Rachel’s Run towards mortgage freedom

Rachib

Sorry for the 2nd post today, I paid another small payment on the mortgage this evening, just to round the balance down to the nearest £10, which was £9.51.

I then looked at all the overpayments for January which added up to £293.07, and thought "I can't leave it like that", so transferred the remaining £6.93,:rotfl:

Thats me done now! £300 overpayments this month!
(Although I have said that before)

Rachib

The last two days have been two more no spend days. :j

So as its the first of Feb I thought I'd do a quick review of the Jan and look ahead to Feb:

January Payment: £703.33
January Overpayments: £302.58. :T

February Payment has been made today: £703.33
Remaining Mortgage balance: £151,565.69

My aim is for £150 overpayments in February.
(I have £75 saved already - ready for transferring later in the month)

Rachib

So in, what may be a twisted logic, I decided to withdraw £150 from one of my Tesco 3% accounts and transferred this to the mortgage. My idea being that I will want so much top up this savings account back to the £3,000 that I will be frugal enough to do it this month, whilst also hitting the mortgage now and saving the interest rather than if I did this in mid Feb.

Like I say may be twisted logic as I could get the 3.0% in the Tesco account vs 2.28% on the mortgage, but we'll see this month. I have already more than this in a mongo pot ready to transfer to my savings.

2019 overpayments are now at £452.58. :j
I also have another £100 earmarked for overpayments. This will get paid just before payday all being well. :j

Today I had a lovely day visiting some friends, where they kindly cooked me a roast lunch (Yum Yum), a rarity as its just me at home!

Rachib

So I realise that I have yet to check in this week, but in all honesty its been a slow week, with nothing exciting really happening. I've been quite frugal and boring!!!

I'm all on track with the budget so far this month, with only a week to go till payday, hopefully with some leftovers for the savings pot.

I paid my housing Estate Management Service Charge on Tuesday - Its one of these new build estates where the road hasn't been adopted and therefore there is an annual charge for road maintenance, street lights etc.... This was just shy of £170 for the year, but fully budgeted with the cash being held ready to transfer. On one hand its nice to have just paid it but not sure really get value for money from it.

I've had 3 non spending days this week and therefore have been able to really target the mortgage, whilst staying on track with the budget for everything else.
Since my £150 mortgage overpayment on Sunday I have managed another £86.57 in overpayments.

I'm a little addicted to overpayments, and my quest to get to 60% LTV. I've got a long way to go but I'm focused on this target!

Rachib

So this week I have being really really.......boring!, I'm not the best when it gets dark so early. I get home from work and just feel like staying in the house rather than going to the Gym, or our for a run, etc so I'm longing for the longer, warmer days when there will be more to do - They must be around the corner.
What this has meant is that its been frugal and therefore I have been able to attack the mortgage whilst staying on budget. :T

Being the analytical type I've also been playing around with a mortgage calculator excel sheet that I found online and tweaking it to show everything I want it to track (e.g. equity owned, position with overpayments vs position without overpayments. I've also been thinking and playing around with deciding what targets do I want to set myself regarding overpayments.

My target is to get to 60% LTV before the end of my fixed term (2023), from my current position of 80%.
This will mean overpaying to the tune of £31,000 over the 5 years :eek:, but will mean I own an additional 17% of the equity!

February overpayments currently stand at : £436.27 :j which is amazing, being focussed on this is really working. Feb is also a non council tax payment month, so that should be another £100 off the mortgage later in the month.

Wednesday I saw the Doctor about this cough that I've had since the first week of January. It's really just sticking around, but the Dr couldn't see anything wrong, which I don't know if it's a good thing or not.

Tomorrow I have my cars Service & MOT. I'm really hoping that its uneventful, as its dear enough already. Last year it cost £300, due to one thing and another. Hopefully its less than that this year.

5erge

Blimey, you've had a great start to the year with your over payments.

Appreciate I have a lower 1% target than you but I am going to see if I can keep pace with you on the over payments based on percentage. Even at this early stage I need to play a lil bit of catch-up.

Rachib

5erge wrote: »

Blimey, you've had a great start to the year with your over payments.

Appreciate I have a lower 1% target than you but I am going to see if I can keep pace with you on the over payments based on percentage. Even at this early stage I need to play a lil bit of catch-up.

Thanks 5erge.... I have really been focussed since the start of the year. Look forward to the challenge from you! :rotfl:A bit of competition may help us both!

Perhaps I was slightly over-exuberant with my overpayments, after todays news......
So I had my cars MOT and service, and maybe I cursed myself with my early post about hoping it would be less than £300. It turned out it had low brake pads wear and worn brake discs front and back :eek:. In order to get it sorted I said yep just get it done!, But at the end of the day ended up with a bill of £750......Ouch! - A little more than I had budgeted.

It's for days like this that I dust off the credit card....... (blowing the layer of dust from it) :rotfl:, Luckily its payday on Friday, I have been super frugal this month and as well of the overpayments I have managed to save well this month. I also have my cash emergency reserves to dip into.
The safety net of cash savings really takes the pressure of when this happens, and actually should have a bit to transfer back to savings on Friday once payday arrives!:j

However I think overpayments may more limited over the rest of the month....to enable me to build my emergency funds back up to 4 months

Rachib

Rachib wrote: »

The last two days have been two more no spend days. :j

So as its the first of Feb I thought I'd do a quick review of the Jan and look ahead to Feb:

January Payment: £703.33
January Overpayments: £302.58. :T

February Payment has been made today: £703.33
Remaining Mortgage balance: £151,565.69

My aim is for £150 overpayments in February.
(I have £75 saved already - ready for transferring later in the month)

So Today is Payday!!! :j, so I'm just planning my Feb/March Overpayments.
So on the 1st February I set myself the target of £150 overpayments for the month. I have actually overpaid this month to date £436.57
I'm super happy with that!

All in all a pretty frugal week (Apart from the car stuff on Monday). However it seems to have been a really long week. I'm just shattered. Looking forward to not having an alarm to wake up to tomorrow.

With it getting lighter in the mornings and evenings I'm hoping to getting my running back on track. The light really does make a difference, especially as I have had a bit of a break.

Rachib

So I really have been rubbish in updating this in the second half of February.

February actually turned out to be a great month for overpayments overall: £436.57 to be precise.
I am planning as a minimum to overpay 1% of the balance, and am currently at £739.15, which is 0.48%.

This nearly half a percentage in 2 months is super progress so Im no doubt I'll hit the 1% this year - I mean something has to go really really bad right!?!

My next target is is to get below £150,000, which I should do in April with some small but probably manageable overpayments this month,

Rachib

Well having just checked in I realise its been a month and half since my last post.

The weekend has been lovely, such a nice feeling to just sit out in the sun and relax over a long extended weekend....

March was an expensive month, due to the Ccedit card bill coming for expenses earlier in the year, and some larger one off purchases
The credit card was budgeted and the other purchases reduced the possibility for overpayments, but you've got to have fun!

Today I decided to send some more overpayments the way of the mortgage, having done lots of tillys this month, and today have hit the milestone of £1,000 of overpayments this year

The next target is to get into the £140ks, I'll get there using Mays usual payment,
After this the target is £145k by the end of the calendar year. It will be tight and tough to achieve but I'm going to go for it.