The Pixi Mortgage Free Diary

Cathy40

The_Pixi wrote: »

Hi All,

So in may finally got our house and the subsequent mortgage with it. Having been on MSE for sometime, the idea of overpaying was top of my priority so my partner and I are going to go at it like the clappers and hopefully get it gone as close to 10 years as possible.

Our mortgage is £258,000 at 85%LTV and we currently have a 5 year fix, its my hope that we get to 50% LTV by the end of the 5years. Its my hope that if by then rates have risen, having 50% LTV should get us a rate that hopefully will be similar to our current 3.98%

With this in mind we have budgeted to pay £2k a month on the mortgage and this is about £630 a month overpayment. We have also started an saving account that swallows all the monthly savings. So when we get a £4 off a £30 spend coupon from Sainsbury's the £4 goes into the saving account. Last month we got a £50 cash back on our new fridge so combined we added a £180 bonus to the £2k payment.

I'm going to keep a diary going here with a cumulative overpayment total, if anything keeping it at the front of mind and as a monthly habit will really help.

Hi there,

I've just joined the Forum and come across your post. My husband and I were in the same boat and wanted to make regular monthly payments above our mortgage. However, we were advised to rather put this extra money where it could at least earn some interest, i.e. ISAs or NS&I.

Just a thought

The_Pixi

I do hope you didnt listen to the 'advice'

The_Pixi

Been a busy couple of months.

We discovered we had a bit of a leak on the roof, so as well as a bit of pointing and guttering replacement we called out some companies.

The first company we hired turned out to be a bunch of crooks..:mad: found on Checkatrade (Never again) we waited 3 weeks for them to be able to do the job.

when they arrived they had no scaffolding (which was agreed ) and said they could do all the work in 1 day! which was down from a full week when they first came to look.

I questioned where the lime was for the mortar and they lied to me saying it was these various things they had with them (sand and cement, sigh, I am not that stupid) then after more questioning he said he would go and get some lime. I told them to leave... now we are waiting for the next company.

Good news is that we have now broke the £10k overpayment and we have manage that in 14months!

juststuff123

Good News on the OP. Well done!

The_Pixi

This month the Mortgage company made a bit of an error, they didn't acknowledge last months overpayment!

I didn't receive a letter thanking me for the payment, but to be fair they have often forgotten to send it and had to be chased up, this last month we have been away so I assumed they just forgot.

Roll on to today and they take the same payment amount as last month, so today the spreadsheet became very useful as I could see it said the payment should be £4 lower.

Got on the phone and it is all sorted out now.

The_Pixi

This month there wasn't any extra bonus overpayment, however there is, before Christmas, £160 of vouchers to get through.

*This is £70 of Sainsbury's gift vouchers.
*£40 in cash value of Tesco ClubCard restaurant tokens
*£50 in cash value of Nectar points (Which could be £10 more if they run the double up £10 to £20 on champagne again this year)

So it looks like all our chirstmas food and drink will be from Sainsbury's again this year and we can give ourselves a better Christmas gift of lower mortgage repayments

The_Pixi

I haven't posted for a few months because it has been busy here.

After a long time searching I got a new job! This means back to the office 9-5 rather than working from home, which I am really happy with. I now get to appreciate the house rather than sit in it day after day bored.

This will make deliveries and more of the DIY logistically challenging but the vast bulk of time consuming stuff is out of the way!

The new job brought a £7,000 pay boost and my new travel expenses are about £1.600. The extra money will be handy for the decorating and maybe a small boost in the new year to the regular overpayment. £50 each to take it up to £2100 a month which would be around £800 a month regular overpayment.

We should by this time next year have knocked another £50 off the min payment so it should be £850 a month regular overpayment in December 2015.

Christmas is looking good for wins, Tesco, Nectar and gifted Sainsbury's coupons all look set for spending next week meaning a bumper £200+ Bonus over payment to the overpayment.

Merry Christmas

The_Pixi

Last month we managed just a shade under £200 in additional bonus overpayments

£40 Clubcard tokens
£75 Gifted Sainsbury's vouchers
£65 Nectar Points

This month we got our annual mortgage letter. I like this letter as it shows all the monthly payments, overpayments and interest. It also gives the opportunity to double check the spread sheet.

Over the year Jan-Jan we made overpayments of £8000 (ish) with £9000 (ish) of interest accrued. So we almost wiped out all the interest and reduced the capital by £15000 (ish)

We started with a 15% ownership and next month we will have made 25%, just another 25% to go before the end of the fix. And we are adding £100 more to the overpayment next financial year so we may 0 out the interest in year 3!

ourcornercottage

Wow pixi you are doing really well, I make regular op's but do want to increase the set amount they take every month a bit which I used to do before I moved, in fact I'm going to ring them this afternoon! I won't even notice it going, I didn't last time and then make my other money saving op's much like you do.

The_Pixi

This month we managed £84 in bonus overpayments, this was from £60 of Tesco clubcard tokens and a refund from a company called Cafe Press, very good customer service, no quibble and insisted on giving my some type of refund.

We had a decorator round to put up the hall wallpaper, nearly two years living with the neon yellow walls of the previous owner (why do they even sell that shade of yellow?), and it looks great.

We have just had a quote of £850 for replacing 5 doors (in fact putting in 3 missing ones, replacing two) the previous owners, who were by far some of the cheapest people in the universe, had put in those cardboard doors that try, and fail, to look like period doors. Trouble is I need to stain each door myself. By Christmas I should be done

Next month sees the increase in the monthly payment we make from £2,000 to £2,100. I am thinking we might increase by £100 a month each year from now on until the end of the fix, but we will see.

Good luck everyone else.