Quest for Financial Freedom
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Zola.
Posts: 2,204 Forumite
Hello fellow money savers 
This will be my diary to help keep myself accountable and focused on a few key things
A little about me. I am 30, live in UK. Up until I was about 27 I was pretty rubbish with money.
I saw my pay check as money to burn. I matured eventually, knuckled down and saved very hard to get our first home. We bought around a year ago and managed to slap down a good deposit. We get married in 2017, so currently saving for that.
Here are some early stats.
We have been putting £600 into our wedding fund every month and will keep doing so until the wedding happens.
We plan to overpay on the mortgage after that. I like the thought of keeping £600 floating into an over payment fund and send that off. We can only make one payment of up to 10% every year, so will likely build it up over the year then send off.
We will have things like car replacements, kids etc to think about in future as well, so my priorities may change a year or two down the line!
I also have started investing in Vanguard Life Strategy 80, and plan to put in £300 a month whenever possible. I want to hold onto this for as long as possible and pray for a good return!
We also love holidays and enjoying ourselves, so I wont be holding myself back in enjoying life, we only get one. I just want to become a black belt in the art of being Frugal!
This will be my diary to help keep myself accountable and focused on a few key things
- Clearing Our Mortgage Early
- Saving Money
- Investing Money
- Enjoying Life
A little about me. I am 30, live in UK. Up until I was about 27 I was pretty rubbish with money.
I saw my pay check as money to burn. I matured eventually, knuckled down and saved very hard to get our first home. We bought around a year ago and managed to slap down a good deposit. We get married in 2017, so currently saving for that.
Here are some early stats.
- Mortgage Balance: Around £126,500 - 24 years left (currently)
- Wedding fund: £12,500
- Rainy Day Fund: £10,000
- Investments: £350
We have been putting £600 into our wedding fund every month and will keep doing so until the wedding happens.
We plan to overpay on the mortgage after that. I like the thought of keeping £600 floating into an over payment fund and send that off. We can only make one payment of up to 10% every year, so will likely build it up over the year then send off.
We will have things like car replacements, kids etc to think about in future as well, so my priorities may change a year or two down the line!
I also have started investing in Vanguard Life Strategy 80, and plan to put in £300 a month whenever possible. I want to hold onto this for as long as possible and pray for a good return!
We also love holidays and enjoying ourselves, so I wont be holding myself back in enjoying life, we only get one. I just want to become a black belt in the art of being Frugal!
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Comments
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Happy shiny new diary
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Lou~ Debt free Wanabe No 55 DF 03/14.**Credit card debt free 30/06/10~** MFW. Finally mortgage free O2/ 2021****
"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of" Jane Austen in Mansfield Park.
***Fall down seven times,stand up eight*** ~~Japanese proverb. ***Keep plodding*** Out of debt, out of danger. ***Be the difference.***
One debt remaining. Home improvement loan.0 -
May has, and June will be, expensive months.
- Last payment on engagement ring cleared from personal account -
- Bought a Gas BBQ - £250 - Had to be done - hopefully a good long term investment for family and friends visiting etc
- Car booked in for timing belt change - likely to be 300-500 - at the mechanics mercy really!
- £600 transferred to wedding fund - up to £13,100
I am glad the ring is paid off from my personal account. One less expense to budget for. More for investing!
After these expenses, I have no extra cash available this month for investing into the Life Strategy fund, shame.
Next month I hope!0 - Last payment on engagement ring cleared from personal account -
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Payday
Been another expensive month! I was away for a couple of nights for OH's birthday.
We go on holidays this weekend for a couple of weeks to sunny Portugal, so we transferred out money for exchanging, thankfully got Euros a couple of weeks before Brexit and got a decent rate.
£300 invested into Vanguard LS 80
£600 into wedding fund
The rest into our joint for mortgage, bills and boring things0 -
Shamefully, I haven't updated this in 6 months or so. We have done a bit more to the house which has eaten into the current account a bit...but still on track, sort of! I am really wanting to start being more frugal from now to the wedding to maximise our cash..
It's now 8 more pay days until the wedding....
Current state of affairs
Wedding saver fund - £16,000+. - We are now adding £800 a month into this. We have paid half for some things already, so the account has gone up and down as we have saved into it and paid out. Seem to be on track, I feel.
Mortgage debt - £124,000. 23 years to run. (Really wanting to start overpaying...but we cant really until after the wedding)
Rainy day fund - £10,000.
Monthly Investments - £200 per month direct debit for Vanguard Life Strategy 80%, into S&S ISA
Once we get the wedding paid, I want to start overpaying the mortgage before we think about having any kids.
I am just not sure what the best way to organise things!
What do you think?
Aggressively target the mortgage, ramp up the investments, or build a bigger emergency fund. All three would be ideal....!0 -
Glad to see things are on track for the wedding fund. It'll be great having all that extra cash afterwards to invest how you like
They say to keep between 3 and 6 months worth of bills for an emergency fund, so I think that would be a good place to start. Also, if you are planning to have children, have you thought about how much maternity leave you would want to take? A lot of people take 12 months now and end up with no earnings for the last 3 months so it might be worth saving a bit up for maternity leave. After that, if it were me, I would overpay more on the mortgage rather than the investment as you are likely to save a lot of interest, but still pay a bit into the other investments too. There is a really useful mortgage overpayment calculator on here that shows how much interest you will save and how much quicker you will pay off your mortgage if you overpay so that might help to focus you on how much you want to try overpaying by.
Also, I've just realised our threads have similar names - oops! I didn't see this thread when I created mine, sorry.Mortgage: Mar 2018 -£300,000 / Jul 2021 -£255,000
Student Loan: March 2011 -£18,275.04 / Jul 2021 -£10,425.28
Joint Savings: Aim £13.5k. Dec 2016 £1,700 / Jul 2021 £36,600
Loan to In-Laws: Sep 2010 -£48,185.82 / Apr 2019 £0
Car Loan: Sep 2018 -£16,265 / Apr 2019 £0
Credit Card 0%: Nov 2016 -£4,500 / Apr 2019 £00 -
Cheers!
I do enjoy playing around with the over payment calculator! 0 -
What is your mortgage rate? Your best bet would be to fill as many regular savers or bank accounts at 5 or 6% rather than pay off a lower mortgage rate. That way you would have a bigger emergency fund but could overpay the mortgage when rates rise. However, I'd be thinking to the future and bunging more into Vanguard as well.Aggressively target the mortgage, ramp up the investments, or build a bigger emergency fund. All three would be ideal....!A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort Mortgage Balance = £0
"Do what others won't early in life so you can do what others can't later in life"0 -
Current rate is 3.09% (we are 2 years into a 5 year fixed).
I did some sums whereby after the wedding, if we chucked an extra £500 a month between us, the mortgage would be gone within 9 years. That sounds absolutely epic to me..
There are always temptations out there though to spend money, aren't there?
I have a 12 year car which is running superb, but will ultimately need replaced at some stage.
We'd also like to extend the house at one point. And do up the kitchen!0 -
Having a working from home day today.
We have a plumber in putting a toilet and sink under the stairs. Small little room but we are lucky there's a good window etc there already. Will be a great addition to the house.
The noise right now is insane though!0 -
A downstairs loo is so convenient - good decision there!
Working from home with that sort of noise is difficult though; you have my sympathy!Mortgage free 16/06/2023! £132,500 cleared in 11 years, 3 months and 7 days
'Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.' Ernest Hemingway0
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