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

jenni_fer

We heard back from the mortgage broker today, staying with the same lender seems to be the best offer which is good as it feels like a much simpler process.
New deal with be a 10 year term, offset at 1.75%, if we don't move we should be mortgage neutral in about 2 years. About to play with the spreadsheets to try and work out a target for the end of this year, the closer to zero the better!
Nice to have something non-virus to think about for a bit.
Looking at our spending, the supermarket shops have been sky high but actually overall we're spending a lot less, I have no idea what we were spending it on, even though I've been through the credit card statement. Hopefully we can continue to keep the spending down when we are free again.

Current Net Position (£50,495.46)

Needhelpsaving

I've just read through your diary over a cuppa this morning and wanted to congratulate you on your progress. 

We too have been toying with the idea of moving, but despite months of going back and forth we need to make a commitment at some point. We know this isn't our forever home, so at the moment we're just working on paying off what we owe on this house to get as much equity as possible to move forward.

Good luck on your journey!

jenni_fer

Thanks Needhelpsaving. I forget sometimes that other people actually might read this, but writing it down helps in some way.
It's well worth paying down as much as possible, the bigger the deposit on the new house the lower the LTV and the better the rate!

jenni_fer

Have just done the post payday shuffle and tidy up of all of the bank accounts. Unexpectedly we still got our annual bonuses for last year paid by work so that plus minimal spending has helped move the dial a fair bit this month.

Our supermarket shop this week was eye-wateringly high but we've pretty much spent nothing else so the credit card bill should be about half what it normally is.

The pending mortgage switch helps, as we have a number of regular savers we won't be able to put all of the savings I count in the net position here actually against the mortgage, so have set a nice round target of £50k for that, I can get to about £48k at the moment so that feels totally achievable if we focus.

Current Net Position: (£44,184.01)

jenni_fer

Have just been reading back from the beginning of my diary. In the first post I referenced that the 1st target was the remortgage in 2.5 years...June 2020! As that is now here, I've taken a step back to see how far we've come.:

Jan 18: £159k
Oct 18: £137k

Jan-19 £121k
Jan-20 £114k
May-20 £98k
Without overpaying it'd have been c£140k

We did good!

Thick_n_Thin

Just spent a few hours reading over your diary, your doing amazingly well, excellent progress in a relatively short amount of time, will be following your journey with interest! 

jenni_fer

With way too much time to think atm, I've been having a play with spreadsheets quite a bit.

I'm now 'officially' (i.e. telling DH) targeting being mortgage neutral by the end of 2021. Unofficially, I'm targeting 1st September!
This requires us to save c£2k a month...feels do-able given that childcare has gone down now as youngest starts full time school in September, at its worst we were paying close to that figure in childcare bills (those were a tight few months!) and I've had a payrise since then so it feels possible.
Also, being helped by the fact that we've requested our TUI refund (should be sat by the pool right now, sob!) so that's £3.5k towards the target without even thinking about it.

I noticed earlier that coventry have reduced their mortage rates...our new fix starts 1st July, so now I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to get the new, lower, rate or if I'm stuck with the one we signed for a few weeks back. Think I'll give the mortgage broker a quick call and see what they say.

Have just been spending some time on rightmove for the first time in a while (it was a multiple times a day habit until COVID hit). There's nothing inspiring to be had, the combination of space and school catchment are proving to be quite elusive within our budget...I think I'm one of the very small population hoping prices fall when things start moving again! Still totally torn between move ASAP so we can focus on our forever home, and staying here a bit longer to actually become mortgage free, if only for a short while. I think the reality is that if the right house comes up we will do everything in our power to get it, until then we'll concentrate on saving and paying off the mortgage.

Current net position (£43,665.87)

jenni_fer

Final payment of the old fix went out this week, plus the usual payday moving of money all around.
Broker confirmed as long as we sign the paperwork and get it back in time we can have the lower rate, so that's a win.
Trying to have a few NSD between now and the next credit card statement date to keep the bill down, from next month every penny saved can be against the mortgage which is really (sadly) quite exciting!
Current new position (£39,311.87) <-- under £40k!!!!

Jessy103

Congrats on being under £40k! 😀

jenni_fer

Thanks @Jessy103! I didn't think it was possible to get any more obsessed but I was wrong!

The refund for our cancelled holiday finally came through this week and was transferred straight to savings.
We had confirmation of the new offset rate so looking forward to 1st July when that gets transferred and I can start moving towards being truly mortgage neutral.

We're totally torn at the moment between 'rates are low, now would be a great time to move' and 'we're so close to being mortgage neutral, the economy is unstable, let's just stay put'. One minute I'm looking at the earliest possible date we can achieve neutrality and the next I'm calculating exactly how big a mortgage we would be allowed to have on a new property. Ultimately I think it'll come down to if/when rightmove comes up with a decent house that's worth moving for.

Current net position (£35,831.60)