New MFW keep me motivated!

Giraff

Hi guys just signed up on the site ( Been a sneaky lurker for ages!)
I want to start a diary to keep me motivated as OH isnt as motivated to be Mortgage free .

So here's the story we bought our new house in june this year after living in our first home for only 11 months lol.
We now have a mortgage of £122,500 :sad:.

My overpayments so far are :
August £100.00 Sep £175.00 Oct £245.00 Nov £160.00
Hoping to OP £3k next year but that doesnt seem enought to me?

herewegoagain2010

Hi & Welcome Giraff

You've made a great start with your overpayments and it will make a difference. I've set myself a similar target of 3.5K by the end of next year and I know what you mean about it doesn't seem enough. The thing I forget is that everyones incomings and outgoings are different. At the minute I'm a SAHM earning nothing and my hubby supports us and our 2 children. We overpay what we can afford and we're making slow progess. We could commit more, but at present we've worked really hard to become deft free so we're enjoying ourselves a little and replacing worn out and broken bits in the house.

My advice would be do yourself an SOA and see where your money goes, check if you can make any savings and work out your overpayment / life balance. Well done so far and keep it up. Good luck x

CathT

Hi Giraff,

Welcome to this mad mad world! We have similar mortgages and goals! On another thread someone said they were going to overpay £4000 a year and wondered what difference it would make. When I checked the figures that kind of OP would knock 10 years ish off my mortgage so I'd say it's definitely worth it. Have you used any of the OP calculators or spreadsheets to help you with your targets. You have made good progress already!

Cath

Giraff

Thanks for the reply guys.
Ive done the calculators but they only take into account the current intrest rate. When the rates go up then we'd be struggling to overpay so much. We both pay a set amount into our join account each month for mortgage, house bills etc. I cant really afford any more than im putting in at the mo but OH could (its just convincing her ).
What litle things do you do to increase your OP fund?

ztan

Welcome Giraff

I find a careful combination of nagging, and demonstrative spreadsheets soon helps my OH realise that he should not be getting a taxi home tonight, nor should he be leaving the hot tap running whilst brushing his teeth

You've made a great start already, and the best thing you can do, is chuck whatever you can spare at the mortgage.

As soon as Xmas is over, My OH and I are opening an ISA and chucking as much as possible a year in there. We're aiming to OP by £5k a year.. MEGA ambitious, but we could be mortgage free in 14-15 years at that rate... which reduces our term by 20 years!

Good luck with your journey!

LilacPixie

Welcome Giraff. I did a calculation when thinking about moving, a 125k mortgage at 7% over 25 years if you overpaid £250 a month you would be mortgage free within 15 years and save 70k in interest

AnnaBeth

Welcome. I set a 4k aim for next year and thought wasn't very high but anything is much better than nothing, I don't think we'll get to 4k next year 3k might be more realistic.
Good luck and keep at it, it's definitely worth it!

adwat

Hi Giraff

I'd just like to echo AnnaBeth's comment - keep at it because it's worth it in the end (well and in the middle and at the beginning as well!)

Giraff

Hi guys £190 op today thats a total of £875 for half the year.
Hopefully 2011 will be a good year and op £3k fingers crossed we dont move again lol!

Have a good xmas!! :beer:

Jock_Tight

Using one of the mortgage spreadsheets is a great way to see what extra overpaying can do for you.

When you see the difference it can make then (if you are serious about clearing the mortgage) you will find ways to save more. We started off with a fixed £60 per month then over time we have upped this. For example when we get a pay rise we put the extra each month into the mortgage. We are now up to £450 fixed OP each month however I still add a bit extra when available. So far this year we have OP'd £6447 !! and still have an OP to go in at the end of this month.

Every little helps, just keep chipping away at it!

All the best,
Jock

CathT

Hi Giraff,

That's a great OP especailly at this time of year. I see your question about ways to make extra money wasn't answered. I am fairly new to this so I'm sure there will be lots of things I'm not aware of and could be doing but here goes:
1) Use cashback sites QUIDCO/TOPCASHBACK for online purchases and especially good when renewing insurances.
2) Ebay what you can
3) Sell things on Amazon
4) Do surveys, there are loads of different ones.
5) Onepoll is good (let me know if you want a referral)
6) Daily clicks (i don't do these to the extent i could but there is a thread on the forum somewhere and some people make quite a bit!)
7) Be more frugal

I also hope to OP £3000 ish next year so think I will see what difference it makes to my spreadsheet. I also find reading the diaries on here and giving/receiving support is soooo helpful.