Reduce to Increase...Towards the Forever Home...

Kittenkirst

WOW What a cracking figure for your overpayment!! Well done you

jenni_fer

Two more overpayments this month:
£650 from being careful and moving a few things around plus £1500 from a repaid loan to a family member.

Think we've got just under £2k left to go this year, might have to phone the mortgage company and get an exact figure...never thought we'd get this close, very exciting!

jenni_fer

Just paid off the final chunk of this years 10%, mortgage balance sitting at £137k.
Feeling pretty pleased with myself/us right now!
DH is expecting a bonus next month and childcare has gone down quite a bit with eldest starting school so hoping to continue to save between now and Jan ready to make a nice overpayment as soon as the new year starts.

Balance update:
1st Jan 18: £159k
1st Oct 18: £137k

Saving_Glut

Wow! Very impressive overpayment for the year to date!

jenni_fer

Popping back to update.
Mortgage balance @31st Dec was £135,161.18
Meaning 2019 overpayment of £13,516.12.
Which I paid yesterday.
Balance now £120,965.97

Very excited, though most of the payment was made up with a bonus payment from DH so we need to focus to save for next year.
Using the 'save £12k in 2019' thread to motivate and try and get on track.

jenni_fer

The 6 month gap in posting here is telling...somehow having fully overpaid at the start of the year was bizarrely demotivating!
I read a new diary in here today which mentioned the idea of being mortgage neutral, and that is my realistic short term goal, deadline being Jan 2021 when we'd hopefully have both kids settled in school and ready to move.

Current net position is -£76,085.07

Playing around with various spreadsheets I think we've be at -£40k in Jan-21 if we save at the current rate. So that's the target...

There are 2 key things which can hopefully helps us on the way:
1. We've got 1 year of high childcare costs, so there should hopefully be 6m of lower costs which can go straight into savings.
2. Out mortgage fix runs out in Jun-20, hopefully we'll be able to get both a slightly lower rate and move to an offset at that point which feels like a positive step.

Short-term goal... reduce credit card (everything) spend as much as possible, off to meal plan the week, including lunches.

savingholmes

You are making great progress on clearing your mortgage. You may find the savings interest you get on saving the money elsewhere is higher than your mortgage anyway.

jenni_fer

savingholmes wrote: »

You are making great progress on clearing your mortgage. You may find the savings interest you get on saving the money elsewhere is higher than your mortgage anyway.

Yep, there's not much in it.

jenni_fer

Lovely walk with the family today, allowing a NSD.
Need to sit down and re-work our budget as childcare arrangements change in September and a recent new job means I'm not 100% on how much spare we should have on a standard month.
Feeling optimistic!

jenni_fer

Two weeks in and we're £400 closer. Not quite as much progress as I'd have liked but we booked a holiday for next year, and it's the school holidays so treats and outings have added up.

1st month this week which is when most of the money merry-go-round happens, likely to save much less in August as HSBC are offering 1% on debit card transactions for a couple of months we'll be using that rather than the credit card, so August will be a double month in that respect.

We've inventoried the freezer tonight, there is enough in there for about a month of meals aside from fresh bits so will be trying to keep the shopping bill down to a real minimum during August.

One more week of kids home before 2 weeks of holiday club and spending reduces a little hopefully.

Current net position (£75,816.75)