FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

Lynn11

Financial bliss - can I ask a question please,

We also have a nationwide 3 yr fixed capital/interest mortgage which expires end May 2009. In the first yr we managed to repay £1050 over and above the stated monthly amount. 2nd managed to repay £2700 and 3rd yr will be £4100 until Dec 08. You keep on mentioning that you know your current balance, do you have to apply for this online as I usually have to wait for my statement in January. Do they realter the term of the mortgage if you have been making the overpayments, I thought that I was ok with figures but you guys seem to know a hectic of a lot more - can you explain please.

financialbliss

Lynn11 wrote: »

Financial bliss - can I ask a question please,

We also have a nationwide 3 yr fixed capital/interest mortgage which expires end May 2009. In the first yr we managed to repay £1050 over and above the stated monthly amount. 2nd managed to repay £2700 and 3rd yr will be £4100 until Dec 08. You keep on mentioning that you know your current balance, do you have to apply for this online as I usually have to wait for my statement in January. Do they realter the term of the mortgage if you have been making the overpayments, I thought that I was ok with figures but you guys seem to know a hectic of a lot more - can you explain please.

Hi lynn11,

Hello and welcome to the mortgage free forums. Never a problem answering questions, well that is if I know the answer.

There's a link on the Nationwide home page to register for internet banking:
http://www.nationwide.co.uk/default.htm

I signed up for internet banking with them years ago, so I'm not 100% sure of the exact procedure involved any more. You may have to wait until a customer number is sent via post.

Anyway, once you login to internet banking, you get to view accounts in groups - banking (current accounts), savings and mortgages.

I've just logged in as I type this, so if I click into my mortgage account, I see the opening balance for the year, one total amount per month for payments that have been made, a single mortgage interest amount for the year and a closing balance.

The interest changes daily. Due to capturing the interest on the last day of the month, I can then determine the interest for that month and by dividing by the days in the month, get the interest per day. If you log in one day, make a note of the interest, then log in the next, you'll get your daily interest:

Wednesday - interest of 2,619.50
Today - interest of 2,627.39
Current daily interest is 7.89

As for making an overpayment, I'm on a fixed rate product, but can still make overpayments of up to £500 a month. As far as I understand, nothing happens for payments smaller than £500 (other than the balance being reduced) but when an overpayment of £500 is made one of two things could happen.

Lets try and explain this via numbers.
Say you're paying £400 a month for your mortgage and you have 4 years (48 months) left.

1) Your monthly payment is reduced.
You overpay by 500. As you have overpaid your schedule by 500, your monthly payment is reduced by the overpayment, so that you complete your mortgage within your original term. 400 pm - (500 / 48), ie 10.42 thus your new monthly mortgage payment is 389.58

2) Your term is reduced.
You overpay by 500. As you're continuing to pay £400 a month, you should complete at least 1 month earlier as you have paid extra over and above your agreed schedule.

I believe option 2 - keeping monthly payment the same and reducing the term is better as option 1 is only pre-paying the mortgage and option 1 does not bring forward your mortgage completion date.

Hope that helps. Can anyone explain that better than me?

Financial Bliss.

financialbliss

Anyone who is a regular reader her may remember that I mentioned that I’d keep a personal no spend days (NSD) diary for October. Well, I did that, but hadn’t gave out the numbers just yet…

Would not be so much fun if I just said X days, so a bit more about me and my daily routine first!

On a work day I get up around 06.00. This can often be hard for me. I’m not really a morning person. Grab some breakfast, prepare a flask of coffee, sort out fruit and sandwiches, shower etc and leave the house at about 06.45.

Obviously, if I want to get into work later, I get up later – I work flexi and hours when I can have flexi credited are between 07.30 and 18.30.

If I’m leaving the house at 06.45, I’ll get the 06.58 bus which gets me into work about 07.20. Pick up a free Metro newspaper on the way into work too. Incidentally, I can use the work broadband for personal use as long as I’m clocked out and it’s between 12.00 and 14.00 – so you may see the occasional lunchtime post from me.

