Teeny tiny mortgage overpayments?

always29

Having cracked living within our means happily and having next to nothing on credit cards, (not exactly scrimping as we have a couple of expensive hobbies that we're not going to cut back on, ), I've accepted a job offer for all sorts of reasons which is effectively a £300 net pay cut but will make family life a lot easier (commuting times, time spent with the 2 little ones etc). I'd really like to start mortgage overpaying regularly - I've sporadically done some when I've had work bonus payments but they're not going to happen anymore.

We're on a base+1.49% HSBC tracker with no restrictions / minimums on over paying and a current balance of £121,906.65, about 17 years left.

I've done a budget based on new salary which doesn't balance until littlest one starts school in September and childcare costs go from £500 to sub £200 pm. I don't want to set up a regular SO until we're sure we can do this but thinking does anyone have any hints and tips to start little overpayments? Sweeping pennies from the payments in the current accounts or something? Not sure where to start even though it should be easy to come up with ideas I'm flummoxed! Thank you!

bexster1975

Tilly's tidies is a concept from one of the lovely MFWs. This is the sweeping of extra pennies you mention ( rounding down at specific points - daily, weekly, monthly - whatever you want really). As there is no minimum overpayment then I would say check how you can overpay ( I can do it online, immediately but some banks/ BS don't allow this so you may have to go in to branch). If you can do it online I say start NOW! It doesn't matter how much, or how often just start. If you think you could overpay anything you will make inroads into the mortgage. Go on the overpayment calculator in the mortgages section of this website if you need motivation. Or look at your daily mortgage interest rate. That will motivate you.

Good luck, read some of the great diaries here for inspiration.

Bexster:)

always29

Ooh like the idea of looking at the daily interest - it's just shy of £ 7 a day so perhaps aiming for a day a week which is a pound a day is a good place to start. I can do direct overpayments online. Thank you Bexster!

audigex

One thing I liked was the "Spend one save one" tactic someone mentioned

Take your income, subtract your bills and savings (ie house maintenance, or however much you need to feel comfortable with your savings).

After that the rest is presumably fairly disposable. So for every £1 you spend, you move £1 into the overpayment account. Once a week/month etc, you overpay that amount.

Obviously if things are fairly tight and you don't have much disposable income, this doesn't work too well: but otherwise it can be a nice tactic. For every £1 you enjoy, another goes toward securing your future.

always29

audigex, I like the theory but possibly a tad ambitious now, will certainly bear it mind though for future.

Have just remembered husband has an old Roses sweet jar by the bed which gets £100 in it in change before it gets cashed in - I wonder if I can convince him to empty it now and that can be his initial contribution?! Plus we could recycle the jar and that's one less thing to have to dust in the bedroom!

I have just made a lump sum overpayment while still on higher salary of £365 which is a headstart for the year. It will save us £2.5k in interest doing £2 a day which is better than nowt. Baby steps.

Pushkin

Hi & Welcome Always29 - I wish I could even see that age but for me its not so long ago...

Anyway few ideas which you may do or know about but in case not.

Start auditing your regular outgoings, I pay most thing annually now since monthly costs more and I always do thorough research when up for renewal to ensure getting the best cost. Eg. few months ago I changed the tariff on our gas/electricity which reduced the dds by about £30 a month.

Also worth signing up for a cash back site - we just had to buy a new hoover and doing it through that we'll get £20 cash back. Can buy insurance, theatre tickets - loads of things through them.

Lastly - if you have any spare time and access to a computer doing surveys can help earn some money.

Good luck with it all.

always29

Thanks, Pushkin. 29 was also a long while ago for me - would be nice to think I'd be clear of the mortgage by 50 but that's not going to happen unless I double the payments! And some probably!

I already use Quidco and have recently uswitched the gas & electric - although yet to actually have it confirmed from npower, the money from uswitch has already been paid but the new tariff hasn't even started yet! We don't actually buy a lot of stuff online but when I do I do check it through quidco first, I average about £100 a year, just prompted me to check the account and I can see husband got my engagement ring via quidco a few years back!

Cash flow got a bit stuck in December with a holiday balance due, bigger child's birthday and Christmas so I reluctantly put the car tax on monhtly installments, even though I know it costs more. Hopefully I can sort that out this year.

Luckyinlife

Some great advise there
Maby simple thing like having a money jar sealed in the house where only £50p and £1 go i do this a lot and every year theres always 3 digits in there :]

good luck with your challenge

always29

Paid £20 off the mortgage yesterday as I was online paying something else so thought I'd add the mortgage one too!

Still not had the confirmation of the utilities switch from npower nearly 2 months ago and saw that for the 2nd month in a row we're on the new higher payment (£90 instead of £62) so sent email to their complaints team - last time I needed to do that when they mucked around the tariff I got a £25 ex gratia payment so who knows might make a quick quid there!

I've also rejigged childcare vouchers so using some of May & June's payday vouchers towards August fees when I'll be on the first month of the new lower salary. Roll on 12th September - after nearly 5 years of nursery bills, there will be no more

always29

Win some, lose some:
had confirmation this morning of gas / electricity change and dd is now £60 per month from June, with the cheaper tariff backdating to 16th April so that's £30 month saved...offset by letter from nursery yesterday - fees going up from 1st July by £33 per month.

Yorkielass

Welcome to the forum, we're lucky in that we can do a monthly SO overpayment but I also try and do extra bits too - e.g. Feb & March are council tax free months so I pay the council tax onto the mortgage.

The mortgage calculator spreadsheet on here was a huge motivator for me, to see what the differences would be with overpayments. All those little bits and pieces really do make a difference - good luck!