When I grow up - my mortgage free journey

Yorkielass

Well it's a new year, and as I've just discovered talking to my mortgage provider a new mortgage overpayment year (I assumed it was calculated on anniversary of mortgage) at least I won't hit the 10% this year, unless we comes into loads of money (which would change everything anyway) and I know for future years.

December completely got away from me, busy with work, very busy with the volunteering I do, getting ready for Christmas, sorting the house out before we went off to spend Christmas with relatives etc so money saving and making all went out the window a bit however I did manage:

So list for December is:
Make £25 on Swagbucks - Made £15, but only got 7 day bonus so will be harder to make money in January.
Make £310 selling stuff/picking up coins/surveys etc - Just made the £15 and a bit of roadkill which i haven't added up yet
Tilly Tidy every day when appropriate - did this more or less, £6.92 in total
It's the turn of car insurance this month so try and be a bit more organised with this than home insurance and also try to reduce amount spent too - wasn't more organised as did it on NYE but £70 saved on what we paid last year and got a better product
Keep on it with Christmas budgets - kept on budget with gifts and 4 bottles of wine and 1 1/2 tanks of petrol was our only household spending for a week so not too bad.

Targets for January are:

- go through our SOA, update and ensure money going into pots is still ok, adjust if necessary.
- Have a proper declutter and selling stuff session, actually make my £310 this month selling/surveys including £20 from swagbucks.
- Get some quotes for getting the drive done and look again at council procedure for getting dropped curb area widened so see if getting it done is viable (really needs doing).
- Find £500 to overpay (this is my monthly target not including dd overpayment each month for 2014).

Yorkielass

Called the mortgage company and got some numbers:

End of 2013 balance - £158124.13
Interest per day in December £20.67 - down 11p a day since November.

With my regular direct debit payment and the £106.27 which I was going to pay off in December but never rang up to sort, I've overpaid £748.81 so far in January (and need to phone up and do my Tilly Tidy money tomorrow) Putting that into my spreadsheet we're now looking at a finishing date (assuming no more overpayments) of November 2041, that's 9 months earlier than without any overpayments.

All little steps but I'm really pleased with the direction we're heading in financially.

SuperSecretSquirrel

Hi Yorkielass

Just popped by to say hello and hope all is going well, we've not heard from you in a little while!

Yorkielass

Thanks SuperSecretSquirrel, work and volunteering stuff got on top of me in January and February and MSE and this diary in particularly fell by the wayside along with other things.

I have been overpaying though and January to March total overpayments were £2500 and have taken 11 months off the end date of our mortgage.

I'll do a proper update later this week.

Sophie-1

We've always tried to overpay our mortgage when we can and this year we'll finish paying for it.
Good luck with your debt free dream. Keep going you will get there.

tinkerbel

Keep at it Yorkie! Inspirational indeed and I look forward to following your journey!

Yorkielass

Thanks for the messages Sophie-1 and tinkerbel - can't believe I missed a whole month on MSE.

Yorkielass

Time for an update - can't believe 1/3 of the year has gone already.

Work was really busy in January to March, no time for a quick internet catch up at work and in the evenings when I was at home I was just too tired to go on. In April work suddenly changes to a different type and pace, and I struggled with that and lost my enthusiasm I think.

Mortgage wise overpaying has gone well though:


January total was £755.73
Regular OP - £642.54
Leftover over money I made selling stuff before we moved - £106.27
TT for December - £6.92

February total was £866.35
Regular OP - £642.54
Then I had a small pay increase and August to November backdating were included in January's pay - so I have 6 months pay increase of £91.65.
Council Tax - £125
TT for January - £7.16

March total was £877.92
Regular OP £642.54
Council Tax £125
TT for February £4.10
February 'payrise' money £14.68
Finished off the month overpaying £91.60 from current account leftovers to take overpayments for first 3 months to £2500

April was just my DD overpayment of £642.54 - glad this goes out if nothing else.

May so far: £642.54 regular DD and just called to make an overpayment including £13.07 TT for March and April (didn't keep it up through April so rounded account down today too) and £14.68 increase in salary for March and £30.21 for April. So current May total is £700.50

So as of today £3843.04 overpaid in 2014, our balance is now £152454.97 and our end of mortgage date is 22 months closer than it was originally, and 16 months closer since January.

Will definitely post again soon but wanted to record mortgage overpayments/achievements for now.

Beckyy

That's a good set of OP's you've made so far this year!

Yorkielass

Thanks Beckyy - I'm pleased we decided to go with the regular overpayment - now got to get the balance right between more overpayments, not restricting our standard of living too much, work on the house and things we want to buy.


OH got an unexpected pay rise in March so we are lucky to have a bit more cash each month now too.