Right, let's do it!

SpottyDottie

Hi Everybody
I've been lurking for a bit and have finally decided to properly start my MFW journey, hurrah!

I'm 36, have just got married this summer and live with hubby and 3 cats (babies) in the South West.

Hubby and I have fairly average - good-ish salaries (though hubby is not very good with his money unfortunately - easy come, easy go!) so I'm trying to slowly bash this out of him.

I've been in my first house - a victorian terrace for a few years now and have managed to pay a bit off here and there when I can but I'm now planning to make a concerted effort to get as much paid off, if not MF in the next 10 years.

My current mortgage rate is 2.78% with Skipton, fixed until Sept 2015. I've just remortgaged from a SVR with Halifax for a better fixed rate. My outstanding mortgage is 84k with 35% equity in the property.

I figure if I keep paying what I was paying on my old mortgage plus an extra £100 a month, this OP of £400 pcm will enable me to be MF in under 10 years (hopefully!).

Fingers crossed - wish me luck!:beer:

mortgage_meltdown

Hi there - welcome!

I saw the part of about your cat babies and thought I must drop in. mine are my babies too...crazy cat lady level one complete!

Your goal sounds fantastic! Good luck!

SpottyDottie

Ha, ha, thanks Mortgagemeltdown! (great name, btw!). Good luck with your journey, too :-)

Glad I'm not the only crazy cat lady - I've even converted hubby into a crazy cat man, mwah, ha, ha! I bet they're lolling all over the sofa as we speak as I left the heating on all day today to help dry out a leak we had last week - bet they're loving it, spoilt furries! ;-)

MallyGirl

I am dealing with a puppy at the moment rather than cat babies but my cat lives the life of Riley as she has access to the bathroom with it's under floor heating (and it is a dog free zone).

SpottyDottie

Ha, ha, I seem to have managed to start the most unpopular MFW Diary to date! ;-) Thanks for the welcome Mally & Mortgage Meltdown :-)

Oh well, I'll crack on anyway. Soooo, I've been doing some thinking (and having some, er 'fun' creating spreadsheets of endless figures) and reckon I can probably manage some bigger OPs than first thought, maybe up to about £700pcm.

I'm feeling pretty committed to this MFW thing but have also realised that my new mortgage lender will only allow 10% of the original loan value per year during the initial fixed rate period. So, I'm planning to focus on maxing out that 10% as much as possible and then see where we are with the o/s balance at the end of the fixed rate period. Any other spare funds can go into the savings pot.

The only thing I'm not clear on at the mo though is whether the 10% OP limit per year is per calendar year, financial year or each year from the date of the commencement of the mortgage so will have to clarify this with Skipton.

At present, we're still waiting for the conveyancy to be finished to move us over onto the new mortgage deal. I was thinking of OPing more on the existing higher rate deal before it moves over to the new lender but I'm not sure how this will affect things - I assume the difference between the o/s balance on the old mtg deal and the funds forwarded to the new lender will just be greater giving us a bit of extra cash?

On a slightly different note, we've already saved a fair bit since committing to this MFW challenge, and haven't bought anything necessary over the last few weeks. I've been making hubby a packed lunch for work (and enjoying how happy an unexpected scotch egg in his lunch box makes him!) and I've been having beans or spaghetti on toast at work for lunch using bulk buy tins so feeling good about that.

Another bonus this week is that we've taken up a local glazing co on a really good deal for new double glazed windows to replace the old and rotting victorian single glazed windows at the back of our house. We're getting a couple of extra grand on the new mortgage which will cover this cost and it will hopefully save us some pennies on heating in the future too.

abouttimetoo

Hi SpottyDottie, welcome to the board and congrats on the progress you've made so far. As I'm sure you'll soon notice it can get very addictive

SpottyDottie wrote: »

Soooo, I've been doing some thinking (and having some, er 'fun' creating spreadsheets of endless figures) and reckon I can probably manage some bigger OPs than first thought, maybe up to about £700pcm.

I'm feeling pretty committed to this MFW thing but have also realised that my new mortgage lender will only allow 10% of the original loan value per year during the initial fixed rate period. So, I'm planning to focus on maxing out that 10% as much as possible and then see where we are with the o/s balance at the end of the fixed rate period. Any other spare funds can go into the savings pot.

The only thing I'm not clear on at the mo though is whether the 10% OP limit per year is per calendar year, financial year or each year from the date of the commencement of the mortgage so will have to clarify this with Skipton.

At present, we're still waiting for the conveyancy to be finished to move us over onto the new mortgage deal. I was thinking of OPing more on the existing higher rate deal before it moves over to the new lender but I'm not sure how this will affect things - I assume the difference between the o/s balance on the old mtg deal and the funds forwarded to the new lender will just be greater giving us a bit of extra cash? .

It sounds like your potential OP's are a goodly amount so that's great although any amount no matter how small can make a real difference

Yes, definitely clarify what the 10% limit really means in practice as each mortgage and provider has it's own terms and conditions. May also be worth asking what the penalty is if you were to exceed the 10% as in some cases the penalty can be worth paying e.g. cost is less than the benefit gained

As you progress the other thing which some people do when they have the 10% limit and they want/can pay more, is to reduce the term of the mortgage, this automatically puts their monthly payments up and then they still get to do the 10% thing so are able to make greater OP's than before if you see what I mean

Best of luck with your plans. Despite your early experience here (I shouldn't say this but I did lol at your 'unpopular MFW diary' post) everyone is really friendly and supportive here and happy to be used as a sounding board etc. We also won't laugh at you if you're a spreadsheet and pivot geek never mind if you get excited at finding 5p in the street :rotfl: as that what makes most of us tick

Regards
ATT

pixnmix_2

Welcome to the MFW way Dottie. I subscribed to your shiny new diary