Mr & Mrs Mintedmatty MFW's Diary

mintedmatty

Fixed rate finished 31st July! It didnt actually click til this week, and I havent had any spare cash anyway, but I tried a little tester of paying 95p off yesterday to see how long it takes to credit! It went on straight away...so from now on my actual payments will be £228.88. I will be paying an extra £171.12 on payday to top it up to £400.I also plan to pay off an extra £57.76 every month either at once or on a weekley basis? This will take me upto £457.76 which is paying double. Hopefully I will be able to make a big dent into the mortgage now and drastically reduce it over the next year or so.

mintedmatty

Woohoo! payments down from £401 to £295, and thats for 6 weeks as i came out of fixed rate mid-month! Interest has dropped from £224 to £81! Im hitting the overpayments hard between now and Xmas! Its also good to see our joint mortgage has dropped below £90k - £80k by Xmas 2010 but I will certainly be paying more off now my mortgage rate has dropped so much! Today has being payday, at work its casual dau, its friday, and its bank holiday! but I dont care cos Mrs MM and myself fly out to Tenerife at 3pm this afternoon for Holiday, 10 days in the sun!!!!! yey! A well earned break for both of us, The NHS has got its moneys worth out of Mrs MM so far this year, plenty of overtime and weekend work and they know she will never so know cos she cares so much about her patients, she deserves a treat so we are heading for a long rest by the pool!

Adios Amigos!

onwards and upwards

Adios Amigos!

SmlSave

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh have a good holiday!

mintedmatty

mintedmatty wrote: »

Myself and Mrs Mintedmatty (we arent actually married yet but yknow, its on the cards) have decided we want to move house in around 16 months. Mrs MM owns the house in her own name name but I pay £150 per month to her for rent to pay extra towards the mortgage? The fixed rate deal we have ends December 2010 and we have decided it is in our best interests to reduce the mortgage as much as possible to make sure we benefit when buying what will probably be the Mintedmatty Family home.

If you have read other posts by me then Id like to think myself and the Missus have our heads screwed on, we both have relatively well paid jobs and use our money wisely, so hopefully this will benefit us in the future?

At the moment the mortgage is £95000 give or take a few pennies and we pay £838.02 each month (normally its £588 but we over pay by £250). This reduces the term to 14 years 5 months. We are allowed to pay an extra 10% in a lump sum each year but anything more than that we are charged? Each overpayment of £250 we make saves us £358 in interest so im planning to keep a tally of that for motivation. I also plan to put as much as possible into a seperate savings account to pay as close to the 10% off I can annually.

We decided we wanted to become MFW's (technicality as the more we actually save will just go into our next house) but we feel that for motivational reasons we are best signing up to the challenge! Im sure Mrs MM will want to add her two'penneth to the cause and 'blog' every now and again but im vowing from here on to try to reduce our mortgage to £80000 between now and next xmas!!! Im sure we will fall short but If I aim for 80k rather than 85k it will still be a big achievement.

So please encourage us when we need it because no doubt there will be tough times ahead. When the Missus is begging for a holiday or when we have no money? I will know where to come to know its worth it.....so here goes....wish us luck!!!!

Total £95,000 Aim £80,000 by Dec 2010
Interest Saved £0 (£358 saved each £250 over payment)


Mintedmatty (and Mrs mintedmatty)

13 months into our lives of being MFW's! We have broken the £5k saved barrier on the joint mortgage! I am below £47k on my sole mortgage, we are saving quite a bit but while we are decorating the main house to sell, we are considering moving back into mine to really save up a good deposit, it makes sense in the long term? I would just be a tad reluctant to give notice to my tenants and move in ourselves only to find a house say a few weeks later?

My mortgage payments are down to £228 and even if we kept on over paying at double our take home pay between us is almost 4k per month, I would certianly like to think we could save a good £1,500 per month which over a year or so makes a huge difference to a deposit!

Glad to see everybody else doing well!!!!

