Matt's mission to be MF!

Matt_The_Chippy

Hi everyone,

I've had a look around before posting and am very impressed with how encouraging everybody is to each other. This help must be such a bonus to people who have a long road ahead (me included!).

A little about me and my situation. I'm 38 and a self-employed carpenter. I love this job as its given me a freedom of work over the years and the level of job satisfaction is awesome (working on new classrooms for a primary school at the moment). Its not such a good paying job as a few years ago but you make the best of the situation and I'm always in work because I put a lot of effort into making my work as good as possible. I'm now doing Foreman jobs which helps with the pay side of things.

My partner and I bought our house in 2006 with a mortgage of £126k. We had a mortgage with the Chelsea and please no-one go with them! They were rubbish for us. Once the 2 year fixed finished, we couldn't get onto another fixed low interest product due to constantly changing criteria. Grrr! Over the course of the banks lowering their standard rates, the Chelsea had reduced theirs once and it was 5.79%, painful 3 years on this :mad:. This year we have been able to remortgage over to Santander. Its an Offset at 2.99% above the base rate, I know this is higher than a lot of trackers taken by others a few years ago but being offset, it works for us. I've a had a little inheritance, so have put nearly £24k in the offset savings account. As the interest rate is loads less than before, it means our monthly payment dropped £244, I've kept the DD the same as before, so this is now our regular OP.

Our mortgage has 20 years to run and I've been going over the numbers in the calculator. The minimum £244 overpaying would see a good reduction in the term but I'm eager (with your help:T) to shift the mortgage as quick as possible. If I can maintain an OP of £500 per month, I could be looking at paying it off in 7-8 years. Now that is motivation in itself!

Thanks for gettting this far and I look forward to updating this thread with my progress. Cheers guys.

numptyknownothing

Welcome MTC. Lots of lovely people on the MFW board and they all have really good ideas to help you on your way. Before you know it you'll be offering your own sound advice and wonder how you got so wise. I am constantly inspired by what I read on this and other pages. I'm amazed at what some people come up with. Good luck :-)

lulabelle1

Welcome and good luck with your MF journey.... It's a long road but with the help and encouragement of the others on here, it makes it a little easier. It's also nice to read diaries of other like minded people. Most family/friends etc think I'm nuts so it's not something I really talk about away from this forum....
Good Luck!!

edinburgher

Welcome Matt - your new mortgage deal sounds infinitely preferable to those that went before!

A good start might be to post a SOA (there's a stickied link over on the debt free wannabe board) so the eagle eyed folk who frequent this board can try and help you identify any obvious areas of your budget where you might save money.

HelenDaveKids

Hiya. I agree this forums brilliant for motivation. Have too, become very obsessed and dream about the OP calculator!!

I would agree, theres some brilliant ideas on here and always things you havent thought of yourself.

Ive been playing with a more indepth morgage calculator which has had me captivated for hours. My OH is now fed up of me! (he may have been before to be fair!)

Matt_The_Chippy

Thanks for the warm welcome guys.

I have a lot of reading and notes to make I feel. I would like to get into doing a good spreadsheet that I input my OP's and see the difference it makes. I've no idea on starting one though! You're right when you say people think you're mad for doing it. I've had no more of a response from friends than 'oh right' and a quick change of subject by them!

On Saturday just gone, I bagged up coins from the jar at home and OP £55. Pleased with myself. Little by little hey!

edinburgher

I've had no more of a response from friends than 'oh right' and a quick change of subject by them!

British people are funny like that! Our closest friends are also starting to overpay (they just bought as well) and my stepfather (in a rare moment of advice giving), said that it's the one tip he'd give me if he could go back and run his finances better

Wd on bagging up the change, think of the interest you'll save thanks to that £55

Matt_The_Chippy

Me being a little geeky about numbers, I'd like to be able to work out how much interest I'd save on the £55!

edinburgher

Well, you can do so using the MSE mortgage overpayment calculator. There's also a detailed spreadsheet doing the rounds that I can't find the link to - can someone oblige?

Heffi1

Hi MTC well done on getting started, it is very addictive once you decide to do it, I am going to take a long time with mine as I also have a DMP with a few more years to run, but any extra I can get is going as OP to the mortgage as I can't change the debt one just yet.

I have subscribed to follow you as you go along.

Matt_The_Chippy

Thanks Heffi1, hopefully I'll be able to update some good progress as time goes on. I've got a basement full of car bits and bobs that I won't need anymore, sell those and basically trim down my unwanted possessions.

I think I need to get into this online banking malarky, moving even very small amounts across to the mortgage looks to be a good step. Being with the Santander, I have a 123 account and if you don't know, it gives you cashback on certain DD's. And from next month, 1% cashback from your mortgage DD. So in total, I could be in line for approx £15-18 cashback per month. I need to talk to the bank and get them to pay it straight into the mortgage.

Thanks again everyone.
I need to find a good spreadsheet now to play with.