Any ideas please

countrygirl27

Ok. Six months since buying first house ever. Needs a bit of tlc which we've started, lots of wood chip removing and plastic ceiling tiles to chip say!

At the mo, am on a fixed 2 year deal with nationwide, current repayments 745 but when deal ends should fall to 650 ish.
However, am hoping that will be able to remortgage then instead, as hopefully will have increased value. Hopefully house will be worth around 200k when updating is over.

In the meantime, we are spending a lot of our spare cash on updating the house at the mo, but would be grateful for any suggestions for how to get down the monthly repayment as much as possible.

Here's a quick rundown....

House bought for £171k, mortgage is for £145k. Other houses in our row have sold for 195-200k in last 2years. Hopefully when we remortgage in 18 months time, it will be valued at 200k and our ltv will be just und 70%

HelenDaveKids

Gosh the options to save money are vast, from online surveys, to ebay / car booting, to reducing grocery shop and ensuring that every payment you make is the best you can make it, in terms of insurances, broadband etc etc. First thing to do is write down all your monthly spending so you can work out a realistic budget.

welcome n board, pull up a chair..

countrygirl27

I suppose I could bein by asking, is it better to overpay at the beginning of a mortgage, when you are paying more interest, or at the end, when you overpayments will have a greater effect on the capital?

countrygirl27

Already do lots of the money saving things on here- hence being able to save large deposit so able to buy.

But also want to be able to spend some of money on enjoying myself! After all we all work hard enough for it!

chirpchirp

It's better to overpay all the time but at the start will save you more in compounded interest:

Imagine you have a 25 year mortgage and you pay 2.99% interest on a £100,000 mortgage. In the first month you pay off £1000 overpayment - that saves you £29.99 in the first year but goes on to save you 25 x 29.99 = £749.75 at least dependent on how you continue with your payments. If you pay it at the start of year 23 then you would only save £59.98 in interest. Have a play around with the mortgage calculator changing when you would pay it.

countrygirl27

Thanks I thoughts it would be better at the beginning. I suppose the answer is you don't know what the future holds so probably best t overpay when you can

countrygirl27

Here's a thing that bugs me. My electricity bill. As am starting from scratch in house have bought all appliances which were rated A or better. Heat house using gas, hot water from gas.

I price checked online and have gone with SSE which are supposed to be the cheapest in my area. Yet my bill is £50 pm! We do have an electric shower, which is probably on for 20 mins a day, and an electric oven ( very ancient was in house when bought it and works fine so decided to keep it for time being)

Other than that the electricity goes on fridge freezer, lighting, and tv is on for about 2-3 hours a day.

I think this is high amount to be paying ....... Am I right?

chirpchirp

I quite like to overpay on my gas and electric as it mounts up and after a year you should get a refund of any overpayments at which point they will set your monthly amount to nearer the amount you use.

It's impossible to say if what you are using is right or not but I'd say it's better to overpay then end up with a big underpayment and have to pay off a lumpsum or take a hit on having the monthly payments increased both to pay off the amount owing and increased to pay the new projected amount.

Dual fuel is often much cheaper than paying gas and electricity separately.

countrygirl27

Unfortunately can't do dual fuel as there is no mains gas in the area. I'm getting my gas from canisters. However long term plan is t eventually switch onto oil probably, haven't looked into the cost of this yet, as busy doing stuff like retiring and plastering!

Panning to extend in 2015' making bigger kitchen and adding a 3rd bedroom. But don't want to change anything to drastic like the boiler til then as it could turn out to be a mistake and may have to pay twice.