My Mortgage Quest: Go from 85% -> 60% LTV by October 2013

DJ_Mike

I do have money set aside for furnishings - namely an ISA which is being held "in reserve" while the money I spend is on a 0% credit card, meaning it can earn a little interest and I'll just pay the card off at the end of the 0% period (i.e. stoozing).

But yes, I'll be the first to admit that I've had to make a massive change in my lifestyle. Up to this point I've been very used to buying anything I wanted when I had the free cash.

Now, I can't look at anything leisure-related without thinking "But if I buy this, that's X money that doesn't go onto my mortgage, which is therefore money that Abbey are gonna bill me in interest for years to come!"

That's not to say I don't have any fun! I think I'd go nuts if I did that! But the truth is I've stowed up loads of DVDs and music and computer games over the years and that more than satisfies my enjoyment at home. Heck, the next phase in my grand mortgage plan is to sell off loads of rubbish I don't need, which in turn either goes onto the mortgage, or pays for me to do other things I really enjoy.

Plus the OH and I have a target of doing one classy night out a month - so it's off to see Eddie Izzard on the 24th, and Avenue Q in November!

DJ_Mike

So I've done some rethinking of my overpayment strategy lately, in light of my recent large reduction. Originally my plan was to get down to 60% LTV by October 2013, but the reality is I'm likely to get down to it sooner than this, due to my montly payments going more towards the capital than they did before. I've also joined the 12/12/12 MFi3 challenge with a goal of £128k which is lower than my main target here!

Who knows where we gonna be interest-rate-rise 4 years from now but it'd be nice if I still had as much paid off on my mortgage as possible.

I've worked out that I can set myself the loftier goal of being at 50% LTV by October 2013 - with house price inflation, I reckon that's £120,000 based on the current value of my house. Goodness knows I'm gonna try my hardest to get there, but I suppose that's the aim of a long-term plan - set yourself a challenge!

Plus being at a mortgage half the value of my house in 4 years has a rather nice feel to it!

DJ_Mike

Bought some lovely flat-pack pine furniture for the bedroom over the weekend - two bed-side tables, a chest of drawers, and a dressing table/mirror/stool (again with drawers) - plenty of storage which I desperately need right now!

Robot_Piston

My mortgage is c.120k with 110k in offset (1.45% variable) the house is apparently worth £475k does that make me smart? It needs decorating but otherwise the property is delightful and in well sought after area, and the local schools are outstanding.

DJ_Mike

Hard to believe it, but in 3 days' time I'll have been living in my new house for a month! Time seems to have flown by!

Still so much to do though - still putting up furniture I bought last weekend (don't have a lot of free time right now), unpacking a-plenty (still don't have enough storage), other little things to sort.

I'm gonna start visiting second-hand furniture auctions and shops in an effort to find some nice wall units to put my DVDs etc. in downstairs - bit of bargain hunting going on!

I'm also starting to realise that my £650 a month target is much harder than I thought it'd be - this month I'll just about make it, but only because my gas/electricity bill was a refund this month rather than a bill, meaning I'm up by around £170 that I wouldn't usually be. Next month will be much tougher, I fear!

One thing that seems to be particularly over-budgeted at the moment is my Gas/Electricity usage. When I was living in my old flat, the heat retention really wasn't very good, so I was forced to have the heating on quite a lot to keep the place warm. In my new house, I have the heating on for all of 3-4 hours a day, 1.5 hours in the morning, and 2 hours in the evening, and it keeps the place plenty warm! (Especially if I actually remember to shut the doors to keep the warmth in!)

Now, I had huge problems with Npower failing to get my meter readings on their system from their contracted company, so they were estimating my bill for ages. Then, when they suddenly got an actual meter reading, they jumped my Direct Debit up to £150!!!

Now that I've moved out, they've had to refund me £77 due to me overpaying in just 2 months (haha), but nonetheless I kept them on for my new house, because I'm due for a £100 discount in November... after which I plan to ditch them for a cheaper tariff.

