£195,000 mortgage for a single mum!

Well, my overpayment in February has made my monthly payment go down by £2.01, wahey!

So the monthly payment is now £753.82. Hoping to have it under £750 by the end of the year.

I have done all my spreadsheets and if nothing changes (and I don't buy anything major or anything breaks down), I can put an additional £2,000 on this year.

This I will do by £500 in four months. I was going to wait until I actually have the money (I know, I know, this is the most sensible thing to do), but I have about £7,000 on 0% credit cards that don't run out until January 2018 at the earliest and June 2019 at the latest.

I won't be silly and stick the whole £7,000 on as I don't know my savings projections for 2018 and I'm reluctant to do it yet as it's only February 2017!

Hello Suffolk Lass. Thanks for subscribing. I must admit it is pretty boring reading and I don't post as often as I should to keep me on track, haha.

But, it's not even March yet and I'm chomping at the bit to put another £500 overpayment on. This will be the last one for a few months as I have a few expenses.

House insurance - which I have just bought for £87.55.

Car Service and MOT - I have put aside £230 for this and will book it into Kwik Fit soonish (I have seen deals on various voucher sites, but am wary of using them. Figure it's safer just to go where I normally go).

Re February budget. For the first time ever, I have stuck to the budget. And there is £23.01 left which I don't think will get spent tonight (although having said that I do have a bid on a Brownie tshirt for my eldest which runs out tonight).

My breakdown is:-

Petrol: £42.03
Kids: £39.53 (no treats this month by the looks of it, but at least I fed them!)
Me: £127.18
Groceries: £268.25
Total: £476.99

Out of £500

I have put £35 on March groceries already, but these genuinely haven't been opened and was me bulking in bulk or in preparation.

Goodness, haven't posted on here in ages. Oops.

Still overpaying my £500 each month. Won't be able to do it every month, but have done it every month this year so far and am aiming to do it in May. Will have to give it a rest for a few months after that.

I have bought a few things for my girls, but all frugally. They needed new bikes and scooters, so off to eBay I went.

My mortgage payment for May is going to £749.90, so I have cracked my first target of it being below £750.

When it will go below £700 is anyone's guess, but all I can keep doing is plugging away at it.

I used to keep £415.64 minus what the first mortgage is (at the moment £365.04) in a savings account and wait till that hit £500, but I don't do that anymore. I'm so bad at actually spending money that I will just pay the monthly payment and see what is left and save up for the £500 overpayment.

I have a little table to make me feel better about how long this is all going to take.

2016..........Amount of Mortgages Monthly Payment
19th Feb.....£200,044.89
20th Feb.....£200,000.00
1st Mar.......£194,723.57...............£800.50
5th Apr.......£192,852.65...............£778.57
4th May......£192,449.16...............£774.38
2nd Jun......£191,992.71...............£774.38
3rd Jul.......£191,113.05...............£774.38
5th Aug......£190,259.05...............£772.19
3rd Sep......£189,865.18...............£757.78
2nd Oct......£189,453.41...............£757.78
3rd Nov......£189,076.63...............£757.78
4th Dec......£188,687.16...............£757.78

2017
4th Jan.......£187,796.84...............£757.78
3rd Feb.......£186,894.98..............£755.83
3rd Mar.......£185,969.98...............£753.82
4th Apr........£185,086.10...............£751.88
… May.........£..............................£749.90

DeterminedSingleMummy wrote: »

Hello

Love your 2016/2016 table. It's great to see it going down! I have used part of my stoozed pot to overpay in advance aswell and replace the stoozed pot with whatever money i would have overlayed with. I don't think i would want to plan too far in advance tho with using the stoozed pot money as it's not a flexible option.

Look forward to reading more of your diary xx

Haha, that is the weirdest thing ever. This is exactly what I do.


I have £8,000 stoozed away in savings accounts (just got £170.21 from my Nationwide 5% one which just matured) and to stop my current account going overdrawn, I have stoozed money in there, but just have to be careful that I don't get carried and only overpay what I know I will be able to save in the coming couple of months.

Haha, we do sound very similar.

I have three 0% cards at the moment. The amount of credit these companies are willing to give me is pretty amazing!

One runs out in January 2018, the next July 2018 and the last one June 2019, so I have a while yet.

Just hope when I come to get the next batch of 0% cards, I'll be able to get them (not cos of the credit score, but cos I'm sure they are strict on you not getting 0% cards from the same companies too often).