Update Paid off! - Six years and counting!!

ElmoR

Wow Kat, you've been chipping away steadily and quietly there!

It's rubbish how teenager's opportunities have vanished this year. Let's hope the new year will be better

ElmoR xx

Kat78MFW

Lovely to hear from you Elmo and brilliant to see on your diary that you are now mortgage free. How exciting!

It is rubbish about the teenagers opportunities.... But amazing how much cheaper life is without school trips, music lessons and extra-curricular sports! Hence why we have been able to max our overpayments this year.
Stay safe and have a relaxing Christmas x

ElmoR

It would be money saving on the teenager's events had we not already bought the frock for prom (that her previous school made no attempt to do, either in virtual format or delayed- miserable lot), paid for a school trip stateside, and the school are hanging onto the cash with a view to rescheduling!  I can see having no weekly clubs/extracurricular activities would be a big saver though.

Have a wonderful holiday season xx

Kat78MFW

We have broken the 30 000 barrier on the mortgage, thanks to 1000 from my parents as a Xmas present and moving some savings into the mortgage due to rubbish savings rates.
We are now managing to save £160 per month for DD1 towards uni and £110 per month for DD2. DD1 has decided she definitely wants to go to uni away from home so will definitely need the money.
The girls both won £25 on the premium bonds in the January draw so we decided to move £2000 of our savings into premium bonds ourselves to see if we can get a little win.
Our savings continue to grow in lockdown and are now up to over £10 000, not including the premium bonds. I can't quite get my head around it. We've never had this much saved away. I'm wondering if we could get to mortgage neutral sometime in 2022. Only thing is that if the world ever gets back to some kind of normal and I feel safe again, I've promised the girls that they can do a different activity every weekend (eg. climbing, ice skating and trampolining). I also hope that one day we can plan a holiday, travelling by train through France and into Spain, so that will take a chunk of the savings. 

ElmoR

Yay for breaking the £30K barrier!!!  *Smash* !!

caeler

Woop Woop! £30K barrier! @Kat78MFW Well done, you are doing great! 

Kat78MFW

Thanks Caeler and I see from your signature that you are less than a month from mortgage freedom.  Congratulations!  
With our interest-only mortgage, we can only make 11800 in repayments per year over the monthly £108 payment.  It's only end of March and we are already at £6230! I don't want to change it to a capital repayment though as having the extremely low minimum monthly payment could be invaluable if we ever had to drop down to one income.  So once I have maxed out the payment for the year, I'll start saving so we can make a big payment in January 2022. 

DH is considering reducing to four days a week at work from September - I have calculated that we would only be £400 per month worse off but that could slow down progress on the mortgage a little. 

I think I need to increase the amount we are putting away for DD1 for university.  She is considering a four-year integrated masters degree so I may need to increase the target savings for her.  She's also thinking about doing a degree with a placement year, which could be a paid placement so that could help a lot but I don't think I can rely on that.      

Kat78MFW

Have just found a RS offering 1% interest with Nationwide - we can save £100 per month in there which I can earmark for DD1 university but I can access it if needed before then.  Perfect but a little annoyed that I hadn't spotted it before.

ElmoR

Closing in on your target Kat!!

Have you watched the videos by Martin on fees and university? I've been saving up a war chest for my DD but it dawned on me that you perhaps need less up front because the later 'graduate tax' approach takes care of a chunk. Integrated masters can be good value, especially if they include a lot of practical work/hands on skills to bolster their CV.

My teenager/young adult has thrown us a curve ball this past month or so - she had been en route for something medical at university and all of a sudden that has swung to wanting to go to pilot school (WT ****!). She's never flown, or even driven a car It costs £80K?! Goodness knows how we respond to that change of events, but we have explained that there is no money tree in the back garden and that university (whatever subject you do) is a better option because it has fees covered in a fashion. They keep you on your toes, teenagers!!

Take care, keep plodding towards the goal! Nearly there.

Elmo R xx

Kat78MFW

Happy New Year!!  I really am rubbish at updating this diary but I have been maxing out our allowed overpayments on the mortgage.  DH has managed to keep going at work with five days a week and I am now getting paid for the extra hours that I was doing a work unpaid previously so finances are fairly healthy.  Some of my extra hours are contracted annualised hours so I also get holiday pay and pension on these.  We are forever thankful that our finances have been affected positively during these difficult times and feel so much for those that are struggling. 

I managed to fix our gas/electric in June 2021 with Ovo Energy, fixed until June 2023 so feel very fortunate that our energy bills are not going to shoot up in April.  We are overpaying the energy bills and building up a good pot with Ovo as they offer a 3% interest reward so hopefully this will cushion the blow in 2023 when our bills will rocket.  All presuming that Ovo don't go under.

So here are the crucial mortgage figures...

We paid £13100 off the mortgage in 2021 (£11800 in overpayments – the maximum allowed).  This meant that we owed £21827 on 31/12/21.  We also saved as much as possible in 2021 and I paid another £7022 on 1/1/2022.

Our current balance is £14 806 (broken the £15k barrier – woohoo!!!).  My Dad has given us Christmas gift of £500 towards the overpayments so once that goes through we’ll be down to £14 306.  My aim is to max the overpayments again this year and then keep overpaying into savings.  I have an ambition to pay off the final balance on 1/1/2023 when our fixed rate mortgage expires but we’ll see how expensive this year ends up being with the girls.

DD2 has taken up horse riding – I am so pleased that she has found something that she loves and takes her mind off the challenges of school.  DD1 is applying for sixth forms and is taking a break from her cricket this winter while she studies for her GCSEs.  They both have returned to their music ensembles and DD1 has resumed her music lessons and tennis lessons.  So the cost of their clubs has returned to being a large monthly outgoing but I wouldn’t have it any other way as they gain so much from them.

I hope you have all managed to stay healthy and COVID free.  DD2 brought it home from school in early October, two days before I was booked in for my booster.  We were both quite sick with it and I was off work for 3 weeks and then had to have a phased return back.  Fortunately, DD1 and DH avoided it.  DH and I are now fully boosted, DD1 is double vaxxed and DD2 has finally had her first one.  Let’s hope that this wave peaks soon and that the spring and summer brings better times.

My New Year’s Resolution is to post on here more consistently as I go through this last year (hopefully!) of my MFW journey.