Pixelwife MFW - Overpayment Diary

jamesd

Ah well, a shame but sometimes you just can't do what would be good.

Since you can't move the borrowing around, be sure you allow for the effect of tax on the interest rate. Because you can deduct the BTL borrowing interest from your rental income there's a chance that overpaying on your own mortgage would be better. Depends on the difference in interest rates and your tax rate.

pixelwife

Paid another £700 towards underpayment on BTL1 today so have updated my signature accordingly. Also reactivated my old Greasypalm account and they owe me £38 so claimed that for September. Every little helps.

pixelwife

Depressing myself by calculating daily interest on my house (£29.30) and BTL1 (£17.86). Can't track BTL2 online.

So before I even start to bring down the capital it's costing me £47.16 a day. Reason alone to find a way of getting this reduced quickly.

pixelwife

To further motivate myself, I've updated my signature file with a running total of my mortgage debt. I challenge anyone to beat it. In black and white that is scary - but what's scarier is it used to be a lot higher!

Time to ramp up my activities and get this under £800k to start

pixelwife

One of my rental properties has sat empty for the longest time as a tenant who we had to evict through court bailiffs for 8 months non payment had done a load of damage and after court fees and solicitors we couldn't afford to repair it.

Anyway, I've decided this weekend, we will repaint all the bedrooms ourselves and go get a quote for recarpeting throughout (the carpets are absolutely knackered). I can get 0% finance on carpet through SCS and the like so this will be our best option.

My aim is to get all this done in the next 2-3 weeks and have tenants in by end September. It's a big ambition but at least then that's one mortgage payment I don't have to think about each month as it will come from the tenant. And hopefully a small overpayment too.

Be good to get some words of support and motivation from you all as I hate this kind of labour, but it's necessary while I have this bee in my bonnet to act on it before I lose the impetus!

QB_Wolf

I've got a buy to let and had mine empty for three months, I know how tough it is to keep paying the mortgage and it's a real drain. Once you get someone in it will be a great relief, so good luck!!

pixelwife

Thank you QB. I've avoided doing anything with it as I have such bad memories of the last tenants basically destroying the place but I think I just need to let all that go now and get it shipshape. Might be easier said than done so we'll see what I achieve over the weekend!

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

If it makes you feel any better... me and OH painted our bedroom today and then started prep work on the hall/stairs/landing so we can paint that tomorrow and Sunday. My arms ache and my back is stiff but knowing that it's all going to look good by Monday is motivation enough.

pixelwife

We've now decorated one of the bedrooms and tidied up the front garden. Still to do are one of the other bedrooms and the back garden as well as numerous other jobs. It didn't help that there were 4 leaks when we turned the water back on but they are sorted now.

Went to SCS today to look at carpets but they're all much of a muchness so going to leave that to hubby to sort after the decorating is finished.

Had a frugal weekend. Did a ruthless clothes sort out (I am a horrendous overshopper when it comes to clothes) and emptied about 5 wardrobes worth of clothes which hubby took to a car boot. Sadly it was rubbish and there were few people there so only made about £45 but he's going to take them all again next weekend and see if he gets a better result.

Not enough there really for a payment against any of the mortgages but at least we appear to have our "take daily actions' mindset restored!

Jevvers

Hi PW

I just wanted to say good luck and chin up, you are doing well with taking action. Each step you take does make a dent in that total figure, no matter how small it is.

We have just the one mortgage but it is £409k so I know what it's like to have a big amount to pay off.

All the best