping £1250 a month to overpay on our mortgage (which we will be allowed to do on our new mortgage). Spoke to the abbey today and it means we will have paid our mortgage off in 5years 1 month instead of 20years saving £58,000 in interest.
I have seen the ligt just got to stick to the plan now.

summerday

Good for you, best of luck and let us know how you get on!Sarah x

shaaark

OMG just think how amazing it will be in 5 years 1 month's time when you don't have to pay a mortgage! Knuckling down will be SO worth it in the long run. I'm saving up for a deposit on a house and when I get my mortgage I'm gonna be well prepared and kick its @r$e!

Good Luck!

:beer: :T

chappers

Hope we can carry it through, the only problem is we like the finer things in life and currently spend money like it's going out of fashion, will be a drastic change of lifestyle, but as has been said the benefits will be reaped in just 5 years time, the last 5 years seem to have just flown by, so hopefully the same will apply to the next 5.

BRING IT ON.

setmefree2

Hi Chappers,

what sort of things are you cutting down on, if you don't mind me asking?

chappers

Just frivolous spending really, meals out in the week, buying stuff we just like the look of and random spending.
Basically its all about sticking to the budget we have laid out.
To be honest with you I was quite horrified as to how much money we were just blowing, where that money was going is very hard to pinpoint.
Basically I temised everything we spent last year that wasn't cash from the cash point, plus our monthley outgoings then added £4K on top what was left we shall overpay on the mortgage, so far we are ahead of the game as we have stayed in every weeknight since we made this plan, both Sundays, one Friday and got taken out to dinner by my Dad last Saturday.
Our first payment on our new mortgage is payable on the 5th of Feb can't wait to slam on that extra £1250.

Basically i don't think we really have to compromise our lifestyle much at all.

cupid_s

Good luck with it chappers.

We too try to keep those random spends to a minimum and that has meant that we should be mortgage free by the time I'm 27.

I don't feel like our lifestyle is compromised either. We still go out for dinner. But now half of the times we eat out we use tesco clubcard vouchers. We also still have a lot of things we want but try to shop around more or use money off vouchers or buy things via the net with cashback.

It'll definately be worth it in the end.

chappers

well done I was still deep in debt at 27, I'm aiming for my 44th birthday (5 years time).
Good luck to you too, you seem to be doing ok so far.