Single gal balancing my way to mortgage freedom!

frankersBri

I've lurked on these boards for a while, but have not really been an active participant before. That is about to change! 

Four years ago I bought a property with one of my best friends. It's been a great few years and we both benefited from the stability of getting on the ladder rather than renting. Now I shall be completing a remortgage and buying her out in the next couple of weeks, which is very exciting! I'm mostly excited for the control it gives me; both over my finances but also what to do with the house in terms of renovation/decorating! 

Mortgage starting balance will be: £181,500
Term: 21 years   
Target MF date: Unknown!

I don't yet have a fixed goal of when I'd like to be mortgage free. I am planning on spending some of my savings on renovating the downstairs of house at the end of 2020; knocking down a wall to make a kitchen/diner, new kitchen, decorate the living room etc. But I am starting by committing to overpaying 1% of the original balance by the end of 2020, which means overpaying by £200 per month for the rest of 2020. This should be doable, providing I make some tweaks to my savings plan and how much I enjoy eating/drinking out

tinah

Good luck on your journey.
 I bought my shared ownership house 5 years ago now and only because I've taken my foot off the pedal a lot to get back some ready available savings I'd be mortgage free by now. Only got just under £1400 to go but going to let that drop more slowly now but i still can't resist the odd over payment.
It's lovely to see both the mortgage figure go down but the interest is even better.

frankersBri

@tinah Thank you for your good luck wishes I'm excited to get going with it, just need the solicitors to get everything over the line for the transfer of equity!
Wow, that's such a low level of outstanding balance that I can only aspire to at this point! Well done for getting it to that point. It must be such a great feeling to be so close to being MF

frankersBri

So many, many more weeks later and we are finally at completion day! It is quite frankly ridiculous it has taken almost 100 days for a simple transfer of equity and remortgage (steer well clear of Beaumont Legal people!), but I am excited to finally become a solo home owner! Less excited about the massive debt...

Given the Covid crisis, and likely impending recession I have decided not to press ahead with my kitchen/diner remodel. Would have been costing me a fair whack, but I think I have to keep a bigger buffer available for living costs. But during lockdown I finally have started decorating my room. Out comes the bedroom decorated for a little boy (I've only lived here for 4 years!) and now a load of work on filling, sanding and making the walls good so I can paint!

Once my new mortgage gets set up properly I am planning on making an overpayment immediately to get off to a good start. My goal was to pay 1% more off this year, which would be £1,850. I have liquid cash available, alongside my buffer, so I am tempted to pay that off at the start so I can start reaping that slightly-reduced-interest bonus!

longway2go

Popping in to wish you luck. We have been on the board since July and are getting addicted by the OPs and money saved, you have been warned lol

frankersBri

longway2go said:

Popping in to wish you luck. We have been on the board since July and are getting addicted by the OPs and money saved, you have been warned lol

Thanks for the good wishes! I've been an avid money saver for years (YNAB software makes me pay attention to every penny), so I feel like OPs will become part of my monthly goals more so than watching that savings account balance increase considerably! Good luck continuing your journey; you've made great progress in 9 months!

frankersBri

So I've updated my budget in YNAB, adding in the whopping mortgage but also the value of my house as an asset, so it's nice to see my true net worth (exluding pensions). Spent time on the phone yesterday with Santander asking when the extra overpayment of the DD taken on the day of the remortgage will be repaid. Apparently can take up to 13 working days, grrr.

New mortgage is with TSB and I want to get an OP in asap. But I can't until I receive all of the paperwork from them for my new mortgage account. So far I only have the paperwork for the offer, but now I've completed I need the paperwork to show I'm an actual customer so I can get the OPs in. 

Also chatted with my friend, the previous co-owner, last night and we have sorted out rent and everything with her as a lodger with me for the next 6 months, maybe more. Some welcome income as I adjust to owning all of the house bills and a bigger mortgage by myself. But I'm looking forward to the challenge and hoepfully soon watching that mortgage balance go down!

frankersBri

Finally received some paperwork from TSB confirming my first mortgage payment amount! Just had to register for online banking and somehow they have my phone number wrong so I can't do it online and they are going to have to post my activation code, very slow!
In better news, I have submitted a request online for a regular OP of £150 to be taken every month. Takes them 5 days to process this but hopefully will be accepted and from the first payment I will be making some OPs! Once I get online banking details I hope to be able to make a lump payment too and see that mortgage total come down a bit!

frankersBri

Finally got my mortgage details sorted and just made my first OP. A big one at £2500! Feels really good to get off the mark, just the nerves now of waiting to see it reflected in my account online! 

Now just to get the mobile banking app to work and I'll be there! 

Going to take the rest of May with no more OP's. Want to keep an eye on the economy and the recession we're going to be in. I think my job is relatively stable, but I also work for a small company and things could change quickly. I need to sit down and work out exactly what my emergency fund should be. It's currently around £6k, which is not bad. But I need to do the maths on the worst case scenario of being out of work for 6 months I think and keep that liquid, earning pennies in an easy-access saving. 

Peaches113

Well done on the impressive OP! That's you well out the starting blocks I feel your pain at the moment trying to balance the excitement of OPing and the reality of having to have available funds in the worst case scenario. As was pointed out to me though very worst case does your mortgage let you use overpayments to take a payment holiday? If so could give you a little more comfort that you'd survive if things got to that. Good luck, I'll be following your journey

Mortgagefreegonnabe

Ooooo that's a lovely big overpayment @frankersBri will you be able to make ones that big going forward or was it a one off? 
I hope you got the app downloaded, it's the first thing I do in the morning when I wake up and I love seeing the difference come off a day later. Very sad I know