Night feed dreaming

BVic28 · 8 November 2019 at 7:38AM

Hi all

A little background as to what’s brought me here:
I’m 28, married and currently on maternity leave with my 12 week old (tomorrow) little boy (H). I’m breastfeeding so have had many long nightfeeds and found myself trawling through the MSE website and forums. I am a lover of numbers and moving money around (my favourite part of payday if I’m honest!) so I started getting excited about the prospect of becoming more money savvy to enable us to pay our mortgage off early.

Mortgage summary:
Bought our house as first time buyers in 2017, house price was £170k so we took out a mortgage for £127,500 (with about £1000 added on top interest free for fees which we didn’t fully understand at the time) with the 20% help to buy equity loan.
Following the advice of a work colleague I rounded up my monthly payments (I love a nice round figure) to start the OP ball rolling. We now have a mortgage balance of £121,245.32 with a remaining term of 32 years 3 months.

Future mortgage plans:
Remortgaging next year when current fixed term comes to an end to enable us to pay off the HTB equity loan.
Selling this house and buying a bigger house (no more than £250k) as our forever home (current house only just big enough and we’re wanting one more baby to complete our little family, though not for a few years yet).

Current OP plans:
As I’m on mat leave I can’t OP big chunks like some of the MFWs on here, however I’ve set up a spreadsheet for all future payments so I can see how even just little OPs here and there can help reduce the term and interest paid.
By rounding up the monthly payments we already OP by £42.26 a month.
Weekly Tilly tidies (initially to the nearest £1 but stretching to nearest £5 of budget allows) - this to happen on a 3 weekly rolling basis (other
two weeks to be sent to saving pots for holidays (we love DisneyWorld so save for a long time for these holidays) and deposit for next house).
Interest - switched to Nationwide current account to take advantage of their 5% interest. This will be split 3 ways each month as above.
Topcashback/receipt hog/shoppix - money made from these to be split as above.
Trying to smarten up my own spending - currently spending more on food/petrol/unnecessary purchases for H/stationary (I love a notebook) than needed.

When I return to work I intend on increasing my OPs however want to ensure I’m getting the balance right between working to OP and working as little as possible to spend time with H while he’s still so little (if I could I wouldn’t be going back to work at all until he was in full time school!)
Any tips/advice/suggestions would be really appreciated! I’m excited to start sharing my journey with you all.

longway2go · 8 November 2019 at 7:07PM

Hi and welcome,

Your post rang many bells with me and I wanted to pop on and wish you luck.

I spend many a night feed thinking how to become mortgage free and planning. I have 2 sons and started to want to OP in July while on mat leave when we remortgaged but didnt think I could manage anything before next yeas. I went back to work 3 days a week 3 weeks ago and have managed some ops. We are currently straightening out a few accounts so that ops can start in Jan along with savings for a Disney holiday. We went this year in May and have been before.

We also purchased our house in 2007. We do owe more than you and monthly payments are higher as we have a bigger mortgage but smaller term.

Since July I have set up a Monzo account which really helps with saving targets and managing money due to pots. I have also started looking at ynab which is a really good budgeting tool
And has made me look at money in a different way.

I would be interested to hear how much effort topcashback/reciept hog and shoppix are and the amounts that you earn for that if you don't mind sharing a bit more about those.

I have also started batch cooking to save money on food.

Lots of luck in your journey

twinklie · 9 November 2019 at 9:14AM

Ahhh I've been here too. I have two boys, although mine are now 7 and 4 so it's been a while. I'm very envious your at the start of your baby journey - I've loved everything about being a Mum. This year is my last year of playgroups before both kids are at school, so I'm feeling it a bit at the minute. I have Fridays with my youngest and will miss all the playgroup stuff.

Still, we didn't actually get round to buying our house until last year, so you are in a much better position that we were already. You are in a much better position than most other 28 year olds too - so well done you. :j

I'm looking forward to following your journey.

BVic28 · 10 November 2019 at 4:59AM

longway2go wrote: »

Hi and welcome,

Your post rang many bells with me and I wanted to pop on and wish you luck.

I spend many a night feed thinking how to become mortgage free and planning. I have 2 sons and started to want to OP in July while on mat leave when we remortgaged but didnt think I could manage anything before next yeas. I went back to work 3 days a week 3 weeks ago and have managed some ops. We are currently straightening out a few accounts so that ops can start in Jan along with savings for a Disney holiday. We went this year in May and have been before.

We also purchased our house in 2007. We do owe more than you and monthly payments are higher as we have a bigger mortgage but smaller term.

