Lily's MFW diary!

Lily_The_Legend

Hi everyone! :hello:

I'm a newbie to this part of the forum, but I've read quite a bit on this board. I've been thinking about trying to get our mortgage down for a while, but the annual mortgage statement which came through the post today has spurred me into action!

In the last year we've paid about £7,000 to the mortgage company, but more than £5,000 of that was in interest alone! :eek:

We now have £105k left to pay, and at the current rate it'll be paid off by the time I'm 58... I'm 30 now! :eek:

So, I've made a decision, I want it paid off by the time I'm 40. Ambitious I know, but hopefully not too unrealistic... Let me know your thoughts on that one!

We decided to overpay by a measly £100 per month from last month , but after seeing this letter we're going to up the overpayment to £500 per month!

We are on a fixed rate at just over 5% which runs until two years time.

Me and DH both work full time, we have one car which I need to get to work, DH uses pedal power.

I think all our insurances are as cheap as they can be - DH did comparison site checks when they were last renewed. I drive like an old lady, which saves on fuel. :A:rotfl:

The only thing which we could probably cut down on is food shopping, as we never really have a set budget. I always intend to have one, then it kind of gets forgotten about! :eek: I have been taking my own lunches to work since January, I've only bought a couple since then. That's something DH needs to work on, so perhaps I ought to start making him a packed lunch?? :cool:

We both have cashback credit cards which we put food and grocery bills on and pay off in full each month. I'm also a member of cashback sites and survey sites since January.

I intend to do a couple of car boot sales this summer to get rid of some of our clutter and to make a little bit of money.

DH will be losing his job later this year/at the start of next year due to redundancy, so we're overpaying while we can afford to and just keeping our fingers crossed that he'll get a job asap after his job comes to an end.

Well, sorry for all the waffling on, any tips, help, constructive criticism welcomed! :rotfl:

I look forward to meeting you all!

Lily x

ETA: Forgot to say, we can overpay by up to 10% each year.

Lily_The_Legend

Just had a look at Martin's overpayment calculator and got this result:

Overpaying would save you
£63,714 in interest alone,
and mean you pay it off in full
17 years and 8 months earlier.

Holy cow! :eek: Why didn't I start doing this a few years ago?! :mad:

Sleepy_head_2

Welcome and good luck! The overpayment calculator is fab but watch out as playing with figures becomes a bit addictive...I'm always trying lots of 'what if' scenarios, tweaking my overpayments and the term of the mortgage!

Sleepy head x

lincoln-potter

Hello and welcome to this part of the forum.

An SOA would be helpful for people to make suggestions but I imagine there are few things we could suggest.

I wish you luck on your journey!

dimbo61

Well lily the best thing you can do is overpay as you won't get 5%+ from savings tax free. If you do build up a good overpayment pot you can then have a mortgage holiday if/when your OH loses his job. Overpaying by £500 a month on top of normal payments will clear the mortgage in less than 10 years !

Lily_The_Legend

Well DH has been given six months notice and he's going to be made redundant on January 31, 2012. At least we've had plenty of notice, but it seems more real now!

I've joined some more survey and cashback sites in the last week, but I could be doing a lot more!

I think that getting this date will spur me on to getting a bit more organised! I want us to save as much as we can until January, as well as carry on overpaying the mortgage by £500 a month.

DH will get a fairly good redundancy package, so we'll have that to fall back on, and I have three months wages saved at the moment.

We'd already decided DH was going to pick me up from work tonight (I got dropped off this morning) and we're going out for a meal so we can have a good talk about things then, and then we're off to watch a footie match which he'll love so that'll take his mind off things.

At least now we know what date he'll be able to start a new job from.

museumworker

Hello and welcome! :hello:Just popping in to wish you well on your MFW journey.

I am 31 and would also love to be MF by 40. However, our mortgage is in the £184xxxs at the minute so need to OP by £1280 a month to make that happen :eek:. Have however managed £8k in last 4 months so if I can keep it up it is not entirely out of the question (although life is likely to get in the way of this mathematical equation )

Sorry to hear OH is being made redundant - definitely sounds like you need to have a good cushion just incase it takes some time to find work (which I hope isn't the case).

Regarding savings/OP it would be very worth doing a SOA if you can face it, it always helps to have some figures to look at. If i've got it right, you need to find £550 or so a month to hit your target. Any ££s you can save or make will help you with that.

Enjoy the meal

Lily_The_Legend

museumworker wrote: »

Hello and welcome! :hello:Just popping in to wish you well on your MFW journey.

I am 31 and would also love to be MF by 40. However, our mortgage is in the £184xxxs at the minute so need to OP by £1280 a month to make that happen :eek:. Have however managed £8k in last 4 months so if I can keep it up it is not entirely out of the question (although life is likely to get in the way of this mathematical equation )

Sorry to hear OH is being made redundant - definitely sounds like you need to have a good cushion just incase it takes some time to find work (which I hope isn't the case).

Regarding savings/OP it would be very worth doing a SOA if you can face it, it always helps to have some figures to look at. If i've got it right, you need to find £550 or so a month to hit your target. Any ££s you can save or make will help you with that.

Enjoy the meal

Thanks for your post MW. That's a massive amount you've overpaid in four months – well done! :T

Yes I should really sort out an SOA, although it's a bit difficult as we kind of keep our finances separate still at the moment.

I've been thinking about selling stuff on eBay, but I've never done it before so not sure how easy it would be to sell goods as a newbie, what with no feedback.