Mortgage Free in Three Yrs

Little_Mama

I've just managed to pay in an extra £500 to our mortgage today by putting this month's Council Tax money in (only pay over 10 months so this month & next we are a few pounds up), same with the water rates too and I set myself a wee challenge to pay less for the groceries.....haven't managed to live off £50 per week....but saved about £150 all the same, oh and an ebay sale and the mortgage pig brought the figure up to the required £500 minimum overpayment.....hurrah! :j

Sorry Getmeoutofhere, I don't know either. Could you ask them to shorten the term anyway, in line with you making a payment of XYZ amount per month? Perhaps to reduce term by X years and pay £Y per month extra?

LM

autismmum

hi everyone, wow, you are all doing really well. keep it up

angelavdavis

getmeoutofhere wrote: »

After paying £30/month extra for 6 years to help reduce the term, I recently overpaid with £1700 I had.

The new statement has lowered the minimum monthly payment. I called Alliance & Leicester to explain I am overpaying to reduce the term rather than the payments, but they said the term could not be altered. I was told I needed to up the regular overpayment to compensate.

Is this correct?

I would query this personally, I think the individual has misinformed you. Did you put the request in writing? Looking at other experiences, I think people have also had issues with their lenders and have had more luck when they have written to the lender whenever they have made an overpayment.

I am sure one of the members will post soon.

angelavdavis

Hi all,

I am up early to get my paperwork done while it is quiet.

Haven't been happy with Egg Money as I requested the money I had stoozed from Barclaycard to be transferred on 13 Jan and I checked the balance on Friday and it still hadn't cleared. When I phoned them, they hadn't even carried out the transaction! They sent it to the account via CHAPS but its a good job I checked. I will move it electronically today so it should clear in a week or so (it wouldn't go direct into the offset for some reason).

Changing the subject, I have also had issues with OH's bank, HSBC. We set up a dd in December to pay a minimum payment into another 0% card, initially, to go into my Halifax account so I could then transfer the money onto the cc account (we didn't have this info in December as it was a new card).

In early January, we phoned HSBC to change the dd details to the actual cc payment ones. As the payment wasn't due until mid January (+ 7 days), we were confident the payment would go through OK.

I was away travelling with work at the time the cc payment was due and didn't get round to checking the bank balance until after, I was furious, HSBC hadn't changed the dd details and as a result, the cc payment hadn't been made! OH phoned HSBC and they said they couldn't see a transaction and so they would check the tape. They then phoned him to let him know that the phone call wasn't about this at all! The details hadn't been changed which is clearly not true as OH read the cc card payment info to them in front of me!

Has anyone ever had to request a tape transcript from a bank? Has anyone had any luck with this?

I wanted to get HSBC to put it in writing that the error was theirs so I could appeal to Halifax CC - I am livid because Halifax put a missed payment marker on my otherwise unblemished credit file!

So, I will have the stooze money to pay into the offset but any payment from my salary will be minimal as I need to plug the gap from the tax bill in Jan. Hopefully this will be a temporary hitch! I don't think my part time AQA work is going to make a huge difference to the pot! Am sad though, cos I have done my figures and I think my hopes of completely clearing the mortgage by April 2010 have really been dashed - sorry am a bit down really about it ......

TallGirl

Gosh AngelaDavis you have been up early. Sounds like the banks are giving you a hard time but please don't let that get you down. They should have complaints proceedures and regulators to help you sort it all out. I have no personal experience of this myself but I would have thought the Financial Ombudsmans website would be a good place to start.

I must say I don't do the stoozing as I would definetely end up missing payments or make some mistake I just don't feel it is worth it. Paying off your mortage shouldn't be a race we are here for the long haul so don't beat yourself up about it just look at your signature and see how far you have come.

My MFi3 dream is still alive in particular as we are not spending £17k on the bathrooms. Materials will be about £6k and now we are just waiting for a quote for the labour. They are offering interest free credit in the bathstore which I will take - suspose it is a bit like stoozing.

Hope you are all enjoying the lovely sunshine.

angelavdavis

Thanks TG,

You are right of course about it not being a race... was just a depressing realisation - well MFi4 is pretty good too I suppose!

Re: stoozing, I tend to set up the dd for the minimum payment as soon as I can so I don't miss it, but this was a bit different because I have been away so much, I didn't have the information I needed until after the first payment was due.

Well a positive of being up early was the lovely sunrise this morning! I also managed to earn some money on AQA too so its not all doom and gloom!

Trying_to_be_good

Angela

You've done so well already - just think about the money that's overpaying the captial instead of being handed over as interest. That normally works for me. I never manage to get the DD set up for the first payment on a new credit card, so always end up transferring it on internet banking/phoning and paying by debit card. And running a spreadsheet to show what's stoozed from where and how it'll be paid off come the credit crunch!

My OH and I went for a walk and a bit of bird spotting (first time for me) - it was lovely in the sun. We have the four kids from Wednesday, so we're hoping this weather will hold as the half term break will be much cheaper if we can get to the park most days!

HammersFan

Hi everyone. Really slow progress this last couple of months for me - tax bill and a new car. Ouch - but there comes a time when it has too be done (especially when you put your fut down hard on the accelerator and the car just goes slower!).

I think I'm still on track for the target though, I am just keeping my head down and keeping going (a nice bit of consultancy work came through this month which will help big time). I am continually inspired by everyone's efforts in here.

This might be a bit of cheek and is off topic but...There's a little girl in my lad's reception class at school who's got a really rare and totally devastating cancer (called Neuroblastoma). People around here are doing things to raise awareness and I thought of posting on here (and elsewhere, naturally). If you get a minute take a look at her story in the local rag this week.

http://www.ripleyandheanornews.co.uk/news/Tot-fights-cancer-for-a.3774794.jp

Her parents have set up a website which updates on how she is getting on. its www.samanthahughes.co.uk

I won't bang on about it, but I hope you get a chance to have a look, if nothing else it helps give life a sense of perspective, and maybe you can help in some way.

Cheers - and keep going everyone!

angelavdavis

Some positive news today! I got a £75 cashback cheque from my Morgan Stanley credit card which I plan to pay into the offset.

Move_To_Portugal

Great for you angela...It all helps