MF in 10 - no ifs buts or maybes

chelseablue

Hi MIB


Cant believe I haven't come across your diary before! As you can see we started at similar amounts; my mortgage started at a very scary £231,000 (the joys of living in the SE)


We only bought the house in February this year and there's work to be done on it, but mainly cosmetic thank God.


The plan is to over pay by £300 a month, but it's not looking likely for May as we had to have work done on the chimney last week that cost £370.


Good luck!

Maybe_its_because

Good to hear from you chelseablue

That's great you're starting the OPing so early in the mortgage. We didn't op til Y3 as we spent all our money on home improvements, furnishing the house and paying off our wedding expenditure.
You should be patting yourselves on the back at getting started from the get-go

MIB x

chelseablue

Oh we need to do all that too :rotfl:


Every room needs redecorating, needs new flooring upstairs and we need to furnish every room.
Looking like no overpayment in May as we had some work on the chimney last week that cost £370 :-/

Maybe_its_because

Quick update on June's activity.

the good
- we stuck to our budgets this month despite a trip away and 2 meals out
- I have registered to do some temping work. no offers yet but some interest
- v1rg1n media package has gone up and up so a quick phone call has saved us £20 a month
- according to zoopla (and taking it as overly generous) we "own" half our house. That was originally a target for the middle of 2018

the bad
- car insurance up by in excess of £100 even with TCB and comparison sites
- no savings made
- had to withdraw payment from BoMaD loan (with permission) for a while as we've childcare to pay for soon for DD1 once baby is born
- holiday fund isn't quite enough for the holiday next month due to euro rate changes so I see us taking the shortfall from savings

the ugly
- I've (almost completely) decided to put my BTL on the market. it hasn't increased in value over the last 5 years, I'm not making significant income from it to warrant the hassle and a fixed rate mortgage deal is coming to an end. There's between £20-30k capital in it which would work much harder taken off our mortgage. As a selling window and rental contract clauses, I either sell now or in 6 months. I am concerned the mortgage company will get twitchy knowing I'm not working and demand more meticulous repayment plans.

We'll see how that all goes.

Hopefully a small OP this month of a mere £30 but better than nothing I guess. Slightly under target for MFW16 but still on target for MFi3-4 challenge

MIB x

Maybe_its_because

Update time

June OP = £60
July OP = £46

We've stuck to budgets with a mere £12 to last til Sunday. Here's hoping!

Decided not to sell Btl house yet. There's 2 on the same street currently on the market and both have been reduced over the last couple of weeks. Will revisit in January.

Got a few weeks PT temp job with a local company. Not much wage-wise but looking to clear £100 per week.
Opd my first (part) weekly pay (£46) but not sure about this week or nexts.... We still have our holiday money to make up (going in 3 weeks).

Closed the Sant123 CC as it was about to cost us a fiver a month and the benefits don't cover that.
OH is very chuffed as he's just been approved for his own CC from Hal1fx. It's his first ever independent credit after years of a rubbish rating (mostly due to being an EU national with no consistency of address/voting registration etc) how things have changed for him.
That card will help with our trips over to see his folks, our holiday and probably our oyster auto top ups. All paid off every month of course.

Still no word from Acc0rd or Leed5 BS re our next lot of mortgage rate offers for our home or the BTL. Waiting with baited breath!

Finally, we're nicely on track (green) with the MFiT challenge and just slightly behind (yellow) with the MFW16 challenge which is way better than I imagined as the targets were set with me bringing in my old salary.

This week's job is to get the draft of my tax return done. Urgh!!
That, and starting to decorate the spare room in anticipation of 2nd child's arrival in 3 months time.

MIB x

Maybe_its_because

another update needed. Visit here often but only for viewing; posting requires two hands which I don't have available at the mo with a 2 year old and another one due in the next week or two.

so OPs have continues albeit minor...
Aug = £206
Sept = £30
Oct = £30

we did have the capacity to pay a little more but have kept it in the Santander account making some interest while a decent rate is still on offer.

The mortgage balance as of 1st October is £201,235 which means with this month's payment and one next month we will hit the less than £200k mark by the time the new mortgage starts on 30th November :j:j
The MFW2016 target has taken a beating and we have no chance of reaching it but am making my peace with the "slipping" status on the spreadsheet.

