The first hurdle - Nichelette v the huge mortgage

Nichelette

Oh, forgot to say! I've resumed prolific as it had gone to the wayside a bit. I've already made another fiver so more for overpayments

savingholmes

Well done Nichelette - you are motoring. I doubt that they would see you as in high debt with the car and CC so think it's unlikely to affect your mortgage much. Particularly as you are in a safer industry sector job wise.

Nichelette

Okay, so I am EXTREMELY poor at updating, but we had £2060 left at the end of our last pay month. Half went to mortgage and other half has gone to credit card whilst VW aren't taking overpayment calls. I was looking at 85% LTV rates earlier and it's not too much worse than 80%, so I'm hoping all will be okay if housing market can hang on til October. It's horrible to speculate because it's people's lives, but I hope the 3 month breaks will mean prices won't nosedive too much between now and then. I feel terrible thinking that .

savingholmes

You have paid an amazing amount off in a short period - I am sure that will count for a lot.

Brindlebabe

Hi Nichelette,

You should be so proud of how much you've overpaid already. Remember you can't control what you can't control (like the housing market!) so if it's in a bad place when you come to remortgage, then you can only manage what you have in front of you. But because you've paid off so much already it puts you in the best possible position, even if that position isn't as good as it would have been in the past. 
I get quite angry sometimes about how houses were affordable to people a few decades ago in a way that they really aren't now. But it doesn't really help. And I remember from renting for years that hearing people with a mortgage complaining about housing costs isn't a great thing.
Hope all going well for you at present, have a good week. I continue to catch up with your thread with interest when I can!
Bb  x

Nichelette

Thanks guys. I am of the mindset now that I can only do what I can do, as annoying as I may find it! I know Brindle, even since 2014 things have gone crazy. When I went on my dad's mortgage in 2010 to 2018 when I finally got off of it, the house had increased by 100k. and we're talking an ex council terrace - nothing spectacular and whilst it's not really rough as in unsafe, the area isn't amazing either. It's partially why it took me so many years to finally get my own place as things were escalating so far out of reach. 

We were paid today so yesterday I did my usual pre pay day pooling the money and paid £554 off the mortgage and the same off the credit card. VW are taking overpayments by phone again so I shifted 2k that was free on the 0% card off the car which saved about £800 in interest. I was trying to reduce the monthly payment with remortgage in mind but I think I wasn't very clear and the lady has reduced the term instead, though I'm not hugely bothered. It's only £150/month so we're not talking massive amounts. 

Car is now down to about 5k before interest. I think I'm going to leave that now and work on the mortgage and CC. I have about 4-5 months to get those down as much as I can. CC is about 7k I think, but interest free til next July which I'll easily be able to clear it by. I should be able to clear at least 3k from each of them before remortgage. 

I'm having a bit of a down day today. I think it's a combination of not sleeping well and wishing overpayment was more like last months. I need to remember though, that now sport is back I have £800 sitting in my betting exchange (this is money that grows when I do the matched betting so it's not possible to 'lose' it), and this month has been spendy. Off the top of my head, car tax was £150 (only did 6 months when I got the car because all my annual bills seem to fall in Jan right after Xmas!, but that is for 12 so it's in a cycle of being in June now), new phone as mine was on its last legs, another £150, £140 on the maintenance thing for the house and about £200 in birthday presents for DH as it was his first without his mum and I was trying to overcompensate as his family are rubbish and it always gets him down. I am considering doing some matched betting on horses because it is lucrative, but it's also something I'm ethically against so I'm in an bit of a quandary. Irony: I live so close to a horse track I can hear the tannoy in my garden .

I am missing things being 'normal'. It sounds silly but I wish I could do my own food shopping (DH goes). I am really starting to miss it now. It's stupid things like because I haven't been in a supermarket for months, I forget that new potatoes will be in season now. I don't really like all the weirdness around how things are at the moment and find it quite hard mentally so I'd rather be at home anyway. Some people are going back into our office next week. It will be at 30% capacity, but again, I find all the measures make it a horrible, sad place to be. They're sending those with IT issues and those who mentally struggle WFH back first, so I won't be one of them for now. No idea when we will be back, if ever tbh. I don't think things will ever be the same again. The silver lining is we may be able to get a dog if DH and I can WFH on opposing days going forward. I feel like I need a bit of a slap again, because we are far better off from this whole things than so many people. Bleurgh.

griffinsaver26

Have just started on my MF journey so have been reading some diaries. You are very inspirational. Amazing over payments! And thanks to you, I was reminded of an old YouGov survey account (never managed to make it to the £50 withdrawal but I’m half way there!) and now have also joined Prolific which looks great, so thank you! 

Good luck in all your goals. 

savingholmes

Hi Nichelette - be as kind to yourself as you would be to someone else. You are doing amazingly well. Things will sort out. Lockdown is the pits but the easing of restrictions is potentially much scarier. As you say working from home offers a lot of positives but it is hard to be self-motivated continually. I'm not hugely social but even I'm missing people now... People have struggled with lockdown at different stages - a bit like the grief cycle - I was great at the beginning as was DD but the last week or two have been struggling... It will all pass

Nichelette

Okay, so a bit of an odd one... You know how you can only control what you can, well very late on Thursday I won 6.5k. Without going into major detail it's related to my matched betting sideline. It's not the norm, I got extremely lucky. I won't quite believe it until it is in my account (thanks weekend!), but the long and short is (assuming it arrives) I'll be able to pay the car off with £900 to spare. I can assure you that between that and the heat I didn't do much sleeping on Thursday. The timing couldn't have been better. I know it sounds silly but it almost feels like someone is looking out for me.  

Assuming that all goes well, it means that I can divert everything spare to the mortgage and CC. I have been looking, and Halifax who we have current mortgage with have a deal that is £921 a month for 80% LTV. We currently pay £1160 so that alone would be a big saving.  The best rate at the moment is Lloyds which is £906, so I'm thinking for the minimal difference it would probably be less hassle to remortgage with Halifax rather than switch. From what I've read they don't re-do the affordability checks if you do that, though I may be wrong, which would mean I can divert more to the mortgage pre re-mortgage as CC is 0% til July 21. 

Funny the way some things work out!

I'm making extras now the football has restarted which is good. There were quite a few offers about to celebrate sport coming back which I've been able to take advantage of. I'm also thinking of trying to sell some things we don't use at some point to get the mortgage down a bit more. My husband has two suits he wore once to interviews and is now too big for . He was very slim until he got injured playing football though, so I'm not sure how easy they would be to sell. I suppose there is the dreaded ebay!

I am much happier in myself lately. I started C25K and on Tuesday will be jogging 20 mins straight. My left knee is a bit funny at the moment but I'm actually enjoying it and can see it is having an impact on my figure. I haven't lost a lot of weight, but my shape is changing and I'm sure I'm gaining muscle which is good. I'm on the last run of week 6 and to be honest knowing how I feel about exercise I can't believe I have kept it up! Onwards and upwards .



 

South_coast

Oh wow, fantastic news on the win (I shall be optimistic on your behalf and consider it a done deal)! That will make an amazing difference 😀 

I didn't have any affordability checks when staying with the same lender for a new deal. No faffing around waiting for months for solicitors to do their thing either (and no new valuation - with my many attempts at pulling things apart in readiness for a refurb, I was paranoid they would no longer think it was worth what I paid for it!!!)