Since July I have set up a Monzo account which really helps with saving targets and managing money due to pots. I have also started looking at ynab which is a really good budgeting tool
And has made me look at money in a different way.

I would be interested to hear how much effort topcashback/reciept hog and shoppix are and the amounts that you earn for that if you don't mind sharing a bit more about those.

I have also started batch cooking to save money on food.

Lots of luck in your journey

Thanks. I’ve been looking at YNAB since I read about it in your diary. I’m going to try the free trial but want to make sure I’ve got enough time to make good use of it.

Topcashback is now very little extra effort but took me some time to get into the habit of checking the app first but once the habits established its only a few seconds more to check the app. I currently have over £100 I’m waiting to cash out on that has accumulated over the year. There are some opportunities to earn big sums when switching things like energy suppliers and tv packages. Disney holidays also offer cash back

(which I unfortunately found out after we booked and paid for our honeymoon). ReceiptHog and Shoppix I’ve only just started using so not sure if they’re worth it yet, but will update when/if I get a payout

BVic28 · 10 November 2019 at 5:07AM

Thank you Twinklie. Aww I can imagine it’ll feel very strange once your youngest is at school. Everyone keeps telling me how fast it’ll fly so I’m guessing it’s come round quick for you.

I am lucky to be in the position I’m in, my husband and I have both had supportive parents which meant that we didn’t have to rent and could focus on saving a deposit. We also grew up watching how bad both sets were with money and so became much more financially savvy which has helped.

Thanks for following along

Ps I’m struggling with the functionality of the forum on my phone - is this common or am I missing something obvious?

twinklie · 10 November 2019 at 12:13PM

I use the old style forum on my phone because I find the new style far to difficult to use.

My parents are terrible with money and they were in some pretty terrible financial situations when I was growing up. Despite my dad having a fairly well paying job (30Kish), they have only just paid off their mortgage in the last couple of years (5 or so), Mums in her 70s and Dad late 60s. They still live in a tiny terraced house, in a not brilliant area, have no double glazing or central heating etc.

As a result I’m probably a bit too far the other way. Still, Id rather that than the alternative.

longway2go · 10 November 2019 at 3:43PM

Thanks for the info re topcash back. I will have a look. Potential looking to switch energy providers so worth a look.

I'm nearing the end of my ynab trial and think I will sign up.

BVic28 · 10 November 2019 at 4:58PM

Oohh how do you find/use the old style forum? I struggle with this one.

Yeah, I’d say me and DH are the same as you, we both struggle to spend money on ourselves (although I do not have that problem when it comes to spending money on DS haha)

BVic28 · 10 November 2019 at 5:00PM

Hi longway - what did you find most useful about YNAB? I’ve set up a spreadsheet budget so just wondering what/ if there’s anything extra it can give

BVic28 · 10 November 2019 at 5:12PM

I do my Tilly tidy on a Sunday so want to get into the habit of posting a weekly update.
- Tilly tidy - I managed to tidy away £13.51 into the holiday find (ideally saving to take DS to Disney World in 2021 - not sure if we’ll have saved enough by then but it hopefully won’t be long after if not).
- No spend/drive days - I’m trying to increase reliance on the car, particularly while I’m on mat leave, to then squirrel away leftover petrol money into mortgage/holiday/deposit funds. Unfortunately due to the weather and SH not being well so driving to work when he’s normally walk, we haven’t managed a no drive day. We’ve also only managed 1 no spend day so want to improve on this next week!
- Spreadsheet fun - DS only slept in hour blocks last night and then was up feeding for between 30 and 60 minutes each time so I had plenty of time to play about with my spreadsheet. I drew a rough floor plan of the house with each cell signifying £125. I’m planning to colour in a cell everyone £125 of capital is paid off. I worked out that we currently own 19%...of the living room (roughly as I haven’t even tried to get the drawing to scale). This was initially a bit disheartening but I’m hoping getting to colour the cells in each month and visually see our ownership increase will provide extra motivation.

BVic28 · 11 November 2019 at 10:27AM

Realised I forgot to take the deposit into account when working out how much of the house we own, doh! Works out as 46.66% of the living room and 8.43% of the whole house. My main aim is to get this to 10% by next summer so we’re in a better position when we’re remortgaging to pay off the HTB equity loan.

Mortgage balance: £121,245.32
Holiday savings: £514.75/£5000 (rough estimate for our 2021 WDW holiday)
Next deposit savings: £425.21/£10,000 (a long way to go on this one!)

Night feed dreaming

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