HEG 2010 - Once upon a time ......I want to be a mortgage free queen of my castle

craftingmad

Well done you - with your positive attitude and a great supportive OH you are sure to do well - can I borrow some of what you are on to help us out!!!!

Good luck x

MarieAAP

Gd luck and LOVE your title too :P
M

herewegoagain2010

Thought I'd pop by and just update my diary. We've still got £5224.52 outstanding on our loan, but on the positive side we've saved £1000 for house improvements so we can re-let our house out again. The debt should come down quicker now there'll be money coming in from the 1st May. It's all been money out, out, out.... decorating, gas certs, energy certs, replacing curtains, repairs and bits and bobs, when I think about it, it's probably closed to £1500 we've spent on the house. At least we've not put a penny on the credit cards or overdrafts, so it's a step in the righ direction. Next month we should see about £500 from the rent after the lettings fees and set-up costs have been taken. June's rent should be back to the full amount, which means we won't have to find £779 a month:jOur income will take a huge cut from August, put I've put a plan and new budget in place. We're confident we can adjust, enjoy life, save a little and overpay too. It's all small baby steps, but we will get there. I'm still chuffed to pieces that we've increased the payments and the house will no be ours in less than 16 years.

The highlight of my year was seeing the total less than 97K...even it was just for a couple of days this month. Today our o/s mortgage is £97129.29 - 191 months left to pay. Our daily interest is down to £15.37, which has dropped quite a lot since we took the mortgage out 2007. Onwards and upwards :j:j:j

Kaz2904

Noooooo, it's onwards and DOWNWARDS!
Looks good so far, hope you reach your target!

herewegoagain2010

Kaz2904 wrote: »

Noooooo, it's onwards and DOWNWARDS!
Looks good so far, hope you reach your target!

Thanks for that Kaz, Onwards and downwards lol!

setmefree2

and Good Luck!

herewegoagain2010

Thanks for the welcome SMF2.

I've been talking to my eldest daughter and we've decided that she'll take pack-up lunches to school, rather than have school dinners. I'm a little worried she won't have a hot meal at lunch, but we always have a proper hot family dinner at night. She always complains she doesn't like them, as they're not as nice as my cooking It's taken a lot of pestering on her part, but I've finally given in. I make hubby's already, so one more won't take much extra work or extra cost to our shopping budget. The good news is that's it's given me on average an extra £40-£50 a month for an overpayment. I've called the bank this afternoon to alter our direct debit from £779.13 to a lovely round £825. It seems a small amount, but it'll reduce my term down to 14 years and 6 months or 174 months :j

herewegoagain2010

I can't believe I've not updated my dairy for so many months. A lot has happened in the last few months. This is a brief update of what we've been upto...

- Moved house
- Moved Area
- Hubby has changed jobs
- Decreased payments to £579.99 to help us through the expense of moving and to buy a new fridge.
- Been saving like mad to pay off outstanding personal debt

We've got some great news on the debt front and our last outstanding debt will be settled on the 5th September, when the bank collect their direct debit...it's been a long slog, but we've finally become Debt Free....whooooo hoooooo! (Apart from the mortgage!)

We're really motivated with money at the minute, so I've called the Halifax tonight and arranged for the payments to be increased back to £800.00 with effect from October's payment.

Mortgage Summary on the 26/8/10
Outstanding Mortgage Debt = £96267.07 182 months (15years 2months) x £800.00

I know we did get the term down to 14.5 years before we moved and I'm a little annoyed we've added to the term. I'm trying not to dwell on it and use this as my motivation to overpay. I'm starting a mortgage pig and will trying to cut down on food bills and petrol. I need to organise my life and get on with the paying!

gallygirl

Good luck - you've done really well to cope with all the expenses of moving without adding to your mortgage :beer:

herewegoagain2010

Thanks GG - it's been hard work and a lot of juggling between peter and paul. Got there in the end though, I think lol!

GREAT NEWS - WE'RE FINALLY DEBT FREE :j:j:j

Now to crack on with the mortgage.....
* I had arranged that I'd increased the payments to £800, but have managed to take that upto £851 (Our insurance is £9 so a nice round number every month)

* I've started a mortgage pig in the kitchen (it's more of a tiny cow with hearts on it) and have started by putting every 20p I get in it. I'm hoping to put any balance of the food budget etc in and empty it out every other month. It's never going to be a huge amount, but it's a good start. I'm setting myself a target of overpaying £3500 between now and the end of 2011. After our scheduled payments it means there's a shortfall of £463.85 which I'll have to find from the pig and quidco etc. Seems easy on paper, but watch this space!

Summary
Jan 2007 Fixed 5 years @5.79 payments £648.59 - 312 months term
Mar 2010 O/S £97910.35 payments £650 - 264 months term (March to October Messed about payments up and then down because of house move)
Oct 2010 O/S £96192.78 Payments £851 - 162 months term

I've lost count how much we've overpaid this year, so am going to start from today. Tomorrow is a brand new shiny month, so it seems a great time to do so. I think the easiest to keep track is to count everything over £648.59 as an overpayment. It's been up and down a bit the last few months, but we're now on track.