FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

RosieTiger

FB, do you find the Amex card a bit of a struggle on payments? We used it for the initial high period of cashback, but don't like the payment methods as it certainly did not seem as simple as Egg.
Can you pay them at any time in the month??

financialbliss

RosieTiger wrote: »

FB, do you find the Amex card a bit of a struggle on payments? We used it for the initial high period of cashback, but don't like the payment methods as it certainly did not seem as simple as Egg.
Can you pay them at any time in the month??

Hi RosieTiger,
Amex card is ok for payments (now). I remember that initially, I couldn't find the option to make a debit card payment, but now that I've used that option, I'm finding it ok. I normally pay the card 3 days before the payment is due. I know I should set up a regular direct debit, but I like to be in control of when the account is going to be paid, so manage this manually.

Amex also require a minimum 5% of the balance to be repaid, but as we're using this as a cash back card, we pay off in full each month. I believe you can pay them at any point.

FB.

financialbliss

Not very often that I'm stuck!

Really struggling to map out mortgage payments and overpayments for 2011. Got just 3 months / payments remaining on our fix of 4.79% at Nationwide, ie January, February and March.

Guess I have the opportunity to:

• Drop onto Nationwide standard variable @ 2.5%
• Take out another fix/tracker with Nationwide
• Take out another fix/tracker with another mortgage provider
• Remortgage to variable rate with another mortgage provider

Haven't researched these in full just yet. Was intending to make an appointment with Nationwide to see what options they set out for us, but I'm quite tempted by their base mortgage rate of 2.5%, which I suspect I'd drop onto once the fix expires.

Another issue to factor into mortgage planning is the BoE base rate and the fact it's been at half of one percent for almost two years. Can't see it staying that low for too much longer and I expect it to start moving upwards in 2011.

So, in the interim between January to March, I've just set up an overpayment with Nationwide of £70.67 to top up the mortgage payment of £929.33 to a round £1,000.00 per month.

Come 31st March 2011, unless I've made any further payments, the mortgage should be £30,675.

From April onwards, I'm not sure where I go?

I'm in the 2011 MFW challenge and also need to post an objective.

Soon as I've worked something out, I'll post here!

FB.

financialbliss

New Year's Eve already. Is it just me or did this year fly by?

Last day of month means mortgage interest stats. December also means a year end value and starting value for 2011. Here's what happened in 2010:

Opening Balance: 48,499.96
Opening Nationwide completion date: December 2014

Overpayments in Blue.
Interest in Red.
Balance in Green.

Month: Payment (Std / OP) / Interest (day) / Net reduction / Balance / Nationwide completion

January: 1,398.03 (898.03 / 500.00) / 191.83 (6.19) / 1,206.20 / 47,293.76 / Oct 2014
February: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 168.71 (6.03) / 1,260.62 / 46,033.14 / Sep 2014
March: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 181.65 (5.86) / 1,247.68 / 44,785.46 / Sep 2014
April: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 170.88 (5.70) / 1,258.44 / 43,527.01 / Aug 2014
May: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 171.45 (5.53) / 1,257.88 / 42,125.21 / Aug 2014
June: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 160.98 (5.37) / 1,268.35 / 41,000.78 / Jul 2014
July: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 161.17 (5.20) / 1,268.16 / 39,732.62 / Jul 2014
August: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 156.20 (5.04) / 1,273.13 / 38,459.49 / Jun 2014
September: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 145.97 (4.87) / 1,283.36 / 37,176.13 / Jun 2014
October: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 145.62 (4.70) / 1,283.71 / 35,892.42 / May 2014
November: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 135.87 (4.53) / 1,293.46 / 34,598.96 / Apr 2014
December: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 135.12 (4.36) / 1,294.21 / 33,304.75 / Mar 2014


Totals: Payment / Interest / Net reduction.

