My Family and Me's diary to mortgage freedom

My_family_and_Me

Thank you that's really helpful to see and quite motivating too.

How have others managed the logistics of additional payments over and above their increased DD. I had no end of trouble getting mine set up with Santander as they kept stopping taking my regular DD because I'd overpaid! Now that I've sorted it I don't think I want to play with it often as there is room for error at their end. Do you have a separate account to filter off the little bits and pieces to save towards on bigger overpayment or do you put each little bit straight off the mortgage?

I know I also need to save for the remortgaging how much should I have (an estimate) saved to be able to access the best deals i.e. Fees, valuations anything else I will have to pay for (I've only done buying a house before so never experienced remortgaging in the same property)

Many thanks

My family and Me

museumworker

Hello and welcome!

I started my MF journey at £190k, 7 ish years later (plus a loft extension and 2 more kids) and we’re at £95k. Under £100k feels like a huge barrier has been broken.

I think you can apply for a remortgage 3 months in advance and the rate will be held so diarise that. You have a great LTV so should get access to the best rates. Look at the total cost of your mortgage, including fees. We got 2.39% for 5 years fixed rather than 2.19% or something similar as once we had factored in all the fees the higher percentage was actually cheaper over the 5 years. We had free valuation, no fees, all paperwork done for nothing via First D!rect. Would recommend them and happy to refer, I think we would both get something for a referral.

getmore4less

you start with retention deals, on your LTV Santander should have something under 2% for a 5y fix and for 2y fix under 1.5%.

they may(will) be different in a year.

Once you have your retention options you look to see if there is anything better.

if your valuation is good you are already in the range to get the best deals.

In the mean time probably just stick with the £500pm overpayment and look for some high interest account(s) to keep your surplus for a year and review at mortgage change time when you can overpay as much as you like.

if you have another £6k saved by then you are on target for the £1kpm.

Kittenkirst

Hi My Family & Me!
Welcome to the board! Our Mortgage started October 2016 at £170,995 :eek: and we’ve been slogging away trying to make small overpayments each month.

Our mortgage provider allows regular payments and doesn’t adjust our monthly DD. I called them to check first and now send whatever cash we can whenever possible.

I follow the Tilly Tidy method (named after a forum member) or ‘save the change’ type plan- rounding off our joint bills account on a regular basis- we don’t miss the small pennies on the daily basis but it does add up

Good luck with your overpayments- looking forward to cheering you along the way

If you haven’t already join the MFW 2018 new thread as I find having the spreadsheet and the monthly check in really helps to motivate me into overpaying (target this year was £2150 and we are at £2400 already overpaid).

michelle09

Welcome and good luck! We started with a mortgage of 264k 18 months ago and are now under the 250k mark (don't worry, there are loads of people with bigger mortgages than you around - ours is by no means the largest).

We remortgaged with our lender after the rate rise (HSBC). Just selected the remortgage option on their online banking system, filled in the details, paid the fee (valuation was included) and it was all done and dusted in 20 minutes. Knocked us down to 1.24% not including the fees.

erin_transport

Just wanted to pop by and say Good luck!!

My_family_and_Me

Thank you for all your replies everyone. It's nice to meet you.

First mini overpayment into savings today. There was a real Christmas tree going spare at
Work that was going to the recycling centre as it had been used and not needed again. (With permission) I put in the boot and brought it home. That's £40 I won't have to spend this year. I've put the same amount into savings for the overpayments. ��

My family and Me

greent

Our mortgage when I joined this board was just under £125K - and we managed to repay it in just over 6.5 years on average salary. We had an overpayment built into our monthly DD (at one point the DD was £1500 and our required payment less than £600) and threw extra money at it from cashback, ebay sales etc. Getting below 6 figures was a great boost

jenni_fer

Welcome! Another newbie here, with a larger starting point than you (£160k). Looking forward to sharing the journey with you.