Pay off my mortgage in 5 years

buzzyzoe · 11 March 2016 at 10:38PM

Thank you everyone!

I have only started fairly recently too wifigeek, and also used to spend a huge amount on general food shops, work lunches, takeaways and eating out - often in excess of £400 per month which is really shocking!

In terms of coupons, I really can't recommend this Facebook page highly enough:
https://www.facebook.com/couponsandcashback/?fref=ts

All the best deals, coupons and cashback offers are posted up and it's updated all the time so if there's a short-lived deal, you still find out about it. Facebook couponing sites take a lot of the work out of it, as they list all the coupons so you don't have to go searching for them as much.

Another thing that has really worked for me is to write to your favourite companies with some feedback or a recipe idea, and they will quite often send you coupons or samples back

EatingTheElephant · 12 March 2016 at 8:30AM

Sorry to hear about your bad news, I hope you weren't hurt too badly. What a terrible thing to happen. A very positive spin with the enforced NSDs!

choccielover · 12 March 2016 at 12:26PM

Oh dear what an awful thing, hope you are feeling ok now.probablynworth checking your insurance policy anyway or st least giving them a call, you may find so elf your goods were covered but balance that with excess and potential increase in future policy price

You are doing great so well done

Chocs

TeamPlum · 30 March 2016 at 1:04PM

Aww man, thats terrible about the mugging - hope it hasn't affected you too much?

Which shop do you shop in, out of interest?

buzzyzoe · 5 May 2016 at 5:51PM

My remortgage has nearly gone through (FINALLY!). My completion date is set for the 10th.

Word to the wise, if you're with Santander and you're trying to remortgage, they made it extremely difficult for me! Not sure whether it was intentional or not.. I had to request the same document FIVE separate times, each time having to wait 5 working days to see if it turned up in the post (which it never did until attempt number 5). So my remortgage was delayed by over a month just waiting for them to post this single document.

Anyhoo, it's now nearly all processed and my repayments are set to be around £70 a month cheaper, which can go straight on overpayments!

I have been doing well at keeping my outgoings low, I stopped overpaying once I started the remortgage process as it would have just complicated things, so it has felt quite odd watching money build up in my current account that would normally have been going on overpayments.

As soon as the new mortgage is up and running, I will be able to make a nice big overpayment which should be a good kickstart!

buzzyzoe · 5 May 2016 at 5:53PM

TeamPlum wrote: »

Aww man, thats terrible about the mugging - hope it hasn't affected you too much?

Which shop do you shop in, out of interest?

Thanks! I've been fine since, I was more angry that anything else!

I shop at whichever shop gives me the best deals for the coupons/cashback offers available

This normally means I shop at multiple shops each week, picking up some items at each.

The only shop that I refuse to shop at is Asda because their staff are rude and their customer service is appalling. Generally Tesco and Sainsburys are good with coupons, Morrisons hit and miss so don't use them as much, and Asda downright awful and rude with it. I have turned a lot of people off Asda as I've had such bad experiences there.

EatingTheElephant · 6 May 2016 at 7:38AM

Great news that the remortgage is nearly complete and that there is a big OP waiting for it

buzzyzoe · 22 July 2016 at 2:56PM

So the remortgage went through a while ago and I have now got set up with an online account with Nationwide so I can overpay whenever.

I remortgaged at £61,000 because I wanted to keep a larger emergency fund but since then, I have decided that I shouldn't need that as I can always just stop overpaying for a few months to build the fund back up again.

So since remortgaging, I have overpaid £8000, so my balance is now at £52,527.88. I am hoping to get it below £50,000 by October which would be a great milestone.

At the end of August I should get some extra holiday pay as my contract is finishing, so hopefully this should be very doable. My next milestone after that will be to get to £47,995 as that will mean I've paid off £25,000 since taking the mortgage out. Fingers crossed I can get there before Christmas

buzzyzoe · 25 August 2016 at 11:21AM

Payday today so I've just made another overpayment which will bring me below £50,000

Proud of this as I've paid off over £7000 in 7 months, so am keeping up with my target of £1000 a month.

Next month I will get my holiday pay as I finish at my current job in a couple of weeks, so should be able to make a good overpayment next month. I will need to see when and how often I get paid at my new job. I should also get a decent paycheck from them next month as I start on September 5th.

In theory, I might be able to drop below the £47,995 threshold next month so that would be £25,000 paid off

My most recent way of keeping the motivation up is to write my own moneysaving blog! I know you're not allowed to post links on here so I won't, but it has been very enjoyable writing it, and by doing it, I also re-encouraged myself to try a bit harder with the NSDs and batch cooking etc

This weekend I want to do a big coupon shop and also stock up on basics tins of lentils, beans, tomatoes etc for some new veggie recipes I want to try out. I think I am going to give Lidl another go - I didn't think much of it when I went last, but thinking it might work quite well for just stocking up on lots of tins.

I also got a £15 Waitrose gift card as a leaving present from this job, so I am going to spend that tomorrow in their half price event. There are chicken wings reduced to under £1, and you can also add them as a pick your own so I think they end up being something like 75p! So going to get those and a few other bits

buzzyzoe · 27 August 2016 at 11:07PM

I've been playing around with the reports section on you need a budget, and it's quite interesting to see spending broken down over a longer period of time.

I normally just look at the previous month, the current month and the upcoming month so it's good to get a bit more of an overview.

For example, since the beginning of January (so 8 months) I have spent £225.20 on groceries. It's nice to see that my couponing really has paid off, as most of my friends spend that much on groceries per month!

Writing my blog has had the very nice side effect of reigniting my enthusiasm for couponing and deal hunting. It's also made me think more about other ways of money saving, such as bulking meals out with lentils etc so that they stretch further. My stockpile is pretty extensive so I want to try and start reducing it a bit over the next few months to make some space! I started my having a frozen pizza for my dinner on Friday night which has been taking up loads of space in the freezer for months!

Pay off my mortgage in 5 years

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