would love to be mortgage free!

coldcazzie

So, weekly grocery shop today...£60 budget and spent £62.51, but £8 of that was stocking fillers, so only £54.51 on groceries which is under budget so I'm happy. I do have to visit the butcher tomorrow, but only for cat food and a couple of pounds of mince so hopefully shouldn't be too expensive.

Spent some time last night talking with man-wife, and showed him the overpayment spreadsheet, he was shocked at how much interest we will save just with our monthly £55.10 overpayment, and even went so far as to ask how much we would space off in interest and term if we were to raise it another £50pcm! I mentioned about remortgaging at the end of our 2 year fix and he was quite happy to do that. We are both very enthusiastic about our long term plan being to spend no more than 20 years with a mortgage. While we would almost definitely be able to pay this mortgage off sooner than that, we are both in full agreement that house is not our forever home, which means at some point we will need to move, probably trading up in terms of size and value, and might consider extensions etc depending on circumstances. Bearing all that in mind, we think between 20 and 25 years is reasonable, but that aiming for 20 max will keep us sharp

I'm feeling good about it.

In more immediate news, I have a chicken casserole in the slow cooker and it smells delish! Jackets in the oven, plus some steamed veggies, and an old friend round for dinner. Good times

coldcazzie

Fingers crossed all the bike parts needed to get Abigail (that's the bike) road worthy again have now been purchased, and she'll work with the final few bits yet to arrive... total cost of repairs: £113.39. Could've done without having to spend that just before Christmas, but hey, these things are sent to try us. The nice thing is that we've been able to absorb the cost without worry. This time 3 years ago, an emergency like that (or any of the others we've had in the past 3 months, vet trips and boiler repairs etc) would have been unsustainable, what with the financially crippled state we were in... I can't believe how far we've come

So, today, I've had leftovers for lunch, and have just listed some toys on ebay (local collection only, so no seasonal postage worries!).

coldcazzie

Hmmph 2 more bike parts had to be purchased, so another £37 *grumble grumble*

Did get a few presents today, so only got 2 more to get now, and both of those can be late if necessary.

Got the letter from the bank resulting from my asking to increase our payments to £500... except they've got it down that I've asked to reduce the term and therefore our monthly payments will be £500.52 for the next year... is that right? I realise that the term decreases if I overpay.. but they've asterisked the term as the thing I requested to change...

They also say that our interest rate will change to the SVR on 3rd Oct 2012... except we were on a 2 year fix from 3rd Dec 2010, so surely we should switch to the SVR on 3rd Dec 2012? I'm confused...

madeupname1

hello coldcazzie - good to see the OH is on board and cooperative. :T Must help matters no end. Frustrating that mortgage company don't seem to have got your instructions right. I would definately ask them to correct

coldcazzie

Indeed, I shall ring them on Monday and query the move to the SVR as that's clearly wrong, but I don't know if the term/payment thing is right... is that the way it should be presented?

coldcazzie

Anyone?

Trentenders

coldcazzie wrote: »

Indeed, I shall ring them on Monday and query the move to the SVR as that's clearly wrong, but I don't know if the term/payment thing is right... is that the way it should be presented?

When you overpay, the bank can reduce the term, reduce your future monthly payments, or a combination of both.

You can usually specify to your bank which you would prefer, but if your aim is to be mortgage-free ASAP, then you're probably good as you are (most people that compain do so because their DD reduces each time they overpay).

I hope I've answered your question, but sorry if I've misinterpreted the situation. Let me know if I have and I'll have another go at it for you :rotfl:

coldcazzie

Trentenders wrote: »

When you overpay, the bank can reduce the term, reduce your future monthly payments, or a combination of both.

Yes I realise this, it was more the fact that...

coldcazzie wrote: »

they've asterisked the term as the thing I requested to change...

when what I actually asked was to increase our payments. I was questioning whether that was normal procedure.

While I realise it's much of a muchness and gets the job done at the end of the day, it just seems odd that they've written me a letter saying "we've reduced the term of your mortgage like you asked", when what I actually asked was "please can I pay £500 a month". Perhaps it's just another example of Santander's ineptitude, but if not and that is just the way it's done then I'd like to know before I start accusing them of being useless :rotfl:

Thanks for replying, I was starting to feel a bit invisible.

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Not invisible... I am reading and enjoying it!

coldcazzie

Ok, proper update:

• Opened my FD monthly saver today. So £300 pcm budgeted to go into that, half of which will be drip fed from current savings. R85 form in the post. *Must request R85 for e-saver.*
• Felt very MSE shopping today - 2 winter coats plus a pair of trousers and a dress for £10 in Cancer Research! happy feeling was short lived though as also spent £35 in Primark (alright, it was Christmas money from FIL, but even so!) and then £7 on lunch for us all in Greggs, which was especially annoying as we then visited a friend to deliver her Christmas card/present and she offered us all bacon sandwiches! :eek: (must check these things out in future, it just felt a bit cheeky to ask her to feed 4 extra mouths!)
• Man-wife's wage tomorrow (complete with overtime - yey!), then TC day after, tense time while we make sure account switch has been glitch free. Small amount of £ in old account but not enough for several DD mess-ups so let's hope there's none!
• Realised I missed out paying the milkman each month from my SOA, will go back and edit tomorrow. Unsure whether to continue with this in the new year. I like having milk delivered, but it is more expensive, and on a bad day (ie, Monday) we don't get our milk til gone midday. Not good for sprogs' breakfasts before school.
• Need to budget for swimming lessons in Jan/Feb.
• Open another saver in the new year to sweep additional monies into each month: virtual op pot until they amount to over £500.
• Credit card bill looks good so far this month.:j