We have done some spending over the Summer, mostly on a holiday - paid for by my temping work over the school holidays. so no need to use any savings for that. Pleased about that.
we've also redecorated and bought some things for new baby in anticipation of his or her arrival. Lots from our LO can be reused though so am not going over the top.

The BTL new mortgage rate was pretty rubbish. They would only offer a new deal against a less LTV than we have (they offered us lots of 60% deals but we're currently at 70%) I know its to encourage us to pay off some of the capital but am not ready to use our savings for that just yet. Subsequently the payment has gone up £60 a month.
An independent mortgage advisor found us a good deal but with a £2k fee which, again I wasn't prepared to shell out. so the plan is to put it up for sale after Christmas and target BTL landlords purchases and use the current properties on the estate as a bargaining tool to negotiate how good a deal I'll be offering (a £15k less asking price possibly)

Our remortgage offer for our own house hasn't yet come through. But I've done plenty of research. We could go for a new deal via the IMA but I don't think the deal they found is competitive enough against our Acc0rd deal to warrant changing it.
the good news is it will go down and the other good news is that OH can borrow the mortgage value on his own rather than not worry about my lack of income. I was losing sleep over that.

everything else is ticking along nicely. Shopping at Aldi is working out moreorless with a few top ups.

MIB x

Maybe_its_because

Maybe_its_because wrote: »

• Be under £200k when our current fixed rate is up in Nov 2016 Achieved Nov 2016
• Have 50% LTV by Jul 2018 Achieved Oct 2016
• Be under £125k by OH's 40th in Nov 2021
• Be mortgage free before DD is in secondary school in Sept 2025

So the main plan is to be Mortgage free in 10 years taking 12 years off the original date

Quick recap of those targets as we've reached the first deadline.
We now have a mortgage balance of £199,936. :T:T:T
so happy to have reached that goal despite halving our income over the last 12 months and doubling the number of children in recent weeks

Our house has also been valued as part of the remortgage process as £412,000 (I think that's conservative) but means we own over half the house. :T:T
Acc0rd have offered us a 1.39% deal starting December 2016 which cuts our monthly payment by almost £100. Id like to commit to OPing that £100 but OH has been left a bit short in recent months and struggled to keep in the black towards the end of the month. I have no control over it (nor do I want it, its his account and he's a grown up!) I do feel bad that he is the one working hard for our money and he feels like he is making more sacrifices than I am (he doesn't begrudge it but I'm not happy about that imbalance against him - work/life balance etc)

In other news OH went for a new job which would have seen significant changes - moving out of London, selling our home, getting rid of our mortgage. The job was however not worth the upheaval for our family especially with a tiny baby and a toddler so we're staying put for now.

The challenge for this month is to try not to buy too much baby junk for our DD2 now she has arrived. Poor little thing is making do with hand me downs.

MIB x

Kittenkirst

Congratulations on your new arrival!
Also fantastic work with hitting your target

EatingTheElephant

Congratulations on your DD2's arrival and on hitting two of your targets

Maybe_its_because

Maybe_its_because wrote: »

Targets for 2016

• Joined the MFiT (4) challenge. Reduce from £209k to £174k still ongoing
• Joined the MFW 2016 challenge. Make £5k of OPs didnt achieve but managed £2900
• Make positive steps to improving my work situation. Stay with the new boss or find another job?left work altogether!! Received a payoff and did some temp work over the summer. Otherwise fully reliant on OH's income
• Spend more time with the family and share our DD with her GPs and extended family more (without spending too much ££ travelling) done!!! Difficult pregnancy and two kids means I've rarely been on my own since Easter! Lots of family visits
• Be brave and approach the nursery/childcare arrangements for DD HAD to do this when I became very pregnant. found a lovely place and DD has settled in beautiful. Childcare vouchers up and running .
• Keep on track with spreadsheet. Do at least 2 A1di weekly shops per monthpoor spreadsheet management as i don't get time to sit at the computer but manage to struggle every couple of weeks to catch up. Could do better. Almost all our shopping is now in A1d1 with one brand top up every month
• Pick up the NSD challenges again didnt do this at all - must try harder
• Broach the subject of a possible 2nd child - eek! DD arrived November!!!

MIB x

Revisiting these challenges before creating new ones for 2017