The Challenge Begins...

GregH

A long time lurker on here but not an active DFW, until now...

My wife, (31, full time accounts assistant) and i (32, self employed electrician) have had the offer accepted on a house and we are currently waiting for mortgage confirmation, pending the valuation survey, which is happening tomorrow. Barring any drastic changes in our circumstances, we don't anticipate moving again.

Our new Mortgage is for £255,000 over 30 years :eek:. This is 85% LTV.

With our previous mortgage we regularly overpaid by at least £10 a month, not much and looking back now wishing we had paid more, but every little helps. When i worked for my previous company i was fortunate enough to get some large bonuses that i paid straight into the mortgage.

This new house is going to stretch our finances for the foreseeable future but we would still like to overpay where possible and the excellent locoblade spreadsheet, highlights the results of overpaying brilliantly! Having been self employed for 2 years now, we have gone through some lean times but the company is now on a good path and returning healthy profits, I'm hoping that we can withdraw some reasonable lump sums from it in the future and put towards the mortgage, as well as making small regular payments from income of surveys and ebay sales etc.

I will update my signature to reflect our situation when everything is confirmed.

Won't be on here everyday as i'm self employed and have a new house to pay for but i will be checking in regularly and reading the other threads to keep us motivated and dedicated to our cause.

Thanks for reading and any support/advice will be gratefully received.

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

Welcome Greg and good luck. It's great that you have found your forever home I will keep my fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly. All over payments make an impact whatever the size. I will be looking forward to reading your journey.

abouttimetoo

Welcome to the board Greg as well as congratulations on being DF and the new house

As Rachel says, every OP is a good one so look forward to seeing your progress

Good luck with the house move

Regards
ATT

LydiaJ

Welcome Greg. :hello:

I think putting your bonuses towards your mortgage was just as important a strategy for your MFW journey as your regular payments, so well done for doing that. If you'd frittered those bonuses away, you wouldn't have been able to buy the house you're buying now.

Good luck.

GregH

Thanks for your kind replies.

I'm amazed at how quick our mortgage company is moving. The mortgage valuation was done on Monday, the online tracker was updated to say they had received the report yesterday morning and we have received a hard copy in the post today!

I have completed a few onepoll and valued opinion surveys this week, also had a quidco payout for some insurance quotes i received. This will all go into the mortgage.

Have just sold an expensive laptop bag on ebay that i was given a while ago but has been gathering dust. Using the proceeds of this on some very cheap, second hand, office furniture for the new house.

GregH

I did say that i would come through regularly, but it has now been 8 months, time flies...

We moved into the new house in the middle of May and spent the next 2 months decorating every room, this coupled with an increased work load means that i have had little time for surveys, although Quidco has been giving us a healthy return from purchases for the new house.

We are still overpaying the mortgage every month and Zoopla shows the house value has increased by apprx £25k since we bought it in May. I know this is only a guide but we plan on having the estate agent visit us in the near future to give us a more accurate price, expecially with the work we have done on the place it would be good to know if we have added any value.

Hopefully i will be able to come through here a bit more often! Happy New Year!