Welshlassies MF quest by 40

Welshlassie

Well I have been toying with the idea of a diary to keep me motivated for several months and have decided now is the time.

So for some background.
I'm just 29, DH is almost 31.
We have an IO mortgage with IF for £193,000 with just under 28 years left on it, fixed rate for 5 years of 6.39%. House is worth £250,000ish.

Not a great rate but we needed to stay with IF when we remortgaged a couple of months ago as DH had recently given up work to look after our DS and his self employed income wasn't enough for anyone to give us a mortgage with just my salary.

We will only have a tiny amount to be able to OP each month (if we have anything some months) but "every little helps", so first target until we are in a better position is to have at least £10 pm to OP.

I have created a s/sheet that I will use to keep track of my overpayments and I have also in the last month started tracking our incomings and outgoings much more closely using some financial software so I should know exactly how much money we have each day and cash flow for the rest of the month. We have £8k in savings presently for any emergencies so overpaying is the next locial step.

So goals for the rest of May:
1) Find out exact balance of mortgage so s/sheet is correct to start with
2) Find out IF mortgage account details so OP can be made online
3) Sort out little room to find things to Ebay (I have been trying to sort this room out since we moved in 2 years ago and it gets better and then worse again so really need to get it sorted by the end of the month so I have somewhere to store/pack ebay things and be can put the sofabed so we have a spare room again)
4) Overpayment target: £10 (start small and build up)

I think that's enough to start me off.

Wish me luck. :j

Current status: January 2009
Mortgage at start (Feb 08): £193,056.59
Overpayments (into mortgage) to date: £1,313.34
Overpayment savings:

• £1,252 1 year bond 6.86% net (Matured Nov 08 - £1323 - now being drip fed into mortgage £50 fortnightly)
• £204 pm regular saver 8% net (Mature Feb 09)
• £6,500 1 year fixed rate saver 7.21% gross (Mature Oct 09)
• £100 pm into Equity ISA (long term saving repayment vehicle - not doing so great at the moment :rolleyes: )

Mortgage at Jan 09: £191,743.25
Additional interest saved so far £45.47

The overpayment savings will be lumped off the mortgage when the fixed rate ends in 2013 to avoid early repayment fees. I can make small overpayments to the mortgage of upto about £100, larger amounts will be saved in high interest accounts and lumped off at the end.

evab_2

Good luck, I'm also finding that my diary motivates me to keep going.

Ev x

abouttimetoo

Hi Welshlassie :hello:

Just to say welcome to the MFW 'gang'. I only started myself last month and it was a great feeling making that first OP. Wishing you well on your own MFW journey and don't worry about the amounts you OP - every little bit helps

Welshlassie

evab wrote: »

Good luck, I'm also finding that my diary motivates me to keep going.

Ev x

Thanks
Notice you're due a little boy in August, my DS was born on 10 Aug last year. Having a baby this time of the year has been wonderful, especially as his first birthday party can be had outside in the garden. :T
Best of luck will keep my eye out for his arrival.

Welshlassie

Welshlassie wrote: »

So goals for the rest of May:
1) [STRIKE]Find out exact balance of mortgage so s/sheet is correct to start with[/STRIKE]:j
2) [STRIKE]Find out IF mortgage account details so OP can be made online[/STRIKE]:j
3) Sort out little room to find things to Ebay
4) [STRIKE]Overpayment target: £10 (start small and build up)[/STRIKE]:j

Well just transferred my first OP of £10. Not sure if we will actually have this at the end of the month, but wanted to get my account details into my online banking asap.
I've also logged onto my mortgage and got the actual balance which was slightly lower than I thought which was great.:j

I also made a start on our little room last night so are starting to get an ebay pile together, so will try to get it uploaded in the next few days, thinking that if I do a couple each night it won't be quite so cumbersome and time consuming to manage.

Very pleased with my progress so far, but then I'm only a day into it, just hope I can keep the momentutm up. :rotfl:

evab_2

Excellent start, I only pay small amounts per month but when you work out how much interest you are saving then it motivates you to continue. And thanks you reminded me that I have a bag full of clothes to ebay - must take those photos.

Agree about nice to have a birthday in summer, my dd was born in November so she'll never have an outdoors party - never mind!

setmefree2

Good Luck:j:j:j from me too:D

Welshlassie

As part of the clear up of our little room I put a few books that I had been meaning to get rid of on Amazon yesterday morning (as I was working from home) and 3 hours later on of them had sold. Very pleased by this as this was my first venture onto Amazon.

This then got me thinking about what the difference would be between how much interest we would pay with and without OP, so have had a fiddle with my s/sheet and it now includes a few extra colums that show how much the interest would have been without any OPs and what the difference is between the with and without OP figures.

This will save me logging onto Egg each time I send an overpayment to show me what its going to do to the balance and how much interest I am saving over the whole term.

setmefree2

...spreadsheets they are soooooooo addictive......:D

Welshlassie

I didn't get a huge amount done over the weekend, but on the other hand I didn't spend much either, (we did go up the pub for the FA Cup final, but that money came out of the going out budget), dinner at Parents in law yesterday so no food eaten from the house either.

We also started our the top tier of our wedding cake, which we'd planned on having when we got our DS dedicated a few weeks ago, but forgot to take it with us. It is 3 and half years old and still tastes as good as it did at the wedding. That's snacks sorted for the rest of the week.

I did and hour and half of ironing last night and probably still have another hour or so to do tonight and then the EC clothes mountain will be no more in our small room and I can get on with sorting the rest of it out.

Don't think there will be any more OP's this month, but next month is looking more promising as I should have the ebay auctions finished and know how much I've made (another spreadsheet in place to help me work that out).

Next month I need to get the budget back into shape. We've been experimenting over the last few months to find the best way of keeping track of what we are spending against budget in certain areas (eg groceries) and I have now decided we are going to go back to the "money in a tin" method. We were much closer to budget when we only had cash to spend and there were loads of 20p and change for Flossie (mortgage sheep) at the end to add to savings (or now OP's).

I'm toying with the idea of buying Wii Fit (from my birthday money), but have realised its around the £70 mark so mighth wait a few months for that to come down in price.

I have expenses due to me after tomorrow so that will cover my a tanks worth diesel (and add a little to the OP pot hopefully). Quite a quiet week otherwise.

Welshlassie

Well the small room still isn't finished and neither is the ironing. We had people over for dinner Tuesday night and I went to an exercise class last night, so think those are reasonable excuses for not doing anything on it. DH is out for a couple of hours tonight so will have a go then.

I've sold another book on Amazon, am really getting into this now, so may take my laptop up with me tonight and list all the other 100's (well seems like it) of books I have on there.

Don't get paid until Thursday next week so we're going have to be careful to get through until then without having to dip into our savings for a little bit (we knew it was always going to be a possibility when DH gave up work to look after DS, but haven't had to too much since Feb).

We've really blown the budget for our groceries this month so its not a surprise. I'll really be cracking the whip next month though to ensure we stuck to budget on everything.

I might also have a look at counting Flossie up over the weekend as she is really getting full and heavy, that will go nicely towards next months OP.

Looking forward to a nice bank holiday weekend with the family aswell, don't have anything planned, but I'm sure we'll find something cheap but fun to do. DH picked up a load of toruist brochures from the airport the other week when he picked up his parents, so we've got no excuse for not knowing what is on in the area. Its goinig to be fun to find something to do.