The future's bright - the future's mortgage free!

MoneyQueen

Hi Treacle Toes.. Well done on securing such a deal in this climate... We have the same deal with another bank - though ours is not an offset... Good Luck.

setmefree2

StuartGMC wrote: »

It seems you are on the right track with the mortgage planning and I think FD will allow you to offset the Cash ISAs without taking them out of the wrapper so that should help too .

What he said.

Imho you should keep hold to the ISA. It's Martin Lewis' advice that you fill a cash ISA before paying off your mortgage, though I know that not everyone wants to do this.

Good mortgage rate by the way - well done

Kaz2904

Treacle_Toes wrote: »

Am I being thick but I don't really understand your question! Do you mean what is my mortgage amount? It's £117000. If you mean did I have to pay early payment redemption charge, then no, I waited until my previous deal was over.

Sorry if I'm being thick!

No, not being thick, I read the whole thread in one go.
You said that you had phoned your previous mortgage co. for a redemption figure for January 22nd (?) and they were about £1500 over what you presently owed. You were worried that it had gone up. I was interested to see if your redemption figure was the same as the one quoted in November (IIRC).

Ought to learn to explain myself better!

Treacle_Toes

Kaz2904 wrote: »

You said that you had phoned your previous mortgage co. for a redemption figure for January 22nd (?) and they were about £1500 over what you presently owed. You were worried that it had gone up. I was interested to see if your redemption figure was the same as the one quoted in November

I should have re-read what I had written.

In fact I was only £35 out so my calculations were actually a lot closer than the banks! Not bad as it was a calculation I made over 4 months ago.

Thanks for getting back to me Kaz!

TT

Treacle_Toes

I've finally made my first ever overpayment today!

I've been twitchy since my new mortgage was set up last week to make one especially as I was disappointed to learn that my first proper payment won't be taken out until 1st April. So last night I counted all the coins in my mortgage pig and decided to pay it in. It only came to £34.06 but I noticed this morning that I'd been paid for a mystery shop so I included that too - £57.90 in total.

According to the Egg mortgage calculator thing I've saved £21.99 off my mortgage!!!

So how did it feel?

Well the 'fix' was slightly overshadowed by my 18 month old trying to escape from her buggy and shouting "I POO'ED!" to everyone in the bank! (She hadn't - it's just her phrase of the week).

Now I'm home (and she's asleep) I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself - here's to more to follow.

CountingPenniesClaire

Really good to read your thread Treacle Toes. OH and I have done exactly the same as you. Our 5.69% fixed rate with NR expired 1 Feb 09 and we booked the FD BOE +0.79% fee free offset back in Sept/Oct time. Like you we were worried it was going to be withdrawn until we finally started the mortgage this month! It is really reassuring to know you can make overpayments but that if the worst happens you have that money available to fall back on. Plus you get to see your savings working for you in a much more satisfying and tangible way. We have a mortgage of around £93k and are offsetting about £15k. We did look at linking FD cash ISA with the mortgage but were told we couldn't do this. Would be interested if this is the same for you. OH still fills his annual ISA allowance but has opted for more competitive cash ISA with another provider. Obviously it isn't linked but I think it is probably the right thing to do. I know I ought to do the same but I really like the idea of ploughing my savings into our offset accounts.

I know, I know Martin - I must be more disciplined!

I think until we've had the mortgage for a 3/4 months we won't get a true picture of exactly how the mortgage is working but I think it has been a good choice and the fact that it has cost nothing to book is fab. Who knows where interest rates will be in a few months times but we'll keep a careful on eye economic developments and try to land on the right side!.

StuartGMC

Treacle_Toes wrote: »

I've finally made my first ever overpayment today!

Excellent news!

Well the 'fix' was slightly overshadowed by my 18 month old trying to escape from her buggy and shouting "I POO'ED!" to everyone in the bank! (She hadn't - it's just her phrase of the week)..

You have to love little children, she no doubt raised a few smiles from others watching your reaction

Remember note it down and list it when she is a teenager and complaining of you embarrassing her!

setmefree2

well done on your first op :T:T

Treacle_Toes

Well it's been a while since I updated and a lot has happened in that time.

Shortly after making my first overpayment I was invited to a meeting at work which I thought was about another position I had applied for. It wasn't - it was my consultation meeting for redundancy (if I'd have known I wouldn't have dry cleaned my suit especially!).

My first instinct was take the money and run (almost a year's take home salary due to my long length of service) but I was also given the option of being nominated for other positions - the main one being over an hours drive away.

In the end another person was offered this job but I have accepted a different position on about 10% less take home pay but only 10 minutes drive away. It's only a maternity cover (which is what I did before) but the worst that could happen is that I'll be in the same position in 9-12 months time but I'll have had all those paydays in between.

I guess I've learnt from my experience over the past 6 weeks is that I like working for the company I work for and really did not want to leave them.

The reason I did not post until now is that again I didn't want to tempt fate with coming to the end of the consultation with nothing. I know it's silly but my hopes have been dashed a few times in the past few weeks and quite a few tears have been shed.

But now I'm quite looking forward to learning the new role and starting it next month.

On the MF front my first 'standing order' OP went through on the first of this month of about £350 and my very modest attempts at offsetting have already saved me £5 last month and £6 this month.

I'm determined to keep my standing order OP the same after decreasing salary.

TT xx

RosieTiger

Good luck to you !