Tend not to spend much while at work, eg on coffees or snacks as I’ve already brought everything I need into work. Often, I’ll only spend at work if there is a collection going around.:D

I sometimes go for a walk at lunch. I can leave work after 5 hours, but typically leave by 16.00 to 16.30 (but I sometimes do work later – work or home commitments often dictate this) and leaving by 16.30 will get me back home by 17.15 or so, giving enough time to sit down with Mrs Bliss and the kids as a family for the evening meal.

In other words, I’m not a latte and shop bought sandwich person.

So after reading that, you’re probably expecting a high number. Wait for it, I managed 25 out of 31 no spend days in October.

Not too bad. I was expecting about 20+ days, but I’ve never monitored the spending in this way before.

Will I do it again? It was interesting but probably not.

Financial Bliss.

setmefree2

Well done you - not sure I ever have a NSD as I tend to food shop for meals everyday rather than in bulk. I do try to have NSMs - no spend months - where I try not to buy clothes, books, etc

Good Luck:D

Lynn11

Well done on your 25 NSD. thanks for your advice earlier and I have now registered online with nationwide so I can view my outstanding mortgage balance - it certainly makes good reading and hope this continues but we will see what the future holds,

StuartGMC

financialbliss wrote: »

On a work day I get up around 06.00. This can often be hard for me.

FB, I get up at 0500 which is fine in Spring through Summer, often I am awake around 0430 on a good day then with the sun up and birds in song... but I do find it tougher in winter so I have "some" sympathy I arrive in the office at 0630, but no flexitime for me....

I sometimes go for a walk at lunch. I can leave work after 5 hours, but typically leave by 16.00 to 16.30 (but I sometimes do work later – work or home commitments often dictate this) and leaving by 16.30 will get me back home by 17.15 or so, giving enough time to sit down with Mrs Bliss and the kids as a family for the evening meal.

I try to finish around 1630 (the standard end of day for our 0830 start) it can be a bit later, but for just the reason you highlight, the objective is a family meal together, which I think is a very important part of family life.

Well done on managing the work-life balance, you'll reflect on it in future and get some "credits" for it even though those won't be in your financial reports here

financialbliss

Hi all,

Wanted to say a few things over the last few days / reply to a few older posts, but I’ve not found the time. Just a quick update on a few topics before I turn in for the evening…

Kaupthing Edge. A good few weeks after this was taken over by ING, people on the savings and investments forum reported that they had their fixed term accounts that they recently opened returned to their instant access account – sometimes within 24 to 48 hours.

We have had our KE term account open for a while, but today we’ve received an e-mail notifying us that the funds we used to open a term account after 8th October are to be returned to our instant access account – now at 4.55% Darn, thought we’d got away with that. May need to look for another fixed term account.

Goldfish. Barclays recently took over the Goldfish credit card and we have two new Barclaycard Goldfish cards. Interestingly, when a credit card transaction is made, it identifies which of the two cards associated with the account made the transaction – in other words, mrs bliss will be able to view my transactions and I will be able to view hers. Not an issue, but I’ve not known that distinction for previous credit cards.

Pay. I’ve been notified that I should see the interim 2.45% pay review in my November pay. As a result, I’m intending to post my SOA this month. I’ve held on and held on, thinking I’ll post after my pay increment and I’ve been waiting since April for this to come through.

Aims for 2008. I’m intending to review these very, very soon – hopefully this week. Was originally intending to review in June / July, but these last few months have really flown past.

Financial Bliss.

StuartGMC

FB
With children of course, the passage of time accelerates, not sure how that fits in with relativity (sorry awful pun!) but it seems true for everyone. Add to that, this year's turmoil and I think we can all concur it has been busy.

financialbliss

Yikes - just 49 days left in 2008 :eek::eek::eek:

Aims for 2008. I haven't really looked at these for a while. Guess you all realise that, as it's mid-November and I'm just doing a proper review now, but I have edited the original post over the course of the year...

financialbliss wrote: »

I’m expecting 2008 to be a make or break year. The whole 12/12/12 concept is based on making mortgage payments of 1,250 or more per month. I’ll probably have a good idea by the end of this year if I’m still on track for 12/12/12 or if I’ve got my sums completely wrong…

Make or break year? While I do concede that I'm behind where I want to be with my mortgage target this year and I'm playing catch up, I don't think my 12/12/12 target is out of reach.

