MFW - Starting my long journey

2Cats

WooHoo!! Am on a roll....£25.23 transfered from Paypal for eB*y sales plus a little Tilly Tidy of £4.49 so today's payment to the Offset is £29.72 bringing the Offset balance to....£9436.08!!

Have more selling/listed on eB*y plus sold another toy on FB for £15 (being collected on Friday) so should have a few more pennies for the OS this weekend!

It's pretty addictive isn't, this overpaying game?!? Even DH, who rolled his eyes when I tried to show him my very exciting spreadsheet (!), is allowing me to Tilly Tidy our main bank account.

Right, off to sort out more things to sell...I will be decluttered by the end of this....

if_at_first...

It is addictive! I am pretty sure when non MSE people come on here they think we are totally insane. They might have a point but I prefer to think that we are all on a mission and we are very dedicated. Nothing wrong with that surely!

Goldiegirl

I worked for a big mortgage lender for many years, up until five years ago.

People who made regular overpayments were quite rare.

I doubt if it's changed, so MFW-ers are the exception rather than the rule.

I think people can't see the bigger picture, and don't realise that even small overpayments can improve the long term situation.

I've no doubt non-MSE people do raise their eyebrows about some of the activities we do on this board - in real life I've learnt to keep quiet about my plans, as even really good friends don't entirely 'get it'

2Cats

Thanks for the replies :beer:
The small payments really help. I worked out that the £29 that I paid into the offset the other day (just ebay & FB sales) will actually save us £18 in interest over the course of the mortgage! Amazing

Tidied up the main current account on Friday as DH was paid :j and transfered another £140.15 into offset....£9576.23 now.

I get paid tomorrow plus I have a few pennies from FB sales so should be able to transfer over about £300 then...creeping up to the £10K slowly!

One thing I have been trying to work out. We can overpay mortgage by 10% every year....is it better to do this or keep it in the offset? We have o/p by 10% this year already but need to have a plan for January...any ideas would be gratefully received!

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi 2Cats, good luck with your activities. It's fab to see the difference OPs make :T

I don't talk to anyone in RL anymore about mortgages as without exception no one agrees. However, I really couldn't give a hoot - I am quite happy paring down the shopping bill, menu planning, selling unwanted stuff as my main desire is to be rid of the debt. People often don't see a mortgage as debt but that's definitely how I look at it.

Best wishes Tilly x

2Cats

Oh dear...it was going too well...bit of a disaster 2 weeks ago...fell and broke my wrist and unable to work/sell on ebay/FB for about 12 weeks :mad: am finger typing as have damaged my writingg wrist.

so annoyed at myself as this affects our summer holiday etc.

on a positive note, with the mortgage payment coming out on the 1st, our balance is £125,915 with the offset at £9,676 and the benefit of this being £132.81. will top up offset to £10K at the weekend

WhiteSnowdrop

Sorry to hear about your wrist, it sounds painful. You are doing so well with your mortgage, we are a few £ behind you but have a similar term left. Keep going and I hope the wrist improves.

WS

2Cats

Well, I'm back . Am very slowly recovering from the wrist break but unfortunately things will be needing to change for me from now on....

what I didn't mention before was that this is my 2nd wrist break (to the same wrist) in the past year. Last time I had 2 operations, this time I have escaped surgery. However, what this means is that I will have to reduce my hours at work from 3 days to 1 day as my work is admin based and my wrist is in a bit of a pickle with the trauma over the past year. :mad::mad:

So my wages (and therefore o/ps) will reduce too...anyway, enough moans and groans...

good news is that I have continued to do my Tilly Tidies and offset is £9888.64 :T:jThis will be £10K by the weekend!! My offset benefit is now £157.25. I'm a little confused though...I think my monthly payment has gone down over the last few months, I think because of the offset benefit??? Can anyone confirm?

With the reduced income, I need to look at ways to save money and my biggest problem is the food shopping. I really need to menu plan and cook / freeze more....need to work out a plan of attack....

2Cats

Well, it certainly has been a long time since my last post....and big changes have been afoot!


So, to give an update as to what has happened; this time last year we move house. Unfortunately, as a result, the mortgage went up (to £170K in October last year) but now stands at £158K thanks to some overpaying and a little inheritance. Our offset balance stands at about £17K but some of that is for fixing up this run-down house we decided to buy!


The house is worth approximately £450K (and will be more once we have finished bringing it into the 21st century) so we have a good LTV.


DH is still not completely onboard but we do pay an extra £153 per month and I try and add as much to the offset as possible in the hope that he will agree to overpay a lump sum when he sees the amount going up in the offset...I live in hope as there are quite a few repairs to do done around the house.


Current mortgage end date is November 2033 but will be earlier as we are overpaying (C*ventry doesn't adjust the date automatically for each overpayment. We can overpaid by 10% each year but each lump sum has to be more than 3 x the monthly payment (rather annoying but that's life).


I currently do not work - I have had all sorts of problems with fractures over the past 2 years but am aiming to set up a little ebay business next year....

2Cats

and in the spirit of increasing the offset balance....I have just done a Tilly Tidy of £2.80!!