LL starting small

lobbyludd

Hello

I have my mortgage, first payment due out on Dec 1st, and now I want to get rid of it!!!

I have outstanding debts to pay off my credit cards following my divorce (c.£6K) which will take 7-8 months to pay off completely, and then another 5 months to build up a reasonable cushion of savings (approx 3K) after which I am going to divert all that money each month to paying off the mortgage.

In the meantime, I want to overpay a token amount to get me in the habit and reap some early benefits to the low interest rates.

Are there minimum amounts you can pay off monthly? (I am with natwest) I certainly won't initially run up against the maximum, so that isn't a worry. But would a regular payment of 20, 50 or 100 be accepted, and how do I do this? can't see the mechanism in my paperwork, plus is there a best time to do it each month? (after the routine mortgage repayment, before?)

First step to fund this is giving up smoking on monday......

Danni-R

Hi LL.

I'm with NW too and I dont think they do. They just had a 10% limit.

Good luck and let me know what you find out. Going to start in Jan OPing.

Caroline73_2

With the Halifax you can set your monthly payment at a fixed amount. I just rounded my payment up to the nearest £50. I'm sure you could do that with NW. It feels good just to pay a small amount over the minimum!
Good luck.

Sepa74

Wow! What big changes in your life! Not least giving up smoking!

But it's well worth it, good luck with it all.

lobbyludd

thanks all,
nothing on the nw website or mortgage paperwork as far as I can see about HOW to overpay, whether my mortgage acount will show up in my online banking, if there are fees, how to ensure it decreases the term not the monthly payment, whether I can set up a standing order...... nowt!

I'm going to have to ring them up which is a pain, because I'm never sure if they know what they are talking about!

DVardysShadow

lobbyludd wrote: »

... In the meantime, I want to overpay a token amount to get me in the habit and reap some early benefits to the low interest rates.

Apart from a false feelgood factor, this is a waste of money. Always pay off minimums on everything except the debt with the highest rate of interest, to which you should throw everything else. [only exception is paying off some smallest debts first when minimum repayments are nearly crippling].

Only start to overpay the mortgage when it is your highest APR debt. Although this keeps you from paying extra to the mortgage, in the long term it is the quickest way to pay it all down.

inmypocketnottheirs

lobbyludd wrote: »

First step to fund this is giving up smoking on monday......

Why wait???

dark^knight

Hi and welcome on your MFW journey.

I agree with the above post, aim to pay off your credit card debts first, as they will have high interest.

CLAPTON

lobbyludd wrote: »

Hello


In the meantime, I want to overpay a token amount to get me in the habit and reap some early benefits to the low interest rates.



......

there are no early benefits in paying off a low interest rate mortgage if you have higher APR debts

pay off the CC etcc first

inmypocketnottheirs

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Apart from a false feelgood factor, this is a waste of money. Always pay off minimums on everything except the debt with the highest rate of interest, to which you should throw everything else. [only exception is paying off some smallest debts first when minimum repayments are nearly crippling].

Only start to overpay the mortgage when it is your highest APR debt. Although this keeps you from paying extra to the mortgage, in the long term it is the quickest way to pay it all down.

It's called snowballing your debts!

lobbyludd

thanks both: I waited the few days to quit because I had some tough things to get through which require me to be mentally on top of my game and I find it very hard to concentrate for the first few days post giving up. and that worked just fine...:)

take your point Dvardy and everyone else, however, what I am currently in the process of doing is moving my credit cards onto 0% balance transfer deals. As I am budgetting to pay them off within 7-8 months (on their current interest rates) I will be able to pay them off sooner and within the 0% window. If I can successfully transfer it all, the debt on my mortgage will be the highest interest rate I have. If I can't I will of course prioritise the highest rate debt first and is what I have always done The highest interest rate one has a zero balance showing today, so I am ringing up to close that account this evening.

yay.

In the meantime, my solicitor has refunded me £20 of overpayment. my ex has paid CM this month (didn't last month and I don't factor these payments into my budget as it's erratic) - so this is extra to work with.

until I can work out HOW to overpay, this is going off my cards