julicorn's journey

julicorn

A mini update to say that I got paid a day early (woohoo!), so have put £700 from that into the mortgage. Tomorrow is the day our regular payment goes out, and also Mr Julicorn's payday, so we should be able to OP £300 from his wages on the weekend. Exciting times!

We've also been logging all of our spending over the last week. Once a month is over I will have a better idea of our outgoings, and then I'll set up a proper budget for July. We've never actually worked with a budget before, but I think it seems like a really good idea (even if it's just to ensure we still allocate some money to 'fun stuff' without me feeling a bit guilty).

di-di-di-dah-di-dah

£1000 in a month in over payment really well done, congratulation.

julicorn

Thank you! :heart2: I'm hoping we can keep that sort of level up, but it's quite hard to tell when I've not really been keeping track of spending. Ah well, something to shoot for!

julicorn

So, they did keep our regular repayment amount the same, which is great.
I also just made the additional overpayment from Mr Julicorn's account, bringing our total OP for May to £1,200. Yay!
Not only is our balance now below £200k, it's know actually just over £198.5k (before it creeps up again with the daily interest) - if my super magical spreadsheet is right, then we would have only reached that balance in September, had we not overpaid.

One thing that's confusing me: Our mortgage is with Accord, and we have a pretty cool online account so we can see the balance at any point. Thing is, it also has a 'current LTV' field, which now shows our current LTV to be 72%. Thing is, if my maths are right, it should still be 73.5%, so I don't understand what they're basing that number on? Are they somehow upvalueing the flat automatically, just because some time has passed? I can't really think of any other explanation, do any of you have an idea?

Anyway, hope you all get to enjoy the long weekend :j

NorthernPeach

Congrats on the huge overpayment for May :j
Regarding the LTV mines the same I can't work out what they base the LTV off, its so out based on my own calculations unless they take in to account house price inflation. I jumped a whole 3% one month (I definitely didn't pay 3% off) :cool:

julicorn

Thanks NorthernPeach, I'm really happy with it!
And that's good to hear yours is like that too, sounds like they really might take inflation into account... I mean otherwise there'd be no reason to get that wrong, it's such a simple calculation. 3% is a huge jump!

kev2009

Congrats!

I'm currently looking at mine but something isn't quiet right on my spreadsheet... IF i make a over payment and keep the term the same, then monthly figure then decreases. So i then add a over payment to bring it back up to the amount i normally pay and in the 11th Month, I make a one off payment of 10% - the over payments i have already made as I can only overpay 10% per year max... after doing this, at the end of 5 years I end up owing more money than if i just paid a 10% lump sum off each year... doesn't make sense so i'll need to just try it and see for 1 year maybe and see how it reflects. I'm considering making a very small 1 off over payment this year if i can of £1k.

Kev

julicorn

I think my lender just adjusts the payment amount once a year, in December (so for the payments from January). I think for me, it works out better to overpay as soon as possibly because it immediately reduces the interest (not by much atm, of course, but every little helps!).

julicorn

In other news, my 'cooking take-out meals at home' plan is going swimmingly at the moment. Have so far made a really nice Sag Aloo, a Thai red curry and of course pizza. One of our local shops has also finally started stocking more obscure Mexican ingredients, which is great because I've got a few Latin American cookbooks I never got to use much.

I also signed up to a trial of YNAB today. The first half an hour of using it really made my head hurt, but I think now I've understood the general principle, it looks like SUCH a useful site/app! Will figure out whether it's actually worth spending money on (feels counter intuitive, of course), but so far, so good.

julicorn

This weekend felt so productive! Did a bit of gardening (we're growing herbs and tomato plants at the moment, and they're almost all growing really well, which is such a joy to watch), and bought some really pretty Mexican pots from HomeSense. They weren't super cheap, but I'm absolutely in love with them. Might get a few more next month maybe.

I've only been using YNAB for two days so far, and I'm completely and utterly addicted to it. It's already made me think about money in a completely different way, and allocating money to a few 'fun things' (e.g. set amounts we want to save for holidays and tattoos) every month will enable to prioritise so that we can overpay the mortgage AND still have those things we really enjoy, rather than just watch our money slip away - that's my hope, anyway! I've completely guesstimated our spend for next month, but it's such a flexible system that I can't wait to see how it goes. I've half bullied my husband into using it as well (he's on board, just doesn't share the same level if excitement about things like this that I have :rotfl: ).

Aside from this, I've also applied for a Nationwide flex account or whatever it's called. Atm I've got just over 3.5k sitting in an ISA paying a measly 0.5%, so that 5% should make at least a bit of a difference. Will also apply for their regular saver once the paperwork comes through

Anyway, have a lovely evening everyone, and I hope the return to work tomorrow isn't too painful