Statement of intent

setmefree2

StuartGMC wrote: »

It does leave me with one very serious problem.... once we have cleared down the mortgage, how will I feed my spreadsheet habit

That'll be the "Saving for Retirement" spreadsheet:rotfl:

How about a Mortgage Free Date of 12/12/12 - 12th December 2012:D

P.S. I Just looked at my blog and that is Financial Blisses' Mortgage free date too and roughly the SMF2s so we can have a joint shindig!

Good Luck

StuartGMC

setmefree2 wrote: »

That'll be the "Sving for Retirement" spreadsheet:rotfl:

Anyway, Mortgage Free Date 12/12/12 - 12th December 2012:D We'll all hold you to that:p and have an MSE virtual :beer:

SMF2, thanks for that; I'd hoped it would be the holidays, weekend breaks and fast cars spreadsheet...:rotfl:

12/12/12 I hadn't thought about as I was still thinking about 2013, but you make a valid point. Just need the economy to stabilize and my job to remain secure.... :rolleyes:

StuartGMC

Well a quick update; interest on the mortgage this month was £51.47, so I have just paid this in on top of the routine overpayment, as I promised I would earlier in this thread , so this month overpayment is a total of 60.73% of the mortgage payment required.

It is interesting to see how, having made the public declaration of paying the interest payments upon receipt where we can, you feel "obliged" to do so!

Of course, we only have a small mortgage so this is only a total of £501 paid against the mortgage this month, but still it will make a difference to hitting the 100% offset date.

StuartGMC

Considering the present economic climate, I thought I should look at our baseline costs and our discretionary spend etc to better understand our tolerance for increased costs in a situation where I have already had a pay review deferred from June to October, and possibility that even if company can afford it, the increase may be small.

I chose to look at our baseline costs using the actual numbers now; i.e. the mortgage minimum payment, our present Groceries, Clothing and Petrol/car maintenance costs plus the monthly DD and annual items for utilities and insurance etc respectively. I also included in this value out-of-school cost, school trip and DD's swimming lessons, Guides costs (but excluded our health club membership), wife's life assurance etc. I included our £150 per month allowance for other spend, although this estimate may be on the high side it is meant to cover things like presents, odd meal out/take away etc and I recognize this needs to be pinned down better!

This came to a surprising:
Baseline costs 60.57%
We could reduce costs if really necessary and if job was lost petrol costs would drop also.

Then I looked at the annual savings (remember we are both on final salary schemes):
ISAs for long term investment in Stocks & Shares funds 9.62%
Annual savings we make against things like holidays, car replacement etc 23.73%
Savings 33.35%

Then I added up the remaining items which are "discretionary spend" everything from window cleaner to health club, pub money, OP on mortgage etc.
Discretionary spend 12.41%

So you can see it reaches 106.34% of net income...
Of course, we don't actually end up in debt, we are just shaving back on the savings made annually due to the increasing costs for fuel and groceries at the moment.

Some of this is due to the fact that groceries etc have only been monitored since early June so have yet to balance out. More so, clothing is high as we have been stocking up as last year we didn't replenish wife's wardrobe and DD is growing all the time (galling to pay VAT on shoes for a 10yr old :mad: and if biscuits are not a luxury and thus subject to VAT, why are shoes for any of us?????)

So a bit of work to do on this and I need to look at the allowance for extra costs per month and determine what we should be budgeting.

Any comments from others here on these figures, are they typical?

StuartGMC

Well at last some positive trends, pay day tomorrow and now just cash for holiday, taxi to/from airport and additional spend such as trips etc once there to come. Other scheduled items like DW car insurance etc but we are hopefully at the minimum cash position this year and it should all be positive growth from now to summer 2009 based on our usual budgeting... :j

Offsetting at 63.5% which means the equivalent interest rate charged on the remaining capital has now moved back to a much more acceptable 2.75% at last :T

Bloomberg had some interesting items tonight including the Schork Report with comment that oil could fall back to US$95 per barrel by late September, based on demand profiles, replenishments of stocks and SemCorp problems. So, if this is the case the price at the pump should drop back and I guess may fall to £1.00 or so a litre unleaded.... :rolleyes:

If this happens of course, I must ensure that the "extra" cash in hand per month is then diverted to savings rather than other spend.

gallygirl

StuartGMC wrote: »

Bloomberg had some interesting items tonight including the Schork Report with comment that oil could fall back to US$95 per barrel by late September, based on demand profiles, replenishments of stocks and SemCorp problems. So, if this is the case the price at the pump should drop back and I guess may fall to £1.00 or so a litre unleaded.... :rolleyes:

.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:best joke I've heard all day .
Filled up today after only going to work for 3 days, no other trips. So, been able to do some calcs - each day has cost me £13.74, and that's after the price has dropped 4p :eek:. Diesel is now costing me just over 10p per mile :eek:, but as work are paying 13p I need to get out more

2.75% v good, well done :j

Welshlassie

Sound likes you have been very busy whilst I have been on holiday and job hunting. I'll need to read your thread again to take in everything you have done. Your average grocery spend sheets sounds really interesting and I have been toying with the idea for a while to try and work out exactly how much we spend and areas where we can cut back. Unfortunately this hasn't been possible over the last month or so because I've been up to my eyes, but I have all our shopping receipts in a tub in the kitchen and plan on doing something with them shortly. (Just not exactly sure what yet!)

