Mortgage free & able to live the dream!

chelseablue · 25 October 2017 at 5:01PM

Same here, I just use Excel.

SWSEGirl · 25 October 2017 at 5:10PM

chelseablue wrote: »

Can I be nosy and ask what jobs you both do?

Hi Chelseablue,

Of course - ask away! I work in the media and my husband is a project manager for an IT consultancy.

I've been in my field for 10 years and my husband for 5 years - I know we earn good salaries now - and have befitted from rises in the past couple of years particularly - which is why I want to maximise our earning potential now. If we have children - our earnings will diminish for a time, then our outgoings will significantly increase with childcare - so I want to make the most of this time while we have minimal responsibility.

It is only the past year or two that I have felt particularly stable financially - previously I lived in my overdraft, although thankfully I never accrued too much credit card debt.

Our mortgage is big enough to make me nervous about interest rate hikes, and whilst we could afford a higher repayment at the moment, that might change in the future, so I'm keen to reduce the balance as much as possible!

chelseablue · 25 October 2017 at 5:16PM

Ah the dreaded childcare bill, I know how that is! We used to pay £850 a month for 3 days a week at nursery.

Now that our son gets the government 30 hours a week, the bill has reduced a lot.

Between us we take home about £4,000 a month (I can only dream of your salaries haha). We don't live in London, although in Berkshire so not too far away.

I'm a PA, future hubby is an Estimator

SWSEGirl · 25 October 2017 at 5:30PM

chelseablue wrote: »

Ah the dreaded childcare bill, I know how that is! We used to pay £850 a month for 3 days a week at nursery.

Now that our son gets the government 30 hours a week, the bill has reduced a lot.

Between us we take home about £4,000 a month (I can only dream of your salaries haha). We don't live in London, although in Berkshire so not too far away.

I'm a PA, future hubby is an Estimator

I (think!) I have subscribed to your thread, so will follow with interest! We've definitely delayed having children in order to be able to afford it, but now I'm definitely overthinking it and we just need to take the plunge - it's good to be able to speak with people who are on that particular journey! :T

We are very lucky in terms of our salaries, we used to get by on just my salary - which was less than it is now, as my husband did a degree a bit later in life - it was incredibly stressful, but has really paid off in the long run. I think that time of financial hardship has taught us to be more frugal and appreciate what we have. We also want to move back to the country, nearer to our families and after that we know our earning capacity will be halved at least - so we're working towards this!

SWSEGirl · 26 October 2017 at 8:00AM

As usual I'm using my commute to do a bit of financial planning!

My husband gets paid on Friday, so we'll be able to assess then how much we can afford to OP & put into savings.

My topcashback paid out this morning - £41.67. So I've transferred £40 to a savings account that I'm using to save for a posh mini break for my husband's 30th in June. :beer:

I seem to be slightly burying my head in the sand with my credit card - I've currently got £2420 on it at 0% - I'm repaying £200 a month, but would like to get rid of this a bit quicker really. After the excess of Christmas I'm going to try & throw a bit more at it.

SWSEGirl · 26 October 2017 at 12:25PM

So I'm trying to do some advanced planning for when our fixed term ends in 2019. Interest rates are obviously set to increase and I think we'd need to aim to clear an additional 5% of the value of the property in the next 2 years.

So 5% of the value of the property is £19,000, over 24 months that's £791 per month! Gulp.

I think we have around 17% equity in the property at the moment (if my calculations are correct!) and I'd love to hit 25 % equity when it comes to remortgage. This is obviously quite ambitious, but not impossible. We could easily do this if we put less in savings - but I think we both like the comfort of seeing a lump sum easily accessible in our savings account, even though it's not necessarily the best financial decision. We both need a shift in our thinking.

Welshlassie · 27 October 2017 at 11:04AM

SWSEGirl wrote: »

Hey Welshlassie!

Thanks for your reply.

So we try to put a minimum of £1200 into savings/ mortgage OP's - and up to £1500 - although this still leaves a sizeable surplus, which seems to be frittered.

I did use YNAB & loved it - but I couldn't work out how to set it so a monthly cycle started on the 23rd (my payday) - and then it became very confusing to me, my monthly budget seemed to be wiped on the 1st, and I couldn't work out how to override this! I'd love any tips you might have, because I'd like to start using it again.

I do have a loose budget & an excel spreadsheet, but it's not a budget that assigns a job for each pound like YNAB, and I suspect the devil is in the detail, and that's why I'm mindlessly frittering!

xx

I struggled with the month periods for a while as I'm paid on the 20th, but you need to change your mindset.
Work out what the money you have at the moment needs to do before you get the next lot of money in, so what bills need paying, how much food do you need, fuel etc. then fill those categorises with that amount of money, when the end of the month rolls round any available money left in those categorises will roll over into the following month.
When you next have some income just add to the next categorises you need to fill.
If you're paid monthly then you'll probably fill all your categorises once and then they'll just roll over.
In the summer we finally managed to fill up next months categorises with what we were paid in this month so are no effectively a month ahead. It's much easier to manage now.
There's a great group on FB that will answer any questions you have and talk you through how to do thinks.
I used a spreadsheet for a while, but kept loosing track and over extending ourselves with what might come in. This is why I like YNAB you only budget what you have at that moment and can't forecast ahead.

SWSEGirl · 27 October 2017 at 11:21AM

It's my husband's payday today (ie. my favourite day of the month!) - as I get to juggle money and decide how much we can afford to OP!

For some reason I still struggle to commit maximum funds to the mortgage - as it still feels like the money is disappearing to me, it's something I definitely need to get over!

So my target OP for this month was £500, but I've managed £700 - so a win, I guess!

Our emergency/ baby saving account has also increased by £900 this month - so £1600 towards financial freedom!:money:

One great motivator has been being able to update my signature - it feels so satisfying! :T

SWSEGirl · 30 October 2017 at 12:27PM

A pretty spendy weekend - I tend to go into spend mode when I have people staying. Lots of money on taxis, wine & food. To be fair - my brother only comes to stay once a year, so I'm not going to feel too bad about it!

My nephews are desperate to go trick or treating tomorrow - but because the road we live on is slightly dodgy, I'm going to throw them a halloween party at home instead, I'll buy some cheap & cheerful decorations from poundland & try and think of some halloween themed party food.

I'm still ahead of where I was financially last month, but I'll need to rein in spending after my brother leaves in order to stay within my overdraft this month. Luckily all birthday presents for the coming month have been bought and my Christmas fund is pretty healthy. So all in all not too bad! :beer:

chelseablue · 30 October 2017 at 12:31PM

We're normally relatively good during the week, its the weekend spends we need to keep an eye on too.

Thank God a wedding is a one off thing (well hopefully once!)

Mortgage free & able to live the dream!

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free