Are we in a small minority?

keld

I found about OP about 10 years ago from my BIL, at the time I thought he was mad. But once I looked into it, it made real sense. Then the challenge was to get DH to agree. At first we could only make small OP's (due to lack of funds and 3 children), but as times gone on we've made bigger and bigger efforts to clear the mortgage. If we're lucky (still in work!) then we'll be MF in 2014. That's six years early, but this includes converting our mortgage from interest only to repayment and cashing in the endowment policy - we got back about what we'd put in (luckier than some, not as lucky as others). I don't actually know the date we started to OP but I think it was definitely before 2004 - I should look through the mortgage statements and see.

I think it's about having balance in your life, we could probably OP more, but it's nice to do stuff with the kids, so we try to be frugal about the stuff that doesn't matter and shop around for the best buy, but still treat ourselves without feeling guilty.

That's what's nice about this forum, it gives you support, encouragement and information. Thanks:T

sdd7677

I was knowing about the overpayment 20% from the day I had mortgage(I read in terms and condition) and started paying maximum since bank are not paying good interest rates on savings account.

I can not find the excel file that I downloaded from the MSE which allows you to play with numbers and you can see how early you can pay off mortgage by making regular overpayment or one off payment. If someone need it, PM me.

pawlala

cazzdevil wrote: »

aah.

definately

lola34

We have just started to overpay as we were on a fixed which went down the other month by £100 so I contacted the mortgage company and asked to keep the payments the same, if in an ideal world the interest rate stays low it will knock a good few years off the mortgage, I wasn't really aware of OP until I came across MSE and when we were about to reduce I went into the bank and asked one of the cashiers how we go about OP as I had tried online but they needed a reference number he said he wasn't sure as he'd never been asked about OP before - so I'm assuming we are the minority

pawlala

which bank was that if you don't mind me asking? Did they look young and inexperienced?

pawlala

anyone else want to share their thoughts?

pawlala

lola34 wrote: »

I went into the bank and asked one of the cashiers how we go about OP as I had tried online but they needed a reference number he said he wasn't sure as he'd never been asked about OP before - so I'm assuming we are the minority

that's interesting - I wonder if that's the same around the country? :eek:

pawlala

There seems to be quite a few new MFW's on this board, we'd love to hear any of your stories about your quests in relation to others that you know about

Sunnyday

We were told about overpaying when we took out our second mortgage but we didn`t have any spare cash to do it until we had already had the mortgage a couple of years.

We were allowed to overpay a maximum of 10% of what we owed each January without penalty until our fixed rate period ended and we only really started to overpay after reading about it all on here. It sort of got pushed to the back of our minds and at one stage it didn`t seem as if we`d ever be able to make a dent in it.

After playing around with the calculators on many sites and joining this one and doing lots of reading i sat down and we underwent a massive financial overhaul and we have been overpaying ever since :j

Fingers crossed that we are able to keep this up because we are now on track to be MF sometime in 2013

I don`t know a single person who overpays apart from on here, both Mum and Dad think its great as its something that they did years ago. I spoke to my sister about it a couple of weeks ago and she is now going to leave her payments the same as her fix comes to an end this month. She was really shocked to find out that we had managed to pay off over 50% of our mortgage in five years and went a bit quiet as she is the type of person who just has to have three holidays a per year to all the far flung corners of the planet etc each to their own but i`d rather have one holiday on a budget and not be wasteful and have some security should anything go wrong.

Thanks to everyone who has posted their stories, i love reading how people are saving money and it really motivates me, good luck to all MFW peeps :beer:

SD

pocketrocket1

i guess i was really lucky, I bought my first house when I was 18 and 4 months ( that is important could not have a mortgage until I was 18 and it took that long to come through, offered on my 18th birthday). My parents encouraged me to pay off what i could which was £2.50 a week. (we are going back nearly 30 years)

I have paid my mortgage off then had another to move into a larger house and am paying that one off as we speak

What I am saying is my parents were very open with me about how finances worked we used to discuss this at meal times ie how mortgages and the stock market worked, how debt works, compound interest etc. and I will be always greatful to them. We should all try this with our kids (surprising how many seem to know nothing or how to budget)

My dads favourit saying is " Interest payments are the thief of your wealth"
And I think he is right

Sorry for the lecture just got a bee under my bonet


pocketrocket1