StuartGMC

ali007 wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:best joke I've heard all day .
Filled up today after only going to work for 3 days, no other trips. So, been able to do some calcs - each day has cost me £13.74, and that's after the price has dropped 4p :eek:. Diesel is now costing me just over 10p per mile :eek:, but as work are paying 13p I need to get out more

2.75% v good, well done :j

Ali, glad you liked the comment, had to put something "positive" in place amongst all the gloom
I've just checked the price per mile for my commute.... 20.1p :eek::eek:
May need to buy a camper van and sleep at work during the week at this rate :rotfl:

StuartGMC

Welshlassie wrote: »

Sound likes you have been very busy whilst I have been on holiday and job hunting. I'll need to read your thread again to take in everything you have done. Your average grocery spend sheets sounds really interesting and I have been toying with the idea for a while to try and work out exactly how much we spend and areas where we can cut back. Unfortunately this hasn't been possible over the last month or so because I've been up to my eyes, but I have all our shopping receipts in a tub in the kitchen and plan on doing something with them shortly. (Just not exactly sure what yet!)

Welshlassie - a break is definitely an annual requirement and you shouldn't be too concerned if you have budgeted for your holiday as I know you will have done.

On my spreadsheet I have decided to "make it manageable" for the Groceries etc so I simply enter the total spend in one column, then group spend as "Food (inc my beer :rolleyes:), toiletries & cleaning, and then others (e.g pegs, and other sundries bought on an ad hoc basis). Then using the date and =Now() function, derive the weekly and monthly average spend. Clothing & Shoes is the same. All feedback to our budgeting sheet.

The "alternatives" listing is only held on the Groceries sheet. It captures savings that should be made with the alternatives, but of course these are then embedded in the average spend.

It takes maybe, 3 minutes or so on a weekly shop receipt to strip out the toiletries and the other spend from food and dial this in, balance is then the food.

Only running for a month, and we have been spending on summer clothes so this category is high at the moment and the average should ease back through the year.

Food is showing £76.56 per week, plus £14.44 for Toiletries and Cleaning and £4.99 for others (inc the sun cream etc for holiday). This is for two adults and a 10yr old. So I think it isn't too bad at the moment, and DW is good at the BOGOF, multi-buys etc but we'll get a better idea at the end of October.

StuartGMC

Saw the EDF price rises and Martin's e-mail, so thought I'd do a check quickly.

Our annual consumption figures are:
Gas 14228kWh pa
Electric Day 3871kWh, Night 1315kWh
Electric total 5186kWh pa

Is this good or bad in your experience?

This results in a monthly bill of £71 (£852 pa) with ScottishPower for a 4-bed detached, 3 people and high-ish occupancy as DW works part-time.

Obviously now is not the time to check on the standard offers from suppliers as they are about to lift prices, but, I did check for savings if we capped. Again ScottishPower were the best offer in our case, but would mean an increase of £155 pa, or about 18.2%

So, now I have to decide, to cap or not if prices move circa 20%...

Whilst there has been a decline in oil price in the past 2 weeks, it's too early to call it a trend. Strangely, gas prices are linked to the price of oil even though the supply and demand markets are to some degree separate. However, even if prices continue to drop for oil through August to September back to US$100/bbl it is not clear that this will impact on the gas price as UK has so little long term storage (unlike our European neighbours) our suppliers have already signed forward purchase contracts. So will this effectively mean prices are fixed for them too irrespective of market movements in the interim?

I'm erring towards staying on the package we have, because with one rise it seems to be price neutral and I can then start reviewing more frequently in the autumn. I think we can reduce our consumption particularly for heating (the problem is my office is so hot in winter 23-24°C!! that coming home to a house at 20°C seems "cold"...), that we may be able to reduce consumption.

We already have much improved insulation in the loft (we even got a grant towards it!) and double glazing and cavity wall-insulation. Did an energy "survey" online (Energy Saving Trust site I think) and the only real point noted was replacement of the boiler, but, only when it fails as it would take 21years to recover the investment in a new condensing boiler!

How are other MSEs planning to address these issues?