Onwards & upwards:)

mintedmatty

After what has appeared to be the longest month ever it is finally payday again, I am a bit embarrassed to admit I have struggled with the overpayments this month! It just seems I have paid out for so many things this month, I have booked stag do flights, weekends away, birthday presents etc October has been a real struggle. Its strange as I havent had a month like this in at least a couple of years, I thought they were well behind me but it goes to show you never know whats around the corner in terms of extra expense and although I havent overpaid on the mortgage I have still saved over £400 into my regular saver accounts?

I guess is is during these times I need to realise that at minimum I am saving £400 per month? because I feel I just havent saved anything this month and I need to stand back and see the bigger picture. I do feel though that I have a had a terrible month for saving and it is hard to budge that feeling, I guess it will go now that I have been able to siphon off a good deal today with it being payday.

summerday

You're doing brilliantly overall Matty. Every now and again these kind of months crop up, can't be helped. Next month will be better on the savings front. Keep it up!

mintedmatty

The 6 weeks have flown by, Ive missed a couple of posts and not being able to update on our situation. Things are still looking good, overpaying on both mortgages and really impressed having saved £5736 in interest since the start of our MFW quest. We are looking at possibly putting the house up for sale in April time though I am a bit dubious because other houses on the estate are just not selling and selling for the price we paid. It hasnt helped by a couple of reposessions that have reduced the average sold price below the medium.

Staying maybe another 12 months is a serious consideration but not ideal as we are in a good position to buy but alot rides on being able to sell ours which I think we may struggle to do? Other than that everything is rosy, savings amounts are increasing, getting more interest and Ive even had a Xmas bonus and a pay rise for next year.

On a plus note, We fly out to Vietnam on New Years Day for 18 days, we fly to Bangkok, then to Hanoi, out to Halong Bay then we are travelling by any means possible from north to south taking in several destinations i.e Surf lessons in Nha Trang. Mrs MM figured if we dont go now, we never will due to new houses, babies, weddings etc. I cant wait, I bought my house instead of going travelling so this is our time!

All in all Successful 2010, I will probably post prior to Xmas but if I dont I wish you all a Merry Xmas and a prosperous 2011!!!!

mintedmatty
Onwards & Upwards

Effy

Hey MM

I am flying to Thailand on Friday for a month of backpacking around! Can't wait!!!

I just bought my flat in August after becoming debt free, I only own 50% as its all I could scrape together in the very limited time I had to either buy something or be stuck renting for eternity (plus getting the mortgage for that half was no walk in the park, gotta love London house prices :mad: ). I so badly want rid of the mortgage on the 50% that's mine! I aim to start overpaying in the new year as saving for Thailand has taken over a bit! Will subscribe to your diary to see how you're getting on, though all this diary reading is giving me ants in my pants to get the flipping mortgage paid off, which I suppose is no bad thing, the less of my money the banks get their mitts on the better!

Anyway just popped in due to over excitement at my impending trip great to see someone else looking forward to seeing that part of the world.

Wishing you and Mrs MM lots of luck and a great holiday (desperately want to try and get to Vietnam myself so will be trying to cram that in!)

mintedmatty

Hi Effy,

Sounds fantastic, I admit I am a bit of a Vietnam War geek so Im looking forward to all the old war sites, Mrs MM must really love me to put up with all that! Mrs MM has being to Thailand before and returned home shortly before the Tsunami in 2004!!!!!! Thailand sounds amazing but Vietnam just excites me so much more, got Halong Bay, Hue, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Chu Chi tunnel trips sorted. I will be in my element and I bet you have a great time. enjoy it Effy, please PM me and let me know where you are going and I will speak to Mrs MM and im sure she will be happy to offer any tips?

Effy

Ha ha! Just sent you such a long message ... poor you! Phew lucky Mrs MM to get away before the Tsunami how scary. I do think she must love you everso much to be trooping around so many war things! I hope she gets some respite (though actually bet its well interesting). Anyway thank you for the offer of travel tips, I haven't the first clue as you will see from PM