Fast-approaching deadline for Interest Only BTL mortgages.

Saving_Glut

Thank you greent. It feels good to have the balloon payment out of the way!

I like that you redirected your expired monthly repayments to savings. Having savings should be a priority for me, but despite my name, I only tend to do it in fits and starts and then inevitably, OP a mortgage! Will increase my current savings DD into my non-interest account accordingly. Will consider ISA or similar at a later time.

Meanwhile, in other MSE news, I arranged to volunteer at a sportive on Friday. I will help out at registration for 2 hours, then get to complete sportive for free. Saves me £36 registration fee, even if I have to get up at 6am!

Also rang NRM Bank. Learned that my recent OPs were sitting in a random suspense account as they didn’t know where to lodge them! Have been redirected and back dated. Also learned that only OPs of >£500 can be directed at capital repayment! Looking forward to balance update next week so that I can plan OP target for end of year.

Finally, receiving request for discounts on low-priced sale items on FBMessenger! Probably MSErs!

Saving_Glut

Not much to report on the MSE front except:

1. Increased my savings direct debit from £170 to a TT of £300 as no longer have monthly car payments. Thanks greent!
2. Availed of a one-day only £2.50 bonus on QuidC0 for some (clearance) cycling kit I needed.
3. Received £20 AMX bonus referral fee for referring my OH.
4. Followed up on 6 months worth of free sportives I won with Ev@ns Cycles last year (worth approx £30 ea.) but couldn’t use.
5. Have begun investigating the idea of stoozing for the first time.

Goodnight all!

Saving_Glut

Today:

1. Volunteered at sportive and banked free ride for another day, worth approx £36.
2. Ev@ns Cycles kindly extended my prize to the end of this year. I booked two events local to me, saving £50.
3. NSD.

That is all.

greent

All going well, it seems! Bit of a pain that OPs need to be >£500 for a cap reduction, but you can always have a side small instant access savings account to put any smaller amounts into and then pay off, I guess. (No size limit on mine, so I have been known to OP £5 from small cashback payouts etc (never smaller than £5 though - I always round up payouts/ eboy sales/ faceb00k sales etc to the next £5, as I like round numbers ))

Saving_Glut

It’s been a quiet week on the MF front as Canadian relatives are visiting this week.

But I can report that I overspent my weekly budget by £9.26, partly because I had to pay parking and train fare to London to see Bat Out of Hell musical (tickets were a gift from visitors), plus I treated us all to ice cream at half-time. Well. It would have been rude not to!

To be fair, I’m lucky I only overspent by that much as despite my best efforts, work kept me busy this week and I couldn’t escape to the shops! Thank you work!

I confirmed my OP has been reallocated as capital payments and my latest BTL1 balance now stands at £95,223.27. Now that’s official, I think it’s time to prepare a graph to visually track my OP, hopefully this will help to focus my mind!

My short-term OP target is £6k by the end of this year, which would take me sub-£90k. £6k sounds like an ambitious target to me, but I’m going to shoot for it!

Firstly, there is a chance I have miscalculated (my calculations always tend to err on the side of optimism!). I must set up spreadsheets to track spend and budget more efficiently (I currently use daily and monthly journals).
Secondly, up to about three months ago, I was regularly overdrawn just before payday) see my post above about my happy maths!). If the maths is true, then that implies I have reduced monthly spend by £1k just because I am focusing! Crikey!
Thirdly, £3k of this is rent redirected from BTL3 (which is in positive equity!).

There is much work to be done here, but hoping that my new MF ways will become habit.

Happy saving all!

Saving_Glut

Hi greent. Your response has given me food for thought! I can deposit as little as I would like, the money is held in some type of offset account (I should get more clarity on this!) which when it reaches a minimum of £500 can then be allocated as capital repayment.

I have had a play around with amortisation graphs this morning which has focussed my mind to say the least, so I can certainly see the benefit is even paying small amounts, and I agree nicer to TT them first!!:D

Saving_Glut

Here comes today’s (NSD!) MFW installment:

Utilised Laeoblade’s calculator on this site to determine my medium goal to reach 75% LTV on BTL1 can be achieved by 18 overpayments of £2,035. This means I would be in a position to get released from NRM’s extortionate rate of 5.05% and dropping to potentially 2%. This is a goal worth pursuing!

Advertised 8 items on FB msgr. One advert seems to have been held back by administrators for review. Perhaps they wanna buy it?!

Have packed tomorrow’s lunch, hoping it will be a NSD!

SG!

Saving_Glut

NRM told me unconvincingly and contrary to previous advice, that they don’t have overpayment limits. Must check my paperwork, but no rush as I’m a ways from overpaying more than 10%!

Watched Martin Lewis’ Xmas money show. I subsequently nabbed a 20% discount on personalised Xmas card for OH from m00npig 10 minutes before deadline. Saved £0.66p! It all counts!

Applied for HSBSea account for £200 Cashback over 12 months. My application is being reviewed, fingers crossed!

Time to sleep now...

Saving_Glut

Happy to read a flicker of hope on the horizon for ‘mortgage prisoners’ in a similar position as me.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/10/martin-lewis-mortgage-conservative-party-conference/

Saving_Glut

Happy to report today was an NSD. This was helped by dropping all my change into a money box before I left for work, preventing me from buying chocolate from vending machine while there.

Advertised 5 items on FB Msgr. Will be interesting if anyone bites!

Otherwise, I just created accounts for YouGuv and Prolific.

Feeling my approach to being MF is somewhat haphazard, but hoping to inch a little closer each day.

Goodnight all!