GenuinePlacebo's start to a better future

genuineplacebo

Hi Guys,

I've spent a lot of time on MSE and have posted a few times on the House Buying, Renting and Selling forum as we've spent 2010 trying to sell our house and buy a new one.

We are now set to exchange contracts on our house sale and purchase next week and move before Xmas! :j

The main aim over the last couple of years has been to reduce our mortgage, but as we are now moving house our mortgage has been increased massively so I feel starting to pay off our debts would be a better use of any spare cash.

As a condition of our mortgage offer, we have to pay off our credit cards before we complete. This totals approx £1600 which we should have left over in our house fund savings account.

The main thing I am trying to pay off is our Tesco Loan, as apart from the credit cards and mortgage this is the only other debt we have.

Tesco Loan was taken out in approx Feb 2010 for £25,000. We are currently paying off £354 a month. I have a sharesave plan at work that matures in August 2012 and will be anywhere above £10k, however, there are other things we could spend that money on when it materialises, so I want to do everything I can now to get the Tesco Loan paid off asap.

Task - Find out if Tesco allows overpayments or if we can increase the DD. If not, find best rate savings account to put the extra cash into ready for when we can pay off early.

When we move I will do a SOA's as our income/outgoings at the moment are irrelevent. Any spare cash we have is going into the house fund at the moment.

We do quidco, topcashback, surveys (yougov, valued opinions), mystery shopping (grassroots, optimum contact, gfk, retail eyes), I use vouchers and discount codes wherever possible, I meal plan and buy 'whoopsies' at the supermarket to freeze and use later.

Any ideas at saving extra cash would be much appreciated.

I'll update when I know more about Tesco!