Ok, let's have a look at where we are and what we've achieved.

financialbliss wrote: »

#1 - Mortgage. Had to be top of the list really. As of today, I’ve a balance of 68,780. I’d like a balance to start with “57” on 31/12/2008. 57,000 or less would be great. 57k dead is 40% of my mortgage paid. This would take a monthly payment of 1,348.33 which is somewhat higher than my planned 1,250. However 57,999 would still be nice – this equates to a monthly payment of 1,259.32. So in summary, mortgage of 57,000 to 57,999 by 31/12/2008.

:mad: A bit too keen with the target for 2008. This one isn't going to happen. However I've recently decided on an actual target for 31/12/2008 and that's 59,500. It's a little over the 57,xxx, but I'm nearly 100% sure that I'll achieve the revised target.

Start of year was 69,653.22 (I'm sad - I knew that off the top of my head and didn't even have to look that up), so over 10k reduction isn't too bad. I'll mark this down as a fail (at least for now).

financialbliss wrote: »

#2 - Reduce expenditure / increase income. To aid with #1, I’d like to be able to review and cut out and excess spending and attempt to also increase income.

Bit of a grey target this one - however, we are sensible in our spending. While we haven't really increased our income, I'm going to tick this - we're not frittering our money away on "nothing" etc.

financialbliss wrote: »

#3 - Statement of affairs (SOA). I attempted one of these some time ago and to be honest, I don’t think I did a very good job. It’s always a good idea to see where you money is going and I’m sure once I’ve done this properly, I’ll be able to identify a few areas where we can trim things a bit.

:mad: As of today, this is a fail, as I've failed to make an effort to complete this. Did start a SOA post as part of post #2, but this hasn't been completed.

financialbliss wrote: »

#4 – Mrs Bliss. We’ve a pretty open and honest relationship and while I’m not intentionally doing this diary behind her back, she still doesn’t know about it. While I’ve not a specific timescale for this, eg this week / this month, I feel I owe it to her to be honest and open about it.
Update: 13/04/2008. Broke news about diary :eek:

This aim completed. The diary doesn't get discussed, but Mrs Bliss joined Facebook this year and she spends reasonable amounts of time on there too and I don't ask questions there either. Give and take.

financialbliss wrote: »

#5 – Holidays. It’s not all about all work, no play. I’d like to have at least two “holidays” this year. Holidays in quotes meaning any break / short break away from home. First is already booked for a week in June.
Update: 20/01/2008. Booked second holiday on 20th Jan, so this has been achieved.

This aim was achieved - had two holidays in the Lake District and north Wales.

financialbliss wrote: »

#6 – Monthly feeders. We’ve got two of these that are being filled at 250 each per month. I’ve roughly calculated that we’re unlikely to be able to feed at 250/m for July, August and September this year. However I’d like to still be able to feed these @ 250/m until they mature after September. Some creative accounting required.
Update: 28th Jan - decided not to force finances and leave a cash buffer we can draw on if needed.

I'm going to "bend" the rules, as while at the point in time I wrote that, I was making reference to two Lloyds TSB monthly feeders @ 250 each -we're now feeding a Halifax 10% regular saver @ 500 pm, so we're still finding money to syphon off into regular savers.

Score:
- 4 out of 6
:mad: - 2 out of 6

I'll do a final review of 2008 on 31st December. I should get a SOA posted, so I should achieve that, plus if I took the new mortgage target as a new goal for aim #1 and then achieved that, I'd get a tick in the box for that too.

Perhaps I'm "bending" the aims / targets to my advantage too much

As for 2009, I've currently got 3 aims. They're very specific aims this time around. Keep reading - I'll post on 1st January 2009.

Financial Bliss.

setmefree2

Great post FB - well done on your progress:T:T