Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst · 22 December 2021 at 9:01AM

Thanks for the Birthday wishes MadVix; it was a lovely day with the fiancé. Nice and chilled but also felt safe which is super important to us.

We had a few more days off which were lovely; was good to have a few days where we had things we wanted to do, but no actual house moves/ large house tasks to sort.

Overpayments are going well at the moment; had another sale on Vinted so £16.99 went to the mortgage yesterday alongside more Prolific funds, cashback from Quidco and Shopmium. We have now sent £72.31 of these little bits and bobs over to the mortgage this month which I’m super pleased, with as it is a very tight belted month for us really with paying for the blinds & Christmas stuffs.

We managed to do our Christmas food shop nice and early before the food shop got busy; used our Tescos card and spent £90 in total which included a few gifts (40th birthday gift for a great friend; £32 for two bottles of booze for him) so not too bad really. We aren’t planning a turkey dinner this year; we got a nice gammon which is in the freezer which we got from a local butchers early December so will cook that with trimmings when (hopefully) my brother stays between Christmas and New Year (if the lockdown doesn’t strike before then!)

All Christmas gifts have been brought now; we have focussed on getting things that will be meaningful or useful for family and friends and have agreed with several friends to arrange something together in the New Year (when the virus hopefully calms down) to spend the money on an experience/ meal/ activity instead. I much prefer this to “stuff” really

Kittenkirst · 22 December 2021 at 1:06PM

Also, is anyone else watching the new series of The Witcher? I’m watching an episode each lunchtime and loving it- so mystical & magical!!

VelvetFreak · 22 December 2021 at 1:33PM

Happy belated birthday! We must almost be birthday twins!
I'm not watching The Witcher, but I wonder if I'd like it. Is it scary?
I heard an ad today for this podcast/movie called Ghostwriter. I'm guessing it's kind of a listen-only movie, if that makes any sense at all - very descriptive so you can visualise it all in your mind, moreso than a regular audiobook. It sounds like a bit of a scary thriller, I wouldn't listen to it by myself but it seems like something that would be fun to listen to with someone else during a long car or train journey.
https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/kata-mara-adam-scott-ghostwriter-podcast-movie-1235065750/

I wish I didn't get so easily freaked out lol!

Kittenkirst · 22 December 2021 at 2:06PM

Oooh thanks for sharing; that sounds like something id like- I do love all things spooky & haunting. & a very Happy birthday to you too @VelvetFreak

The Witcher is more a fantasy show; its based on a book series and is full of elves, witches and some monsters etc. Its a good watch i am finding- nice to watch something that isn’t covid news or crime dramas for a change

Jessy103 · 24 December 2021 at 8:41AM

Happy belated birthday! 🎂

We've just finished season 2 of The Witcher and loved it! Such a good story and I may have a little crush on Henry Cavill! 😂

Kittenkirst · 24 December 2021 at 8:47AM

How on Earth is it Christmas Eve already? The last few months have simply flown by!

I finish work at lunchtime today, and the plan is then to wrap the few presents we will gift tomorrow (Fiance and her parents), then wrap the other family presents to gift next week when he (hopefully) go to see them!

Really looking forward to a week off work and just staying home and seeing key family members (my brother for example).

We are having an Indian veggie meal tomorrow with fiancés parents, so we will go round before lunch and cook all together, eat, tidy up and then come home to relax. We are planning to cook a lovely roast gammon when we see my brother; will do a roast with the trimmings then; we got the gammon at a local butchers at the start of the month and really looking forward to it.

We got paid yesterday- as expected for me, was a surprise for Fiance who thought it would clear next week; so we’ve both paid into the Bills account, then moved money to the cat savings (£40 starting from scratch again on that following his numerous vet trips this year!) and a token mortgage OP of £48.46 which would act to round up our monthly payment to £1200.

Overpayments this year have been a big focus, even with selling the house; when we were waiting for the sale to complete every penny went at the mortgage to increase our end equity; when we were house-less and staying with our in-laws we put all survey monies, excess cash etc into the bank ready to overpay when we finally completed, and Ive been stashing small cash amounts over to the new mortgage too. This has all meant we finished on the best total we’ve ever done.

2021 Overpayments to the mortgage: £6,753.97

Which doesn’t include those bulky payments we sent to the new mortgage in September that were left in the equity savings

Super pleased with this total.

This means our starting mortgage on 9/9/2021 was £309,499.
We then sent £5994 of the equity savings over to the mortgage straight away.
With the standard monthly payment, interest, equity and overpayments the balance today (including the daily interest up to yesterday) is £301,082.58.

Main goals for 2022 are to:

1. Build back up the emergency savings- with everything else planned I think it will be ambitious to save £1500 back up but going to aim for this.

2. Build up the cat savings pot to £520 by the end of the year (fingers crossed he needs no treatments or scans again this year)

3. Pay for our Paris and Cyprus trips in full

4. Clear £1000 from the joint credit card (which is on 0% for a further 17 months, but needs clearing in that time. This has been used for many of the extra house purchases rather than using our savings).

5. End the mortgage on £290,000; our interest is just over £500 a month so this will need us to pay circa £200 per month in overpayments which looking at the plans for next year will be a big stretch.

6. Get a new (to me) car at the end of the year!

Lots to get sorted into the New Year and we also need to start planning our wedding; this may derail some savings plans once we start talking about what we want and how we are going to do it. Eeeek!

Kittenkirst · 24 December 2021 at 9:27AM

Merry Christmas all!

Kittenkirst · 24 December 2021 at 9:35AM

@Jessy103 He is rather dishy in it isn’t he! Definitely easy on the eye

Ive finished it now too as got very into it so binged it the other night to get it finished. Now looking forward to the next season to see where it goes, what did you think to the surprise reveal at the end of the Emperor?