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

SmlSave

Welcome back Mike!

Could you come round and beat me up re packed lunches? I've totally got out of the swing of doing them

DJ_Mike

I'll give you a damn good shaking for getting out of that habit!

I'm still into that incidentally. I had the briefest lull in the 2 days leading up to Christmas Eve, and that was basically because I couldn't be bothered to go shopping when I was only going to be off to the relatives until the Sunday, so I think I can be excused!

Plus, I went shopping in Tesco on the Monday after Christmas and they had an absolute plethora of fresh stuff reduced by at least 75% - quiches, sausage rolls, mini pork pies, scotch eggs - snapped up tons of stuff and stuck it in the freezer! It's now slowly feeding me for lunch in the month ahead, along with a single round of sandwiches (rather than 2).

So far this week it's a round of ham & mustard sandwiches and either two mini-sausage rolls or a mini pork pie, and two yoghurts. Yum!

DJ_Mike

Yay it's end of the month and time for this year's first overpayment! To the grand (well, half-grand) sum of £545

This is a very precise amount 'cause it'll reduce my mortgage by exactly 2 months, while keeping my monthly payment exactly the same (if my calculation is correct, anyway).

Lately I've really been bitten by the cashback bug - I've been nabbing loads of money back via the cashback websites, and also I signed up for an Amex card with 5% cashback for 3 months - just in time to pay for my car insurance on it! Ka-ching!

I'm also far more comfortable with the concept of stoozing now - I've had a Tesco 0% spending card since last July, which runs for 12 months, on which I've dumped all of my expenditure up to its limit, while keeping the cash in an ISA and then high-rate savings account. It really helps that I have a Budget spreadsheet, because I never need worry whether the money sitting in my bank is really mine or not - the spreadsheet tells me exactly how much I still have (so really I just ignore the bank and wait for the interest to pile up).

Next phase is to finish on the 5% Amex rate then possibly switch to another 0% spending card. Plus, rather hoping that Santander's 0% fee-free BT card is still running when my Tesco card runs out of 0% interest!

setmefree2

DJ_Mike wrote: »

Yay it's end of the month and time for this year's first overpayment! To the grand (well, half-grand) sum of £545

well done on that OP :T:T

DJ_Mike

Another 2 months knocked off! This time an overpayment of £552 which has brought the mortgage down below the £170k mark! Hurrah!

DJ_Mike

An extra post, 'cause my last one wasn't much of a diary entry! :-)

My Amex card has seen a lot of use in the past 2 months - I already mentioned the Car Insurance, but I'm trying to load everything onto it as much as possible - food shopping, petrol, etc. - I'm also loading it with stuff bought on behalf of my better half - she wanted some furniture and a spa day voucher, so on there they go! Have managed to rack up over £80 of cashback! Annoyingly it doesn't get paid till the 1 year anniversary of the card, but that'll be a nice bonus next January! :-)

TopCashBack is also coming through nicely - have managed to rack up over £100 in cashback there - £40 of that was the home insurance I bought last September, but there's lots of other nice cashback bonuses in there.

One of those was a trial subscription to LoveFilm I took out - £18 cashback, and originally I was only going to keep it for the trial...

... However! (I can almost hear the groans, BUT) I decided that, given how many films we enjoy watching, it made far more economical sense to pay for a subscription rather than keep buying films as they're released. I was bitten by the Blu-ray bug a couple of years back, and my guilty pleasure was constantly buying new films on release. Having a mortgage, that really isn't an option anymore, but I still wanted to watch films when they come out. So now, it's LoveFilm to the rescue with a rental for around £2 rather than shelling out £17.99 for a new Blu-ray!

That way, we can also watch films we haven't seen before and, if we really like them, then I'll simply wait for the disc to drop in price to a more sensible £8-10 level, and snap it up then - the rental and the cheap disc still works out cheaper than a brand new release!

SmlSave

One of those was a trial subscription to LoveFilm I took out - £18 cashback, and originally I was only going to keep it for the trial...

... However! (I can almost hear the groans, BUT) I decided that, given how many films we enjoy watching, it made far more economical sense to pay for a subscription rather than keep buying films as they're released. I was bitten by the Blu-ray bug a couple of years back, and my guilty pleasure was constantly buying new films on release. Having a mortgage, that really isn't an option anymore, but I still wanted to watch films when they come out. So now, it's LoveFilm to the rescue with a rental for around £2 rather than shelling out £17.99 for a new Blu-ray!

That way, we can also watch films we haven't seen before and, if we really like them, then I'll simply wait for the disc to drop in price to a more sensible £8-10 level, and snap it up then - the rental and the cheap disc still works out cheaper than a brand new release!

Hi Mike

DH is hooked on LoveFilm too (I like it as well) AND we've got cinema cards too! We're upgrading LoveFilm to the package with Wii games inthe hope that DH will stop buying them every payday.

Just to let you know that your not the only one

DJ_Mike

Well, this has certainly been an expensive month... for furniture!

I bought a lovely huge pine wardrobe for the bedroom with my girlfriend, who is now moving in at the end of April. Plus we also bought an outdoor table, chairs and parasol so we can enjoy the summer sat out in the garden! Luckily she went halves with me so it wasn't quite so expensive as it could have been!

Still, managed to overpay £560 on the mortgage today, which is another 2 months shaved off! Staying on target so far...

Can't praise TopCashBack enough though - I've made close to £200 in cashback now, including a substantial amount back on that wardrobe, which is a nice bonus!

DJ_Mike

Wow, it's been a long time since I last updated!

Can't believe time has flown so quickly to be honest - hard to believe that, two weeks from this Saturday, I'll have been living in my own home for 1 year!!

Overpayments have gone well, and I think I'm on course to clear away £10,000 in overpayments for 2010.

Being so stringent with my finances has actually, in the long run, allowed me to relax a whole lot more. The discipline with money really helps me to keep on saving and paying off that mortgage all the more quickly, but now that I'm used to it, it comes completely naturally and I don't stress over making sure I'm always getting the best value for money, because it's automatic!

Of course, you can never be too sure what the future will bring (and I'm sure there'll be plenty of challenges on the road ahead), but for now, at least, it's a moment of calm enjoyment.

originalmiscellany

Good lad!
It's interesting to see how you're getting on, especially over the long term, as you have documented
Keep up the posts, it brings encouragement to us to see how you can chip away at the mortgage month by month.