Tips and Guidance Welcome!

grabya

Hi all, new to all aspects of MSE and so far loving it!

Keen to join the ranks of the MF mob! Here's our situation

I'm 31, OH is 33. Household income is £50k.

When we met we both had houses and decided mine was more easily lettable so moved into hers.

She had been sensible and got on the ladder early, buying hers before the boom for £50k, now worth £125ish. Outstanding mortgage is £22k to Jan 2020. Currently on lenders SVR, paying £225/month.

After uni, travelling and general ar$ing about i bought mine for £90k (now woth £110k). When we let it i took a B2L mortgage, taking some additional equity to do up kitchen at hers and buy a car. Oustanding £70k until 2030, paying £360 on SVR. Rental income is £425/month.

We got married and a needed "new" car this year so saving has been difficult until now. We can afford about £150/month which we have just started paying into OH mortgage. This should mean we pay it off 4.5 years early and save nearly £2000. :j


Advice on any of the following welcome:

Should we put money into ours, rental or both?
Should we look to move off SVR mortgages?
Tips on saving/earning more money?

LilacPixie

which SVR is the highest APR?? What is your SVR? Do you have other debt?

Not meaning to be rude but if you HH income is 50k you are lifting around 3k a month as a rough guess, your residential mortgage is 225 a month and rental income covers the let property with some left over for repairs/saving for voids etc. Yet you can only put £150 to the mortgage overpayment??? I think you might need to look at and tweak your budget and see if there are savings to be made.


I think you need to get into the mindset that every penny counts.

wynnvegas

Mornign Grabya,

Like LP, I was surprised at that amount. I always recommend doing an SOA to come up with a clear basis for what you have left of a month. In no way am I advocating penny pinching but knowing where every penny goes can be a great motivator. We had a mortgage of £70,000 in August 2008 and, by being a bit more conscious of buying rubbish, we cleared it last month.

Cheers,

Billy

katsu

grabya wrote: »

Tips on saving/earning more money?

An SOA as suggested earlier is the best place to start. Work out what you have coming and going then consider sharing it here for advice.

If you want to really maximise your savings then look at the SOA advice on the DFW board - they are very good at challenging needs and wants

An MFW SOA is really all about decisions - how am I going to balance my lifestyle choices with mortgage reduction? DFWs have less choice about accepting some advice to get out of debt, as they NEED to and we just want to

Without an SOA I'll offer the following tips to start you off:

* look at Martin's motoring tab and get cheap breakdown cover -Autoaid is £37 pa for you and your spouse and equates to top level AA/RAC, or go for Autonational for £66 for 15 months.
* if you are paying for your bank account, check if you really use the incentives or if you could just have a standard account and save the monthly fees
* Have you ever switched utilities? Check a comparison site for the best deal and purchase it via a cashback site
* join Top Cash Back and/or Quidco for cashback on purchases
* use Petrolprices.com to find the cheapest places to fuel up
* decide what you really want and need and what is a habbit - ie do you really need that expensive sattelite TV package rather than a freeview box?

Lots of us have tracker posts at the front of our diaries, so you might find some good tips there.

Welcome and all the best.

RosieTiger

Clearly it's your choice on how much you want to spend, but as others have said you should be able to pay back a bit more than that !

Good luck.

grabya

mm.. interesting responses

here's a breif overview of our situation

Me £1500 (25k/annum)
OH £1175 (20k/annum)
Rent £425 (5k/annum)

In £3000

M1 £360 (70k at 3%)
M2 £225 (22k at 2.75%)
Loans £390 (6.5k at 9%)
Credit Card £100 (3k at 0%)
C/Tax £170
Elec £40
Gas £20
TV/Net/Phone £40
Mobile £70
House Ins £20
LandLord Ins £15
Car Ins £30
Petrol £200 (OH needs car at work and can be up to 70miles per day)
Train £110
Medical £60
Clothes £100
Entertainment £200 (1 nice meal and some wine a week)
Hols £150
Xmas, birthdays for all 7 nephews and nieces £100
All my other mates getting married this year where apparently we can't wear the same dress and need to give them great gifts! £100
Savings £250

Total £2750

Trying to build up a bit of cash in the current accounts so somewhere about the £150-£200 seems sensible based on this to put towards the mortgage no??

adwat

Good luck with your overpayments. I can see lots of savings I'd make in your SOA! But you have to decide what to forfeit for the time being. As others have mentioned, you can afford to pay more per month than you are thinking of right now.

LilacPixie

TBH rather than overpaying I would open a regular saver with higher APR you can get save and clear that nasty 9% loan before doing anything.

cha97michelle

£150 is definitely a good starting point, but you will probably find you want to send more.

To give you an idea of the income/overpaying my DH is the only one working and bringing in about £1300 per month. Our mortgage payment is £183, and i usually overpay the same or more (About £3.5k so far this year.) We also have 2 small kids to clothe/feed/entertain, and also spoil our nieces/nephews/cousins children/friends children.

It is all about what you want from your life though, so work out where you are comfortable and what if anything you are prepared to sacrifice.

For me, i am very motivated as i know that when rate rises go up, i want to be able to afford our mortgage payments on one salary so i can stay home with the kids, and we have sacrificed some things to do that.

Welcome to the board and good luck with your challenge.

sarahevie

I'd agree that you can do A LOT better fairly easily (you both have great jobs/relatively very small mortgages) which is a BRILLIANT place to start.

To put my comments into perspective we decided in March this year for me to give up my job I was earning (£1850 after tax) and live off OH's minimum wage job.

We currently owe £137000 (7 times his salary) yet still manage very small overpayments - I wish we'd put more 'in the can' so to speak earlier.

I thought that we were beyond frugal but have still managed to increase our money saving. Little things like £15 a month off the electric by switching suppliers.

getmore4less

Mobile £70

Get some cash back deals and cut the costs.

nearly £1k a year on mobiles is madness.

edit : mised this one

TV/Net/Phone £40

Should be able to get this down under £30 (we are £26 with VM unlimited XL phone.)