FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

financialbliss wrote: »

May be worth an email to Nationwide to check to see if I can action a payment sooner.

Is is bad forum etiquette to quote one's self?

Anyway, I've logged in to Nationwide and fired off an email regarding the various ways to overpay a Nationwide mortgage, plus I also threw a FPs question into the mix. They report that they "aim to reply" within two working days. Anyone for a reply on Friday or next week then? :rolleyes:

Queen-Bee wrote: »

Hi FB - I can completely relate to your observations re Nationwide and Faster Payments.

I raised a query with NW who told me that although it takes a few days to appear on the account, the interest is adjusted to the day it comes in (ie if you use Faster Payments, at once).

Just to make sure, because the first person I talked to told me something different, I've asked for a detailed statement wef 1st November...
QB

QB. While I'd rate the Nationwide fixed mortgage well, flexible overpayments, daily interest, payment holidays etc, other areas of their business appear to be going downhill, or at least not improving. Why it's taking them so long to implement faster payments, I do not know.

FB.

financialbliss

Normally I'll take the meter readings on the first of the month, enter into the Scottish Power website and report back values. I did this today, so here's now it's looking for January to October:

Electric (Units / Cost):

• January: 331 / 36.04
• February: 313 / 33.77
• March: 295 / 32.90
• April: 268 / 30.31
• May: 251 / 29.05
• June: 239 / 27.78
• July: 209 / 25.39
• August: 258 / 29.66
• September: 275 / 30.09
• October: 316 / 34.18

Gas (Units / Cost):

• January: 65 / 68.22
• February: 55 / 57.53
• March: 42 / 45.49
• April: 23 / 27.34
• May: 14 / 19.07
• June: 9 / 14.23
• July: 6 / 11.59
• August: 8 / 13.38
• September: 10 / 14.51
• October: 21 / 27.53

Total, ie Electric and Gas (Units / Cost / Balance)

• January: 396 / 104.26 / 22.75
• February: 368 / 91.31 / 8.45
• March: 337 / 78.39 / 7.06
• April: 291 / 57.65 / 26.41
• May: 265 / 48.12 / 47.29
• June: 248 / 42.01 / 74.28
• July: 215 / 36.98 / 106.30
• August: 266 / 43.04 / 132.26
• September: 285 / 44.60 / 156.66
• October: 337 / 61.71 / 156.95

As we were in credit by £156.66 in September, I emailed Scottish Power and they kindly reduced our direct debit from £69.00 a month to £62.00 a month. But as the costs came in at £61.71 for October, we only added to the credit balance by just 29p.

We doubled our gas usage in October compared to September. :eek: Suspect the next three to four months will start eating into the credit balance.

FB.

financialbliss

Mortgage. After the event, I've been re-examining the mortgage transactions, ie standard and overpayment.

The overpayment transaction date was Mon 2nd, but shows a withdrawal date of 1st Nov.

The standard payment transaction date was Mon 2nd.

Neither have cleared to the mortgage account despite leaving nationwide current account.

Will be sub-50k when these clear. Hoping for tomorrow now. :j

Breakdown cover. Took this out back in July with Green Flag. Transaction didn't track via Quidco and I was told to wait a full 90 days before making an enquiry. We're now way past the 90 days, and I've just placed an earnings enquiry with Quidco. Will hopefully get £25 back, taking the breakdown cover from £70.35 to £45.35 for 12 month recovery plus cover.

