Wot?! 25 years until mortgage free? -- Our dream to reduce our term --

BFM

can you not set up a bank transfer from your regular bank account straight into your mortgage to save you having to muck around with cheques - but does give you flexibility for how much and when ypu want to OP.

i did that with Nationwide and Northern rock when working to clear my mortgages.

BFM

also, Calon Lan from your sig is a wonderful hymn, I'm welsh and my wife needed quite a lot of persuausion for me to have a welsh (rugby ) song at our wedding, until i got her to actualy listen to it and she read the translation. then it was quickly added into the service..

Rose_Crow

Crikey! You guys are like buses, nothing comes along for ages, then there's a crowd LOL!

getmore4less wrote: »

I await any questions or comments

AS you discovered over 12% of your income is unacounted for.

have a look over the last 12 months statements to see if there is anything obvious and count up your cash withdraws.

The usual next step is a spending diary for a month or 2 to identify the spends.(they tend to stop or go down anyway)

Have a think about ongoing tracking, with a tool, I used MSmoney for years still works but it is unsupported there are other option even a simple spreadsheet

I would probably think about splitting the cars cost into essential and hobby just to give yourself a clearer picture. the fuel seems very high given one is on company car.


Mobile phone............................ 50
Definately room to reduce this look at cash back deals if you need the minutes/text/data, used to be able to do this for free now it needs a few £ a month
eg. http://www.e2save.com/mobile-phone/contract/?type=HAN&effectivecost=ten

Groceries etc. ......................... 160

Not unrealistic but looks a bit low for 2 ususly includes household stuff booze etc. might account for some of the missing money.

Clothing................................ 0

Nothing bought in the last 12 months. and a wardrobe so full nothing in the next 12, not even a pair of pants? more of that miising money perhaps?

Holiday................................. 0
Not even a weekend away with the cars?


Think about the things you need to buy over the next year and onwards for 5 years so you have a savings plan for them, unlike the Sofa

How much is the horse worth? saving for another?

Devil is in the detail, track down the £350 and you will have a decent picture to plan ahead.

Thanks for looking at this. A few things to note, the fuel is high because my horses are based in Kent (where I used to live) and I now live around 40 miles away. My sister and I share the workload so I don't go there every day, the place is ideal, and I can't really move them as anywhere else will cost more. Also, if I move them closer to me, the petrol costs will just be passed on to my sister.

Phones - I'm quite proud that my contract is only £15 per month, and is only a 1 month contract with O2. OH pays for his own mobile, which is £35 a month, as he's got one of those wizz-bang internet phones.

Ah, now groceries. We are very strict with this, we both put £80 cash in the pot each month and once it's gone its gone, works really well for us. Incidentally we don't drink or smoke at all, I'm sure that saves us lots of cash

Yep, I know there's a hole in the clothes section. Neither of us are big spenders on clothes, and really only buy clothes if and when we need them. The figure is going to be pretty low, but I will try to add something.

Holidays - yep, we'd take a couple of short breaks a year, but I've not worked out exactly how much they costs just yet. Again will get back to you.

Horses, no idea what they're worth, they are ponies from my childhood plus my riding horse. Not planning on getting any more at the moment LOL!

I'm addicted to MS Money and have been for years, so I may be able to look back over my past spending to find any extras.

BaconandEggs wrote: »

very interesting - subscribed.

I have a couple of questions:

a) would it be better for you to save a lump sum up and pay at the end of the year - or over pay each month? I assume the latter if interest calculated more frequently than annually.

b) is it better to use overpayments to reduce your term or to reduce monthly payments - then use the amount saved per month to overpay?

Does that make sense?

Anyone know?

I think someone else has answered this, far better than I could

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

its scary seeing how much of what goes out is just servicing the interest on the loan. We are FTBs and are fortunate that we have the money and wisdom to start OPing just 3 months into the life of our mortgage. What we pay off is a drop in the ocean at the moment, but it all adds up eventually.

our mortgage amounts are quite similar, as is our OP target so I'll be watching your progress with interest.

I'll subscribe to your thread as well, nice to have lots of people in the same boat.

Rose_Crow

liuhut wrote: »

Hiya
Love the chart that you have made, I'd like to do something similar but OH isn't really interested in what I'm up to as long as he has enough money in his pocket...and I dont want him to know how much I'm sending to the mortgage!
How did you get on ringing them about the monthly reduction? Did you find out how much you need to send?

Good luck with it all
L x

Thanks L, it must be difficult when our OH doesn't really get into it, my OH used to be rubbish with money, but I've managed to train him LOL!

I haven't rung them yet, but I think getmore4less hit the nail on the head with their reply below. I think that our 'minimum' payment will be whatever we pay off the capital in our monthly payments, so £700 is interest and £200 is capital currently, so £200 or more should reduce the term.

never_too_old

grn.w.nv wrote: »

So got a nice shiny new signature, somehow managed to cram all the information I need on it - I like a challenge! I also made a fund-raising style thermometer chart, which you may be able to see we've just started filling in! OH loves it, and standing by ready with the orange highlighter :rotfl:

Anyone who wants one let me know and I'll try to work out how to send you a PDF version.

could you send this to me please:j

lincoln-potter

Not seen this thread before, so a quick welcome aboard from me and also the chart did make me chuckle somewhat

I wish you the best of luck

Ronaldo_Mconaldo

Relating to overpaying with Santander, they told us we could only overpay by cheque but through some other source i found that we could pay by bacs to a bank account and just had to use our mortgage reference as the reference. When we overpay we just call two days later to tell them how we want the money to be allocated. Get on the phone and demand the bank details. It's much easier.

grn.w.nv wrote: »

So, day 2 after making the decision to be MF.

Chatted it over in more detail with my OH last night. He was as (pleasantly) surprised as I was to discovered the results of the overpayment calculator. We're definitely going to through as much as possible at this, whilst still having a life and having a reasonable amount in savings for emergencies.

Yesterday I rang Santander to ask about the overpayments, apparently we're entitled to pay off 10% each year, £13700 odd. No chance of getting near that, but for now we have a target of £1200, and see how we go. They have a bizzare procedure where you have to pay the cheque (min £500) into a branch, then ring them to make sure it overpays the mortgage. I also ordered a cheque book for the current account we're going to pay the money out from, so we're all set!

Wish us luck!