Hurrah, my MFW quest has started

abouttimetoo

Goodness, I'm having a right old postathon today (BTW, sitting in lovely warm conservatory with laptop on lap (lol) and sun outside)

I don't think I've ever posted about the value of my main share investments on here; that wasn't a particularly deliberate decision but rightly or wrongly I post here about what I can control and what is 'real' as opposed to the shares which as we all know can go up or down. I've always thought of my main shares as a very long term thing and something that will hopefully come right in the future. At one point I was down about £70k which obviously is a huuuge number but I think I've been pretty good at not letting it phase me and just keeping an eye on the future.

As we speak my losses are £10, 673 so as you can see things are much better than they were. Actually, the losses I've quoted are very simplistic as I haven't taken into account dividends over the years which I think stand at £16,982.

Todays's value stands at £44, 963 but of course it's only value or losses if I sell and I don't see anything on the horizon for at least five years that would make me think I would ever need to sell them

I don't really intend to keep posting about my shares as the market is a movable feast and I don't think much about them; I'm sure if I had the time and energy I could make them work much better for me but today I've been looking at my bigger financial picture and had a bit of time so was of a mind to include them.

As an aside, I don't know how much reading you all do about the world ecomony but I'm becoming pretty worried by some of the news, the problem is I don't have enough knowledge to work out how much of it is either being underplayed, blown out of proportion or is just plain wrong!

Mint1955

gallygirl wrote: »

oh, is this something else odd I do :rotfl:? I have a downstairs book, upstairs book & bath book. I think my love of books stems from when my aunt used to take me out every Saturday and buy me a new Enid Blyton. Mr Galliano's Circus anyone? Or Upper Fourth at Mallory Towers .

OMG I have loved Mr Gallianos Circus since I wasa little girl a complete fantasy world for me. I bought a copy a few years ago and read it to my step children and it was still magic :-)

abouttimetoo

Hi Mint1955, thanks for stopping by and it's always good to meet another book [STRIKE]fanatic[/STRIKE] errm, lover

The Chalet School books are still the ones that hold my heart

abouttimetoo

Hi all

I've made my usual £500 OP this month so all things MFW going slowly but steady and I love seeing my outstanding numbers start with a £150K+ rather than a £160k+.

I've still not heard from the tax man about how to pay, I was told to expect a letter around the 16th of this month so I wonder how much longer I will wait. I'm really not inclined to ring them and chase it :mad:

On a related note, despite my 2.75% payrise (effective this month) I am now receiving £300 less a month in my payslip than I was up to December 2010, of course this is due to the tax code being changed and £300 is a considerable lump :eek:

I really need to look at my spending again as words and figures differ :rotfl:I can see in 2011 that on average I paid 37% of my net salary to the mortgage (including OP's), I know I had a few expensive treats last year but those along with normal household bills don't add up to 63% IUSWIM.

I've just been catching up on Froggy G's thread and it puts me to shame the amount of energy and attention to detail him and Mrs Froggy are putting into being MF, e.g. I also have tonnes of CD's, books and old phones lying around that I keep promising myself to do something about but I never seem to get round to it but Froggy is actively doing something about it and seeing his efforts rewarded.

Must try harder Abouttimetoo!

Hope you have all enjoyed this lovely 4 day break

Regards
ATT

GeorgieFTB

abouttimetoo wrote: »

Hi all

I've made my usual £500 OP this month so all things MFW going slowly but steady and I love seeing my outstanding numbers start with a £150K+ rather than a £160k+.

I've still not heard from the tax man about how to pay, I was told to expect a letter around the 16th of this month so I wonder how much longer I will wait. I'm really not inclined to ring them and chase it :mad:

On a related note, despite my 2.75% payrise (effective this month) I am now receiving £300 less a month in my payslip than I was up to December 2010, of course this is due to the tax code being changed and £300 is a considerable lump :eek:

I really need to look at my spending again as words and figures differ :rotfl:I can see in 2011 that on average I paid 37% of my net salary to the mortgage (including OP's), I know I had a few expensive treats last year but those along with normal household bills don't add up to 63% IUSWIM.

I've just been catching up on Froggy G's thread and it puts me to shame the amount of energy and attention to detail him and Mrs Froggy are putting into being MF, e.g. I also have tonnes of CD's, books and old phones lying around that I keep promising myself to do something about but I never seem to get round to it but Froggy is actively doing something about it and seeing his efforts rewarded.

Must try harder Abouttimetoo!

Hope you have all enjoyed this lovely 4 day break

Regards
ATT

ATT

There is so much stuff that I need to get round to, I've done the council tax but I need to set up electrol roll, green/pink/blue bin thingys and there is a whole shopping list! It really is annoying being an adult! Everyone has stuff lying around, I find the only way I can make myself do sometihng about it is to give myself easy targets, like sell 5 items a month/week.

I'd never thought to work out how much I've paid into my mortgage, 38% without any OPs:eek:

I don't think I'll do that again!

Gx

abouttimetoo

Hi GeorgieFTB, thanks for stopping by :j

It's nice to know that others have the same challenges in getting through their to-do list and you really made me laugh when you said it's really annoying being an adult :rotfl:

For all I was lamenting my lack of energy and comparing myself to Froggy G's efforts that was a month ago and have I done anything about it? NO!

Re working out your % of what you've paid to the mortgage - scarey yes, but motivating - double yes :eek:

abouttimetoo

Soooooo... it's that time of the month again, OP and siggy update time - yay :j:j:j:j:j:j:j

I've made higher than normal OP this month, usually I do £500 but this month I've made it £585.43. The reason for that is that means the overall capital repayment will be a nice round £900 per month and as I said on the MFiT T2 challenge if Billy/WynnVegas is looking in I know he will approve

The thing with rounding up is where does it end, the capital reduction is now nicely rounded but the OP itself is a very odd number :rotfl: Plus, it's left the balance of the repayment part with 55pence at the end and the IO part with 99 pence at the end, aaarrrggghh, it can drive you mad!

abouttimetoo

I've just submitted by quarterly update for the MFiT T2 challenge, I can't beleive we are half way there already! The guys and gals on the challenge are a great inspiration and we already have several of them that are now mortgage free.

Since the challenge started in Dec 10 I've repaid £9542 off the OP part of the mortgage but actually to be where I need to be to complete my challenge I should have repaid £22,361 so as you can see I'm some way off but still very pleased with what I've achieved.

This month I've used 44% of my monthly salary towards the mortgage, this includes both the normal payment and the OP. I'm pleased with this percentage as it's been lagging around 37% this year.

Other big news is that I've broken through the £30k barriers of reductions since I joined MFW (£30,139 to be exact) and overall have repaid £32, 495 since I first took the mortgage.

abouttimetoo

abouttimetoo wrote: »

I've still not heard from the tax man about how to pay, I was told to expect a letter around the 16th of this month so I wonder how much longer I will wait. I'm really not inclined to ring them and chase it :mad:

I wrote the above 25/4 so nearly a month ago and guess what, yip, still no contact from the tax man, hmm, what to do, what to do?????? I don't want to chase them but nor do I want to end up with some kind of black mark against me?

Any thought out there?

abouttimetoo

Hi all

I'm having quite a good week spending wise and have only spent about £10 so quite pleased with that as I've had the quarterly gas bill to pay this month £125 ish.

Other news on the money front is that my Amex cashback is up to £176 and I received an offer from them last week whereby if I spend in at least 8 pre-defined shops then I get a £25 credit to my credit card. There is no minimum spend and I naturally use three of four of them anyway so that is my task for June as I've only got a month to do it in.