New recruit: First steps (advice appreciated)

BaconandEggs

Despite a lower rate of interest, I'm thinking of putting a little in my ISA rather than OP's extra this month and next. This is because I hope to be able to pay the maximum OP on the mortgage this year and therefore I should try to take advantage of this year's ISA allowance before April.

I've begun to make changes to my HF rewards accounts to ensure I continue to get the free £5's each month ahead of the changes in May. These changes should be in place by the end of this month hopefully. It's a bit of a faff - but worth the free £180/year that it brings.

I have been thinking about sponsoring a child and have been reading in to this. There are a number of charities that I've looked at - and I'm finding it difficult to decide which charity to donate to. I've also read about the potential negative effects of individual sponsorship, so I need to investigate this more.

Going to give the garage a good tidy out this weekend and create some additional storage (if it's not too cold). Few trips to the skip needed.

BaconandEggs

Finally sorted the Halifax accounts to receive my free £5's.

Also secured 12 months worth of free broadband. That's around £200 saved in combination.

I'll be making an overpayment on Monday. Excited!

BaconandEggs

Overpaid by the maximum amount allowable today.

Now need to work out whether it is wise to decrease the term to allow greater monthly payments. There are a few downsides of doing this:
- Small fee of £20
- May be difficult to increase term in future if required.
- Increases burden once the fixed term ends if interest rates increase.

However, I could decrease the term to just over 15 years, which would make the monthly repayments the same as when the mortgage was started. We could look for another mortgage deal at the end of the fix.

Taking into account the nature of my work I think I will probably keep things as they are to be on the safe side - and put any extra I have into savings (albeit at a much lower rate than the mortgage). If I get a bit more security at work I will reconsider this.

BaconandEggs

Current balance £71100

BaconandEggs

Having considered decreasing the term last night, I've decided against it.
It will save around £500 over the next 3 years (lower when I factor in interest on savings). That is a relatively small price to pay to the ability to drop our monthly payment by £150 if needed. There's a couple of biggish jobs I'm going to get done on the house soon and with Mrs BnE on maternity, I think this is the sensible option for now.

BaconandEggs

Not been on here for a while (busy with work) so time for a mini update.

Since last time:
- managed to pay the max allowable amount this year (£7,900).
- put the amount that would be overpaid in ISA (2.45% until Oct).
- sorted Hfax account so will continue to receive 3 x free £5 with little extra effort.
- got a surprise Quidco payment of £16 which was nice - most of which was from an in-store purchase linked to my registered card that I was not aware of!
- cheap holiday booked in blighty.
- got round to doing a bit more renovation on the house.

Before the end of the year I would like to have finished the decorating we have started and saved enough to make the maximum allowable overpayment at the start of next year (which will be about £7,000).

BaconandEggs

Not much to report since previous post.

I am seeking out the best interest rates since I have maxed out overpayments on the mortgage this year.

-Sorted out NWide DirecFlex Account.
5% interest. Put £2500 in there and sorted out pay in-out requirements to be elligible for interest rate.

- FDirect Regular Saver matured.

- Any extra on top of the NWide account will be payed into a Lloyds Vantage (3%).

-Changes to HFax reward account appear to have worked. Still getting the £5/month x 3.

- Saving alot on petrol recently.

- Some expenses due from work to be paid soon.

- Focussing on work alot recently. Depending on what happens with this, I may decrease our mortgage term.

- Doing more weekend (self-employed, 2nd job) work now.

gallygirl

That sounds rather a lot to me :T.

Did you do anything about sponsoring a child? I do it via Action Aid - you do get a nominated child but the money goes to the village as a whole (and it's one of my Rewards DD's ). Also look at Kids Co - they operate in the UK. Fabulous work with severely disadvantaged children - some of the stories make you weep.That's my other Rewards DD .

BaconandEggs

Thank you gallygirl. No - we didn't end up sponsoring a child. We looked at a whole host of charities and decided to give money regularly to one local charity and a couple of national charities. We will have a look at these again at the end of the year and perhaps decide on something different - maybe sponsoring a child.

BaconandEggs

I can't believe it has been 3, nearly 4, years since I last updated this. A lot has happened since then, including another little one, with their associated drain on finances!

We have been working very hard to overpay the mortgage and managed to overpay the 10% of the remaining balance that was allowed without any penalty every year during the 5 year fix. The mortgage now stands at around £38,000. We've definitely sacrificed things to do this (including time spent getting the absolute best deal on things and doing as much as we can on the house ourselves), but I still can't quite believe just how much we've managed to overpay.

We switched our mortgage away from the high interest SVR, which kicked in after the relatively high interest fix we were on, to a 1.9% tracker with no exit fee. Through an unexpected inheritance, we will be able to pay off the remaining balance on the mortgage and have some left over.

This made us wonder whether or not to move house and take on a new, larger mortgage. It might be a good idea because interest rates are low and we could definitely do with more space. But when we look online at houses for sale, there isn't anything that appeals for the extra money and risk that it would involve.

We shall keep looking, but it probably isn't a bad idea to stay where we are for now with a smaller mortgage while in the early stages of a new job.

The question is now, if we don't have a mortgage, what can we do to make the most of our savings? Interest rates on savings accounts seem so low. Even our "high interest current accounts" are looking less attractive with upcoming rate cuts.