Mrs Trelfa's Master Plan For Trifle Towers

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

Ok so slight c0ck up on the overpayment. As we made it so close to our repayment date that the bank only took the difference between the overpayment we made and our monthly 'normal' amount. But after a call to the mortgage department they arranged another£400 to be drawn last week and after checking our account online we are at £99,872.86.

Such a great feeling :-)

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

Got latest paper work from the bank on Friday and new mortgage free date is February 2043. Although this feels ages away I'm so pleased that we have taken practically 2 years off the mortgage. Hubby seeing this has motivated him more and has said that if/when he looses the out of hours support that he is doing at work, he will reduce the money that he puts away in his holiday fund rather than reducing the overpayment.

Speaking of which we paid off the balance of our Sri Lanka holiday which is exciting as it means that we have less than 60 days until we go. However the bank balance is a bit depressing as we had got used to the figure which included holiday money.

Went back to my mum's last weekend for my nephews christening. It was a gorgeous day and the hubby was very honoured to be God father.

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

So it's pay day in 2 days and I'm itching to make another overpayment, but as our mortgage goes out on the 5th I don't want to mess it up again.

Does anyone else get impatient when it's almost overpayment time?

I seem to have picked up a cold from somewhere and are keeping the tissue companies in business. Not very money saving but when uve gotta blow, you've gotta blow.

StrugglingYouth

Enjoyed the new dance you created! I believe it should be a thing, wherever and however much is overpaid dances should commence!

Will keep an eye on your progress!

Sadly I am still in the 'deposit' saving stage!

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

Thank you strugglingyouth and you will be surprised at how quickly the deposit saving stage turns into house buying and then overpaying stage.

So last weekend we headded to Aberystwyth for the wedding of two of our closest friends (i was a bridesmaid and the hubby was best man). Luckily as the mother-in-law lives in Aberystwyth we stayed there so no expensive hotel costs.

So yesterday I popped into the bank and did another £400 overpayment. Gosh it feels like ages since pay day and the money has just been sat there. Made the hubby dance round our living room when I got home.

Me and the hubby have been talking and I want to throw everything at overpaying the mortgage and I don't mind going without things. Whereas the hubby thinks that £400 is more than enough. Does anyone else have this 'issue' and how do you compromise/resolve the debate?

Luckyinlife

Hey rachel just enjoyed reading thro how you have been getting on how much do you ow as of today now ? it was 100k when i read first post

On the hubby thinking 400 is more than enough i guess 400 is a lot but if you can do more there is no reason not to due to the interest you pay.

Just show him look if we pay £100 more a month we save x amount per year he should see the light then and say look we can travel the world hehe which being mortgage free would free up lots of cash :]

pavlovs_dog

it is quite common for MFWers to start off by wanting to throw everything at the mortgage. Over time, there then seems to be a shift towards striking a balance between OPing and investing for the future.

We're just coming to the end of our first 5 year fix, so I understand your frustration at seeing the tiny changes to your mortgage balance vs the huge sums that leave your bank account. My advice to you would be to play around with the figures.

If you only made your normal payments, what would your balance and LTV be when your fix expires?

How much in total would you need to OP to get your LTV to 80%? To 75%? 70%? 65%? 60%? Each bracket sees mortgage rates become successively more competitive, meaning your debt becomes less expensive.Don't think of it in terms of £400 here, £400 there. Think of it in terms of OPing a total of £X by 2020.

Make sure that you have a good emergency fund behind you as well. Work out your monthly baseline (absolutely unavoidable outgoings). If you were to lose your job tomorrow, how long could you survive? What if the car died during this period? And if your boiler packed in 2 weeks later? Make sure you have a minimum of 3 months, better still 6-12 for peace of mind.

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

Luckyinlife wrote: »

Hey rachel just enjoyed reading thro how you have been getting on how much do you ow as of today now ? it was 100k when i read first post

On the hubby thinking 400 is more than enough i guess 400 is a lot but if you can do more there is no reason not to due to the interest you pay.

Just show him look if we pay £100 more a month we save x amount per year he should see the light then and say look we can travel the world hehe which being mortgage free would free up lots of cash :]

Hi luckyinlife,

When we bought the house in November 2013 we borrowed £104,400, once the latest overpayment is applied we should be on £99,335.14 or there abouts In 17 months.

Hubby understands that extra overpayments will save x amount a year. His argument is that we both want to have our holidays to see the world before we start a family, and do the house up. He says that the problem is that I want to do to many things at once

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

it is quite common for MFWers to start off by wanting to throw everything at the mortgage. Over time, there then seems to be a shift towards striking a balance between OPing and investing for the future.

We're just coming to the end of our first 5 year fix, so I understand your frustration at seeing the tiny changes to your mortgage balance vs the huge sums that leave your bank account. My advice to you would be to play around with the figures.

If you only made your normal payments, what would your balance and LTV be when your fix expires?

How much in total would you need to OP to get your LTV to 80%? To 75%? 70%? 65%? 60%? Each bracket sees mortgage rates become successively more competitive, meaning your debt becomes less expensive.Don't think of it in terms of £400 here, £400 there. Think of it in terms of OPing a total of £X by 2020.

Make sure that you have a good emergency fund behind you as well. Work out your monthly baseline (absolutely unavoidable outgoings). If you were to lose your job tomorrow, how long could you survive? What if the car died during this period? And if your boiler packed in 2 weeks later? Make sure you have a minimum of 3 months, better still 6-12 for peace of mind.

Hi pavlos_dog,

We have....well I have worked out that if we continue with our overpayments we should be on a 75% ltv by the time our 5 year fix (assuming no increase to our house value). Not sure if this is the best ltv to aim for? I guess that's what I need to keep my mind on.

We do not have an emergency fund as such but what we put away each month for the house bills etc more than covers everything so we have built up a spare £2.5k. This is currently planned to be spent on doing the house up - kitchen and painting etc. We also worked out that we wanted a mortgage that we could afford if God forbid one of us lost our jobs. Mortgage advisor did suggest having a bigger monthly repayment amount as we had spare income but the security over paying the bills if there is only one of us working. This is how we are overpaying without much impact on our way of living e.g. nice holidays.

midnight_child

Can you get your overpayments back if you really needed to?
If not would suggest keeping a savings pot. By definition you wont know about emergencies until they occur, and so they wont be budgeted for. Its handy to have some spare cash that hopefully you never need to use.


MC