Financial Bliss.

financialbliss

So, I was just reading this "House prices rise another 1.2%" article from BBC news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8340149.stm

and thought - has this been reflected in the sites that publish HPI data The site I use has now been updated for October. Here's now it looks year to date for us:

2008 year end house value: 232,022.54

Month: Change / Value / LTV

January: 1,990.83 / 234,013.37 / 24.94%
February: 859.68 / 233,153.69 / 24.63%
March: 3,167.24 / 229,986.45 / 24.65%
April: 135.73 / 230,122.18 / 24.20%
May: 5,474.79 / 235,596.97 / 23.29%
June: 3,031.50 / 232,565.47 / 23.18%
July: 2,760.01 / 235,325.48 / 22.55%
August: 1,809.84 / 237,135.32 / 22.12%
September: 4,253.14 / 241,388.46 / 21.28%
October: 859.67 / 242,248.13 / 20.83%

A modest increase of £859 for October, but combined with the continued reduction in the mortgage, that makes our loan to value (LTV) at just 20.83%

Fourth month in a row where there has been a rise and that's over £10k theoretical increase year to date. Surely we're not going to go back to rampant property prices again?

FB.

SmlSave

Surely we're not going to go back to rampant property prices again?

I very much doubt so FB. Although I'd be very happy if the prices could go crazy over Christmas and through to March so that my LTV% would look good to remortgage

Any news from Quidco on your breakdown cover?

financialbliss

Hi to everyone who follows this diary. I’m a happy bunny today for 4 reasons:

One. The November mortgage payments have now cleared. Mortgage today stands at £49,492.95 Even with interest added for November, it’s not going to exceed the £50k mark again.

Two. Year to date, we have paid £12,200 to the mortgage and with year to date mortgage interest at £2,195.92, we have reduced the mortgage by a net of £10,007.05 so far this year. This net reduction will drop below £10k in the next few days as interest is added, but considering we only reduced the mortgage by £10,153.22 in 2008, we’re going to better that in 2009. :D

Three. Despite only being a few days into November, I’ve worked out our daily interest so far at £6.55 meaning 30 x £6.55 - our interest for November will be a maximum of £196.50 ie below £200.00. :D:D

Four. After pondering over upping the amount thrown to the mortgage, I’m going to up to £1,100 a month permanently. I’ll quantify that in a separate post but not this evening. However, this adjusts our previous estimate of being mortgage free in August 2014 forward to March 2014. :D:D:D

Off to update / upload charts to photobucket, post #1 and update signature.

Financial Bliss.

gallygirl

financialbliss wrote: »

Hi to everyone who follows this diary. I’m a happy bunny today for 4 reasons:

One. The November mortgage payments have now cleared. Mortgage today stands at £49,492.95 Even with interest added for November, it’s not going to exceed the £50k mark again. .

:T

financialbliss wrote: »

Two. Year to date, we have paid £12,200 to the mortgage and with year to date mortgage interest at £2,195.92, we have reduced the mortgage by a net of £10,007.05 so far this year. This net reduction will drop below £10k in the next few days as interest is added, but considering we only reduced the mortgage by £10,153.22 in 2008, we’re going to better that in 2009. :D

:T

financialbliss wrote: »

Three. Despite only being a few days into November, I’ve worked out our daily interest so far at £6.55 meaning 30 x £6.55 - our interest for November will be a maximum of £196.50 ie below £200.00. :D:D

:T

financialbliss wrote: »

Four. After pondering over upping the amount thrown to the mortgage, I’m going to up to £1,100 a month permanently. I’ll quantify that in a separate post but not this evening. However, this adjusts our previous estimate of being mortgage free in August 2014 forward to March 2014. :D:D:D

Financial Bliss.

:T

Well done FB

setmefree2

financialbliss wrote: »

One. The November mortgage payments have now cleared. Mortgage today stands at £49,492.95 Even with interest added for November, it’s not going to exceed the £50k mark again.

:T:T:T That really is a fantastic milestone

financialbliss

First Thursday of the month - base rate setting day.

Bank of England held base rate at 0.5% this month - eighth month in a row it's remained at 0.5%:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8344189.stm

Still very unsure how this will affect me. We're fixed until March 2011, and I've read contradicting reports that the base rate will stay at 0.5% throughout 2010 to base rate back to 2.0% - 3.0% by the end of 2010.

FB.

evab_2

Well done on being sub 50k, a great achievement!