Just starting my MFW journey

chunky79

:wave: Hello

Firstly a little bit about the Chunky family:rotfl: , My OH and I have 4 children, he is a Software developer and is a contractor, me i am a cleaning, d.i.y, gardening goddess:rolleyes: . We purchased this house in 2004 for 61.5k so quite low, it needed a fair bit of work doing. Its not lost value yet! But we are here to stay for the long haul, planning a big extension for the summer, heres hoping to OH getting more contracts.
Today i made my first overpayment on my mortgage:j £250. Strangley i got a flutter in my belly, quite excited now and can't tell OH as he is in a metting. I have also contacted the bank and asked them to keep my mortgage payment at what they were 12 months ago which is an extra £140 a month . I will hopefully be able to pay £250 every month and maybe more once i have crunched away at the household budget a little more. I am certainly no Financial bliss or StuartGMC when it comes to this sort of stuff So thats not a bad chunk off each month at £490.


We have talked about this for 2 years but kept putting it off as OH started contracting, I decided it would be best to have money if all goes wrong. So we do have a 5 month buffer zone it plans have to change.

Total outstanding on Mortgage before O/P £55496.04
After O/P £55246.04

One question i forgot to ask the Bank, the last figure after Overpayment has taken off all money, will interest be put back on? iyswim


Thankyou for reading x

SmlSave

Hello and welcome chunky!

RosieTiger

Nice to have another one on board - Good Luck !

MrC-117

Hello and good luck.

Regarding your question, if your mortgage has daily interest calculations (most of them do now) I believe you'll only be paying interest on the £55246.04

cha97michelle

Hi Chunky.

Not seen you in a while love. Hope all is well with the kids. I am in pretty much the same boat as you. Our initial mortgage was bigger than yours but we owe about the same now. Ours is about £55,500.

I have overpaid in the past but not for a while, but once i am back at work later this month, i intend to start making inroads again. I also need to build the savings up again too. You have done a good thing keeping your payments at the original level as that is a painfree way of making inroads. Currently we overpay by about £54 a month this way. I keep logging onto the online banking, and it galls me that they are adding £7.57 a day in interest, so my first little goal is going to be reducing that to below £7.50. Slow and steady will win my race.

Anyway, good luck, i will keep checking on you as it might motivate me more to challenge myself against someone at a similar starting point and someone i know too. I will watch with interest.

Michelle xx

chunky79

:wave:
Hello
Thankyou for the welcome.

Hi Michelle, how are you doing hun and how are the little squgglies being for you? I know what you mean about motivation, I actually spent last night going through Tesco reciepts and found i average £40 per week on unescessary spends, so although we like our treats have decided to halve that, so thats an extra £20 a week in mortgage free pot without really having to to try, i don't want to become too stingy lol. We have a night out once a flood no ones wants to babysit 4 kids lol so i like my odd treat.

Well i made a boo boo in my first post I stated that my overpayments will be £490 doh! Its actually £390 but hey whats hundred quid out:o maybe my brain will not be so mushy when I return oneself into the adult world and not a toddlers.

Good news i decided to contact the bank to find out about my interest rates, it turns out that it is not calculated daily and anythign that i pay will comes straight off the capital so thats good isn't it ? See i am being a jelly head again .

Right this washing won't hang itself out x

tutti_2

Well done and good luck!

cha97michelle

The little ones are not so little now. Sam's nearly cruising, and just started at nursery with Charlie, and i am back at work on the 30th of this month. I can't believe i've been off a year. :eek: Very scary thought going back, but it will be nice to increase the old cash flow.

We are definitely like you. We never get out without the boys. We have a very rare evening out planned for my 30th next month as my sister offered to babysit, so we don't want to sacrifice the odd bottle of wine or choccy bar we have. We don't even do takeaways anymore.

I can see i am going to have to continue trying to save the pennies when i am back at work to make any progress. I know its easy to slip into takeaways and spending loads though. I'm not going to beat myself though as anything i manage will be progress.

What are you hoping to pay off this year? I was thinking about £1200 minimum, and i have paid off about £108 so far on keeping the payment at the higher rate. I'd love to reduce it to £50k but i think that might be a longshot till we get back on our feet.

Take care hunni x

chunky79

Hi Michelle, Its hard going back to work after so much time off isn't it. I hated it, never felt like i had been away. But on the brightside, adult conversation and more cash:D .

As for your 30th people keep askign what i am doing i will be 30 in May, in all honesty i have no idea. Probably ironing if my 21st is anything to go by. No seriously i think i may get a night out on the town, fancy having a meal with all my nearest and dearest.

Hopefully we are hoping to pay off at least 5k, i want to make as big a dent in it as i can whilst OH has such a good contract never know when it will end. We are already overpaying by £390 so its only £320 short of target. OH has said today to up overpaying to £500 minimum but will keep mortgage payment same and make up with a £360 overpayment. So long as money is flowing i am not going to skint myself...thats when i will lose motivation. If all goes slightly by the wayside then we will overpay only a little. I do believe its good to have a target. Even if i was only paying off £10 a week its better than on a takeaway or that new pair of jeans. See i have been converted:money:

I am going to look at bathrooms in the next 2 to 3 weeks thats going to be a very big job, ceiling needs ripping down, new floor etc...you name it and it needs doing, i will do most of the labouring myself, i am quite handy with a hammer and chisel:rolleyes: . We also need a new bedroom suite this is going to be fairly decent but not the one i originally picked, a made to measure stunning bedroom with wow factor!

I want to get married too, i want it nice but not too expensive, will have about 50 guests in total so it shouldn't be too bad. BUT 5 bridesmaids and 3 4 Best men!

So thats another reason why i need to jig figures, the accountant is coming out in the morning as i need to go over bits to do with OH's business so i will know how much more money we have to come in from that. I am new to all this stuff, finally it is starting to sink in:o .

I better get on and get the squigglies to bed, i have to prepare all the bits for accountant tomorrow and i want have a quick lurk at a few other diaries

Take care xx

setmefree2

and

StuartGMC

Chunky
Thanks for the mention in your opening post and welcome.

You appear to have a good balanced approach and have the emergency funds put aside so all looks good; but, how accurate is your household budgeting data? You seem to be up for improvements and I would recommend that you get a good handle on your expenditure, required savings (bathroom, bedroom, holiday and wedding... etc) which should then assist in the confidence you have in the allocation of additional OP. If you don't have a detailed spreadsheet or would like to compare what you do have with the one I've sent to others, just PM me your e-mail address and I'll send it.

One question arises; you state interest is not calculated daily. What basis is it calculated upon? If it is annual you may be wise to look at the rules on OP and earn (a tiny amount of) interest in savings then move it over ahead of the annual calculation for example? I wasn't aware there were still mortgages based on annual calculations now having been on one 1994-1999 or so.

Best wishes in your plans.