Minimum: 1,398.03 / 135.87 / 1,206.20
Maximum: 1,429.33 / 191.83 / 1,293.46
Average: 1,426.72 / 162.76 / 1,263.73
Grand Total: 17,120.66 / 1,925.45 / 15,195.21

Balance outstanding: 33,304.75
Closing Nationwide completion date: March 2014

Thus, total interest in 2010 of £1,925.45, which compares to £2,558.46 in 2009, ie £633.01 less in interest.

Pretty pleased with that, but still have a lot to achieve in 2011 and 2012 to hit the December 2012 date.

Financial Bliss.

gerbiljo

Ooh your stats are great, I want to do this but not sure if I can find the time.....

RosieTiger

It's great to see the completion date tumbling too! Great way to do the stats.

financialbliss

gerbiljo wrote: »

Ooh your stats are great, I want to do this but not sure if I can find the time.....

@gerbiljo,

The mortgage stats are very easy to do - most of the data is copied from one of the many spreadsheets I use to do analysis.

This morning the mortgage is showing a starting balance of £33,304.75 and a charge of £4.37 in interest with an outstanding balance of £33,309.12

The only "issue" with Nationwide (my mortgage provider) is that they lump all of the interest for the year into one value, but taking this at the end of each month, I'm able to subtract the year to date value to get the interest for the current month and then divide by the days in the month to get the daily interest.

Logging the interest monthly gives me the ability to produce the monthly data - I already know the year starting value and payments made, so I can then use the monthly interest calculations to determine a balance after each month.

FB.

JonnyBravo

financialbliss wrote: »

Guess I have the opportunity to:

• Drop onto Nationwide standard variable @ 2.5%
• Take out another fix/tracker with Nationwide
• Take out another fix/tracker with another mortgage provider
• Remortgage to variable rate with another mortgage provider

Just thought I'd drop by the original and best diary to wish you Happy New Year.
(sorry to the others, but I'm a bloke and can only commit to keeping up with one )

Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Go for the 2.5%.
Sure there's a while before you need to make a decision, and the situation might change, but if the cuts really do slow down the recovery it is possible we see the rate staying this low all year.

All the while you'll be paying down at a greater rate.
The thing you need to bear in mind (if you want to consider other options, or about how to keep your options open) are minimum lending requirements.
£25k and £30k are often the limits and you're nearly there. Factor in the cost limitations (you'll be needing a low fee/initial cost mortgage due to the small sum involved) and the number of options open to you is going to be small and shrinking the longer you leave it.

It's a great "problem" to have though. :cool:

golfiematt

i have a nationwide mortgage and i take the balance on day 1, then log in the next day. take the first balance from the 2nd which is an easy way of getting the daily interest.Hope this seems clear!!! i too would gamble on the svr as all being well you wont have your mortgage long enough to be affected by the rate rise too much

financialbliss

JonnyBravo wrote: »

[/LIST]
Just thought I'd drop by the original and best diary to wish you Happy New Year.
(sorry to the others, but I'm a bloke and can only commit to keeping up with one )

Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Go for the 2.5%.
Sure there's a while before you need to make a decision, and the situation might change, but if the cuts really do slow down the recovery it is possible we see the rate staying this low all year.

It's a great "problem" to have though. :cool:

Hi JonnyBravo - thanks for the kind comments!

Note that I've no loyalty to Nationwide - I'm intending to speak to them in the next week or so to arrange an in branch chat with a mortgage advisor.

My thinking is that if I see what they can offer / confirm that if I take no action I'll drop onto their Base Mortgage Rate (BMR) of 2.5%, I can then look at other lenders (or not).

It appears that the Nationwide minimum borrowing limit is £25,000 - our loan to value is only 13% so pretty much no risk to lenders there, but suspect that won't get us a better deal than a LTV of 60%

Quick look at Nationwide mortgage shows they are offering:

2 year fix - 3.39% with £995 fee :eek:
2 year fix - 3.79% with no fee
3 year fix - 4.09% with no fee

Trouble is that if I take out another Nationwide product, I revert to their Standard Variable Rate which is currently 3.99% and has no ceiling value, unlike their BMR which has a 2% above BoE base rate cap.

As mentioned, for once it could be a nice problem...

FB.