As a gesture, they dropped my monthly DD to £100 in my new house, but I still reckon this is too high - British Gas (the company already serving my house) reckoned £40 for gas would be adequate, and Eon reckoned £28 for electricity was fine.

So right now I'm budgeting £100 a month for gas/electricity, but in truth I reckon I'll use half that much over the year, so hopefully that'll claw back some of my monthly overpayment target!

One other thing I plan to do is dig out all the junk I've accumulated over the years... and also sell off a lot of my old games collection. I built up an absolute ton of console games, and I really don't play them anymore (especially with emulators now so good on PC, or their being made available on places like Xbox Live). I think money from those would be better spent reducing my debt!

setmefree2

DJ_Mike wrote: »

One thing that seems to be particularly over-budgeted at the moment is my Gas/Electricity usage. When I was living in my old flat, the heat retention really wasn't very good, so I was forced to have the heating on quite a lot to keep the place warm. In my new house, I have the heating on for all of 3-4 hours a day, 1.5 hours in the morning, and 2 hours in the evening, and it keeps the place plenty warm! (Especially if I actually remember to shut the doors to keep the warmth in!)

with the energy savings.

Tbh I think your usage is a bit high for this time of the year. "Hardcore" MSEers don't put their heating on until November. Not us, I hasten to add. But an hour in morning and an hour in evening should be ample Maybe you need to invest in some warm jumpers lol

DJ_Mike

Actually I think I could probably reduce it down - I realised my boiler's temp was lower than its maximum, meaning it wasn't firing up the heating as fast as it could, thus requiring longer before the heating kicked in properly. Will probably adjust morning for 6am-7am and evening for 5pm-6pm and leave it at that for now! Really just trying to get a for where my house needs heating. May also switch some radiators off that aren't needed.

I've timed the hot water to come on for 45 minutes during that time as well - I have a tank, so once the water's hot, it stays hot for the 12 hours the heating's off! That in itself is FAR better than my old flat, which had no tank, and took ages for the boiler to fire up and heat the water all the time!

Best thing I think is if I take my energy readings on a monthly basis, so I can see what I'm really using, and try to cut it down!

SmlSave

So right now I'm budgeting £100 a month for gas/electricity, but in truth I reckon I'll use half that much over the year, so hopefully that'll claw back some of my monthly overpayment target!

Hi DJ Mike, good luck in reducing your energy bills. SMF2 is the fount of all knowledge in this

I would say that I agree that £100p/m for gas and electric is high. There's two of us in a two bed house (no double glazing) and we have a D/D of £57p/m for gas and electric.

I admitt I've put the heating on a couple of times in the evening just to warm up but I'm determined not to put the timing on till November!

DJ_Mike

I took a meter reading last night, and I've used 15 units (cubic feet meter) of gas since I moved in on the 25th - I wonder how that compares?

If I multiply by the rough value of 31 that works out at 465 kWh which should be about £14 of gas used this month, but I don't yet know if nPower charges two tiers for gas on my new tariff (I switched to Web 16 when I 'rejoined' them after moving).

I adjusted my heating timers last night, shaving the time my heating spends on to 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening - the hot water is keyed to come on at the same time anyway, so the boiler is already firing up to do some work, may as well capitalise on that to save extra burn time!

setmefree2

TBH it's hard to compare usage with others since every house, household and their location is different. We, for example, have great windows but a dreadful front door( old victorian leaded glass). Also, both me and Mr SMF2 can work from home a lot (but Mr SMF2 can also be away a lot) plus we have school aged kids. Plus we live in the SE which is warmer than, say, Scotland. So I am not sure how we would compare with another household of 4 in the SE where the adults are out all day.

I wouldn't worry about the hot water too much if you have a good tank, but I'm sure you can make savings on your CH use without too much pain.

A good tariff helps a whole heap too.

Good Luck