Starting the mortgage free path

bownyboy

Finally reset access to all my online accounts using First Direct Internet Banking Plus tool (had to redo it for new PC). I don't bank with them but I quite like their tool for viewing all your account balances in one place.

Frustratingly in 2013 I still can't access my mortgage account with Alliance & Leicster online, I have to call them for a balance each time. Seems only their 'e-mortgage' is available online. 14 months to go until the fix ends and I can move.

bownyboy

Gas/electric
Logged onto EDF website earlier and was pleasantly surprised to see that our monthly DD has been reduced from £50 to £38 from January due to our usage level.

Water
Got the yearly paper bill from Thames Water yesterday which is now £1.25 a month cheaper than last year at just over £300 for th year. Annoyingly we can't go on a meter due to the position of our house from the road, as with only 2 of us in 3 bed house who rarely take baths I'm sure our bills would be less. Hey ho.

gallygirl

bownyboy wrote: »

Finally reset access to all my online accounts using First Direct Internet Banking Plus tool (had to redo it for new PC). I don't bank with them but I quite like their tool for viewing all your account balances in one place.

:T Thanks for this bownyboy :T. I use Yorkshire Bank's but can't seem to get NWide and Tesco working right in past month. Will give it a go tomorrow :j.

PS - have accounts with FD and didn't know about this .

bownyboy

Update for March as mortgage payment has just gone through:

• January 2013 - £118,289 / £418 / £13.95
• February 2013 - £117,302 / £393 / £13.11
• March 2013 - £116,372 / £390 / £13.00

Total interest for the year is now £1,201 compared to £1,364 last year a reduction of 14% year on year for the first quarter.

Projected interest for 2013 is £4,571 compared to £5,263 in 2012 approximately a 15% reduction.

Next mini milestone is breaking through the £13 a day interest barrier next month. After that I'll have to think of some more to keep me motivated as I'll be in the 300's and 12's for a while!

ISA savings to-date are £1,500 out of £6,000 for the year.

bownyboy

gallygirl wrote: »

:T Thanks for this bownyboy :T. I use Yorkshire Bank's but can't seem to get NWide and Tesco working right in past month. Will give it a go tomorrow :j.

PS - have accounts with FD and didn't know about this .

Did you manage to get it up and running? Its pretty basic, but I find it useful for aggregating most of my accounts, anything that lessons the pain of having to remember multiple signons is a win in my book.

bownyboy

Called up Alliance & Leicester today and moved my monthly mortgage payment from 14th of every month back to 1st of the month. No idea why I didn't do this sooner! I get paid on last working day of the month, so the payment sits there for 2 weeks doing nothing earning no interest in my Santander account.

Not sure how much this would save me interest, but every little helps right?

Means both my overpayment and mortgage payment both go out now on same day (1st) so makes calculating interest and projecting the numbers easier.

bownyboy

So my target is to be mortgage free before my birthday in August 2018. Originally if I continued with £499 a month overpayment and £6000 in January 2014 and then £1000 overpayment from June 2014 (when my fix ends) I'd be mortgage free around May 2019.

So the plan is to increase my monthly overpayments to £1,150 for a year after the fix ends and then £1,250 thereafter.

My reasoning is that I hope to be able to have a pay increase between now and then to achieve this.

The yearly totals would be as follows:

• 2013 Overpayments - £12,631
• 2014 Overpayments - £19,394 (slightly higher as the reserve in an ISA i've built up will be paid into mortgage once fix ends)
• 2015 Overpayment - £14,500
• 2015 Overpayments - £15,000
• 2016 Overpayments - £15,000
• 2017 Overpayments - £15,000
• 2018 Overpayments - £8,878

It's going to be tough and who knows what will happen before then, but thats the plan!

bownyboy

Off to Normandy on Thursday for a week a few MSE tasks to do before then:

Euros
Checking currency rates on MSE and the best rate is at ICE Waterloo at 1.16 which is handy as I travel through there everyday. Will pick some up tonight

Travel Insurance
Decided to go for multi trip with winter sports for both of us. Great price of £44 through Diamond. Hoping that we'll be able to make at least 2 trips abroad this year so the higher initial cost will pay for itself.

Just checking the weather and it looks pretty miserable in Normandy if a little warmer at 15c or so next week. Plan is to just chill out, drink good wine, eat good food, lots of beach walks. So fingers crossed we'll get some sunshine.

hamster2013

bownyboy wrote: »

Off to Normandy on Thursday for a week a few MSE tasks to do before then:

Euros
Checking currency rates on MSE and the best rate is at ICE Waterloo at 1.16 which is handy as I travel through there everyday. Will pick some up tonight

if you are ready to make a detour, you might want to check out Best Foreign Exchange
I have used their liverpool street branch, its not well indicated in a gallery, but googlemaps found it
for a £ you get 1.1605 euros
not sure but on ICE website they state their rate being 1.1461
so thats a £55ish difference on £1000
https://www.iceplc.com/cgi-bin/live/ecommerce.pl?site=iceplc.com&state=compare&menu=currency&dept_id=01&sub_dept_id=01&zone=ice
v/s
http://www.bestforeignexchange.com/Exchange-rates-check-exchange-rates.php

bownyboy

hamster2013 wrote: »

if you are ready to make a detour, you might want to check out Best Foreign Exchange
I have used their liverpool street branch, its not well indicated in a gallery, but googlemaps found it
for a £ you get 1.1605 euros
not sure but on ICE website they state their rate being 1.1461
so thats a £55ish difference on £1000
https://www.iceplc.com/cgi-bin/live/ecommerce.pl?site=iceplc.com&state=compare&menu=currency&dept_id=01&sub_dept_id=01&zone=ice
v/s
http://www.bestforeignexchange.com/Exchange-rates-check-exchange-rates.php

Thanks for the info. I used the tool on MSE to show the best rates in London and both ICE and BFE come up as 1.16, so I'll go for ICE, only taking out around £300 so actually not much in it tbh (oh for the days of 1.4!)