Here we go!

hildosaver

Myself and my wife do have some spare cash available but we each have 2 separate savings accounts which we pay into, consisting of about £250-£300 each month for both myself and my wife - these are for a 'safety net' savings account and a separate holiday/house renovation account. So although we do have more money available for overpayments, most of that money is going into these other funds.

Once we finally get one or both of our other houses rented out (already have the renovation house lined up for a tenant from Feb/March) then we will increase the basic monthly overpayments to £550, if we get both rented out then we will increase it further. I don't want to overstretch ourselves too much, I plan on overpaying as much as I can while still creating a savings pot and giving us more than enough to live on.

JimmyTheWig

I guess what I'm saying is that if it was me I would add these other savings payments to the SOA.

I totally agree about having an emergency fund and not overstretching yourselves, though.

hildosaver

Updated SOA to reflect whats really happening

hildosaver

Another £350 overpayment made for January! I have had a tough time over the last month or two and have spent much of it off work with stress - things are looking up though as I have had a meeting with my manager and director and got a lot of things sorted out - everything I wanted to happen is now happening and I feel a lot more positive about work than I did before.

Also another bit of good news is that my sister-in-law is going to move into the house we are renovating (almost done - painting at the moment!! ) so we have a confirmed tenant and one that we know will keep the place in good order - we are hoping a friend of her's will also move in so we can get the full potential rent we would like.

So far 2013 has had a difficult start but is quickly turning around and things are looking up!

I am on target to hit the £110k mark on the mortgage by the end of the year which will get me closer to getting myself out of negative equity which is the main aim of the overpayments - first stop get into positive equity - second stop, get to 75%-80% equity and shop around for a better mortgage rate. That is the plan anyway, will take me 3-5 years to get there but I am determined to do it for me and my family.

hildosaver

Hello again!

All well in the world of HildoSaver at the mo - work going much better since I've had the meeting with my boss and feeling much more positive about the place. Ironically I also got a job offer from a waiting list I had been on - if I had been offered this maybe 3 months ago I would have jumped at it but now things in my work have been resolved I have decided to stay put and turn down the job.

Our tenant moved in to our (now renovated) repo house and so far so good. We also have another potential tenant who is interested in my wife's old house in Derry so our next goal is to get that house replastered and ready to be used as a rental asap so we can get both house rented out - the vast majority of the rental income we receive will be pumped back into the two houses we have mortgage's on (my wife's old house and the house we live in) and will be used to pay down both mortgages.

So far we are on target to owe £110k on our main house by the end of this year and by the end of next year it should be around the £100k mark which with a bit of luck may see us finally out of negative equity, depending on the market in Northern Ireland of course.

In the meantime neither my wife nor me have much disposable income at all really but we know it will be worth it in the long run.

hildosaver

Hey guys, has been quite some time since I did an update on this so thought I would do it today.

First things first, I have a new job! 9-5, Monday to Friday and going well so far, took a drop in salary but my quality of life has improved.

We made a big decision a couple of months ago which to put everything we had into getting ourselves out of negative equity in our house (Northern Ireland) so we bit the bullet and basically pumped all our savings into the mortgage - it means that in a year we have managed to decrease our mortgage from £121k to £105kish and we are now virtually out of negative equity.

The reason we pushed for this was so that we could sell/rent our house and start looking for our 'forever home' together as the house we currently live in very much still feels like MY house, rather than OUR house (was mine before we married).

So, a bit of positive news is that both our rental properties are now rented to tenants, pretty much all the required work done in these properties is now complete and we get a reasonable return each month.

We also have bid on the house we would happily call our home for the rest of our lives and our bid was accepted! So we are currently trying to sell our home, however as the housing market here is still slow I think it is unlikely that we will get it sold in time so we are now looking to rent it also with a view to selling next year.

We have also arranged to remortgage our rental property which we had bought with cash, to enable us to put down a decent deposit on our new home.

It is all a bit overwhelming at the moment but our mortgage advisor has been excellent and is telling us to be confident that all will go through as planned.

Still trying to overpay as much as we can afford however many fee's needed paying over the next month or two (survey's, solicitors, mortgage advisor, mortgage company) so we may need to reduce what we have been doing. Having said that we did manage to overpay £350 this month.

Hope you are all well!

hildosaver

Been a while since I updated this -

Steadily OP'ing mortgage pretty well, £500 p/m at present. Was delighted to finally get below £100k! Our plan now is to keep up the OP's for the next two years and then we will think about selling the house we have been overpaying.

We are hoping to get between £40-50k back when we do that and then we will so some work on our forever home - new kitchen, move bathroom upstairs, etc. and then use the rest to develop our barn and outhouses into self-catering accommodation and set-up a business.

Big plans but we both are committed to giving it a go as it's always been a dream to be self-employed (or at least have the option to go part-time).

Once we do that then we will focus on OP'ing our 'forever home' which we live in and have the goal of being mortgage free by 50!

Currently doing lots of interviews to try and get a promotion and a permanent contract in NHS - I am on a couple of waiting lists so fingers crossed I get something which will lead to higher OP's!

hildosaver

Hello all - as you can tell I am not exactly a prolific poster! I do enjoy doing the odd update though if only to show myself just how far we have come over the past few years. This gives me the motivation to keep on going which can be difficult sometimes.

Generally we manage to overpay £500 on my old house which is currently let out and has a 4.45% interest rate - plan to remortgage this once in the summer and change to a BTL mortgage instead of needing permission to let. Hoping to improve the rate a bit and will keep on overpaying from then though will perhaps change down to £300 p/m and increase the OTHER overpayment we do on our home from £100 to £300 also.

I still feel kinda worried to have a lot of mortgage debt between myself and my wife (4 houses! 1. £125k main home, 2. £93k rented, 3. £70k (IO)rented and 4. £36k (IO)rented) we have a way to go but I hope that if we continue to overpay as much as we can we will feel much less exposed and in good shape within the next 3/4 years.