Under £100k

I'm still here..slowly chipping away at the mortgage.  Pleased to say we are now sub £100k.  That feels good!

In other news, have started crocheting (mixed results, photos to follow), had a go at stained glass making (wonderful!), made a dress (slightly wonky) and have got my reading mojo back!

M
x

Another mortgage payment

As we draw ever closer to getting our mortgage under £100k, I made another overpayment today.  Just £1,144 to go until we reach five figures!

I'll have to think about another goal to set myself once I achieve this one!

M
x

Well that was 2012

Well, I've started back at work full-time.  It's not too bad and the money is always welcome!

We managed to pay £8,683 off the mortgage and as of the 1st Jan we have £102,000 left outstanding on the mortgage.

I'm dedicating 2013 to two things and two things only.

1. Paying £10,000 off our mortgage (and finding a great new deal when our fixed rate ends in December)
2. Finally getting rid of the baby weight and getting myself a BMI that is normal (I've just gone from obese to overweight since Christmas)

I think that is enough to be getting on with.  Just keeping on top of the washing and ironing while working full time and looking after a toddler is exhausting!

x

Cost neutral Christmas - is it possible

Yes, I've gone and said the 'C' word!  I LOVE Christmas and spend months planning and organising gifts, decorations and I even run the office secret Santa each year.   We dont really go over board.  We set a spending limit for close family and as we now have little J we have agreed with some friends that we will just buy for the little ones now rather than each other plus other halves as well.  I don't want to cut back on our real tree (this may be a mistake in hindsight with a 'soon to be walker' in our house) or the nice food and drink we buy so I've decided to try and make it cost neutral.

I save £75 a month for birthday and Christmas and have built up about £300 so far this year.  My aim is to use the cost neutral Christmas so I can put this extra cash into the overpayment pot.  So far I have:

£220 cashback from credit card
£65 Nectar vouchers
£10 Morrisons vouchers
£2 Coop voucher
£44.25 Quidco cashback

Total - £342.25

I'm rather pleased with this, although we are limited to some shops/websites with some of the vouchers I think we could probably manage most of the festivities with this!

Roll on December!

M
x

Job dilemma

Since finding out I've got to go back to work full time in October I've come to terms with the fact and decided to really concentrate on paying off our mortgage.  I've discussed it with friends and family and got my head around it.  I've even been planning to find part-time work or work for myself when it is paid so I can be around to collect my daughter from school and be there in the holidays.

I've now found a really nice part-time job BUT it is only 18.5 hours AND a grade lower than I'm currently on.  It's put me in a tizzy.  Do I apply for it and shelve all my dreams of being mortgage free and possibly struggle financially for a while or do I continue with full-time work and pursue the dream? EEkk!

Nectar bonus!

I got two statements for my Nectar card this week.  One for my current card and one in my maiden name.  Both had a considerable amount of points on them and but I never realised that I had two accounts.

I contacted the nice people at Nectar via email and within 48 hours they had arranged for my points from my old card to be transferred to my current one.  I now have a balance of £65!  The temptation is to buy something nice for myself but in my new 'lets pay off the mortgage' state of mind I know I should put it towards something sensible like Little J's birthday present or Christmas.

I also never knew you could collect points from Amazon or eBay.  We buy loads of stuff from these sites so I need to get a bit more savvy with things like this!

M
x

MFW 2012 - Better get my skates on!

Those of you familiar with moneysavingexpert.com (I just love Martin!) with probably know of their brilliant forums and some of the challenges which go one there.  Back in December I joined on of the challenges on the Mortgage Free Wannabe forum and pledged to pay off £3,000 off our mortgage in 2012.

In hindsight it was a bit ambitious at the time as I was on maternity leave but I have been chipping away at it £100 a month since February and I think it might just be possible to reach the £3k target by December.  I'm currently at £600 paid off with a bit in savings allocated for the pesky mortgage.  I'll 'do the math' and get a total figure soon.

You can find details of the challenge here.  I'm number 71.

M
x

The pesky mortgage

As we enter a new phase in our lives, we have decided to start trying to pay off the mortgage in as little time as possible.  I've played about with the figures many, many times (bordering on the obsessional) and have come up with a rough plan to have an overall goal of ten years - 01/07/2022.  The overpayments seem reasonable for this goal (extra £425 per month) and we could manage even with the extra cost of childcare.  But once you start playing with the figures...

So I started wondering if we could do it quicker, perhaps have my 40th birthday as a target which would take it down to 7 years and 6 months.  This gives us an overpayment of £750 per month which would be incredibly challenging and would mean looking for savings in just about every area we spend on.  But if you are going to take on a challenge then you might as well go for it, eh?