Would love to be mortgage free ...

Singlespeeder

Hi all,
we've been in our house for 20 years ..... but kids, caravans, house extensions, life generally has stopped us from paying off the mortgage.
We are on an excellent mortgage rate at the moment, couldn't possibly beat it I doubt, 0.79% tracker for life.....

I think we owe about £65,000 as of now. It's coming down .... was £88K in 2011 ....

Repayments are fairly low, £440 pcm. I guess making overpayments is the way forward.

Concerted effort from now on I think....

Pushkin

Hi SS - welcome, I'm a pretty new contributor here myself but am fascinated and inspired by the other diarists. We similar to yourselves are on a pretty good mortgage rate although our outstanding balance is higher (c just under £120k). We have just increased the over payments to £500 per month and it was such a good feeling knowing that had gone out this morning. I will read your diary with interest.

black_taxi_2

I had same thoughts as you 5 years ago

main thing is avoid bank loans

and you will sail thru

g/l

catshark88

If you have the desire to pay it off early and the commitment to stick to your plans, then you will get it down in no time.

Good luck!

Singlespeeder

Would I be better to make OP's as soon as I have the money rather than trying to accumulate a larger chunk? I guess as my mortgage % is very low, if I could get more interest somewhere else, maybe an ISA for example it may be more efficient to save in an ISA an pay off a chunk This wouldn't be as satisfying in the short term though.

Pushkin

Singlespeeder wrote: »

Would I be better to make OP's as soon as I have the money rather than trying to accumulate a larger chunk? I guess as my mortgage % is very low, if I could get more interest somewhere else, maybe an ISA for example it may be more efficient to save in an ISA an pay off a chunk This wouldn't be as satisfying in the short term though.

This is our constant dilemma and I think it's personal preference, we have chosen to over pay the mortgage, yes we could get better interest if that money went into savings but psychologically I feel better knowing the mortgage is going down and I worry I'll have a moment of weakness 6 months from now and book a world cruise or something ridiculous - can't do that if the money goes on overpaying the mort rather than saving but many would say (my father included) that we are foolish as we could be earning better interest.

Miss_Moneysaver

Hi,


We owe around £65K on ours (sig needs updating as we have paid another payment since). Interest rate is 1.25%
Our monthly payments are £727.11 and it is due to be paid in the next 8 years BUT (a) we have a 25 year endowment due to mature in March 17 that we can use against it and (b) we overpay to take payments to £10K a year (we have only just started doing this).
I am hoping to pay mine off within the next 4-5 years :-)

Singlespeeder

We've had the Annual Mortgage Statement through....
Gone from £69,023.57 last October to £64,281.04 now
Loving the 0.79% Interest rate

We have a windfall coming (hopefully) which should allow us to clear a couple of debts and pay £10,000 off the mortgage ! This would take us to £54k and seeing that I pay about £5k a year off, this time next year we should be below the magical £50,000 mark.

I've not been working since July (IT Contractor, have the occasional dry spell), But have secured a new contract fairly locally so things should get back on track.

Making a concerted effort to hit the mortgage as hard as we can.

Hurdler

Singlespeeder wrote: »

Would I be better to make OP's as soon as I have the money rather than trying to accumulate a larger chunk? I guess as my mortgage % is very low, if I could get more interest somewhere else, maybe an ISA for example it may be more efficient to save in an ISA an pay off a chunk This wouldn't be as satisfying in the short term though.

Agree it's personal - for example I know if I make a payment over 3x my mortgage amount (so I usually do 3x plus the month's estimated interest) it will trigger this as a part-repayment and will reduce my monthly amount while keeping the term the same.

I was fortunate enough to be using a decent batch of contract work to allow me to do that but the money from that has now dried up and things need doing around the house, to the car etc, so now I have the same dilemma. I think I will try and amass enough to knock the amount down when I can. If the expected rate rises next year make that hard to do, then I might go back to just overpayments and then take whatever they reduce the sum to at the end of each year.

Singlespeeder

Hurdler wrote: »

Agree it's personal - for example I know if I make a payment over 3x my mortgage amount (so I usually do 3x plus the month's estimated interest) it will trigger this as a part-repayment and will reduce my monthly amount while keeping the term the same.

I was fortunate enough to be using a decent batch of contract work to allow me to do that but the money from that has now dried up and things need doing around the house, to the car etc, so now I have the same dilemma. I think I will try and amass enough to knock the amount down when I can. If the expected rate rises next year make that hard to do, then I might go back to just overpayments and then take whatever they reduce the sum to at the end of each year.

My mortgage interest is 0.79% .... If I put the £10,000 into a Cov Building Society NISA for 5 years @ 2.6% the used it to pay off the mortgage in 5 years, presumably it'd be a larger amount paid off (?)

My monthly payments are around £440.00 and I also plan to pay another £200 or so off each month on top of the £10K....

Exciting times

tootallulah

I think it really depends what kind of person you are. If you are a good saver then go for the higher interest saving rate, give yourself a deadline and save to meet that deadline. But if you are a bill payer more than a saver (as I am) then just keep shoveling money off the mortgage directly and watch that go down. I move both large and small amounts plus make a regular monthly overpayment.