Fighting the mortgage interest

Numbercruncher_mfw

Late1stTimeBuyer said:

It's interesting reading a few of these mortgage free diaries, even though we haven't got a mortgage yet. We're looking into buying and I'm already planning how to overpay and whether to do it monthly or annually. 

I did exactly the same before we had a mortgage. Personally I like to make a consistent overpayments each month as then the money is gone and I won't find another reason to spend that money if it was to build up in a bank account. That being said, the negative is that the money is gone so you can't dip into it if something comes up so it's important to have an emergency fund built up. Have you found a property to buy yet? 

Numbercruncher_mfw

discotek said:

I know exactly how you feel - I'm 27 and my partner and I are trying to do a balance of fun stuff vs overpayments. On top of that I'm torn about whether to do some minor changes to the flat (such as replacing carpets and floors) vs overpaying. Our first year of having a mortgage is up in September and fingers crossed we're hoping to make a 10K overpayment. The plan is to get down from 75% LTV to 60% LTV by the time we re-mortgage next year. I'm curious about people who regularly overpay vs someone like me who'd rather wait until the last possible moment and keep the cash in the bank. This anxiety is probably more rooted in the fact my partner is self-employed and can't always predict what his income is going to be!
I think that we've got this on our radar early on definitely will pay dividends in the future!

Wow you have done amazingly, my first goal is to get to 60% LTV (hopefully in next 4 years) so we get the best rates. I feel exactly the same about making minor changes, we've been talking about getting new carpets for the past 3 years but always put if off - think we just need to do it 

Numbercruncher_mfw

Short update this week, we've made a £412 overpayment this month so total mortgage payment is £1,000 for May. The plan is to see if we can sustain this going forwards.

We've had some sad family news so we are taking time to process that. 

longway2go

Well done on the OP. 
I'm sorry to see you have had some sad news. 

Greenglockenspiel

Sorry to hear you have had sad news. Did you manage to OP in June?

Numbercruncher_mfw

Greenglockenspiel said:

Sorry to hear you have had sad news. Did you manage to OP in June?

Hello, a couple of months since I last updated on here. Yes I managed to overpay in June and July too so we've managed 3 months of a £1000 payment towards the mortgage (£588 standard amount and £412 overpayment). This brings our overpayment so far this year to £1910 which is amazing considering it doesn't feel like we have made any sacrifices to achieve that. I expect our overpayments to reduce a bit over the next few months as we start returning to normal life. I've asked the mortgage company to set our repayments to £834 per month which means we overpay by the mortgage interest amount each month. That repayment amount is achievable and means that we automatically overpay without any action and reduces the chance we use the money for something else. 

I've found lockdown and the pandemic challenging for a number of reasons but on the brighter side have been able to bulk up a strong emergency fund (£5k so far) which has taken a huge pressure off my shoulders as previously it was only £1k which didn't give much wiggle room if we lose our jobs. 

Sun is shining so looking forward to some nice walks this weekend. Will be posting more regular updates from now on

twinklie

Congratulations on the OP's and building the emergency fund - that's amazing. Our emergency fund is currently only at 2K (in actual savings accounts), but we had opted to pay down debts first. Now we can turn our attention to the emergency fund a bit more - fingers crossed. 

Numbercruncher_mfw

twinklie said:

Congratulations on the OP's and building the emergency fund - that's amazing. Our emergency fund is currently only at 2K (in actual savings accounts), but we had opted to pay down debts first. Now we can turn our attention to the emergency fund a bit more - fingers crossed. 

2k is still a good figure. I love the security of having an EF

Numbercruncher_mfw

Happy Sunday everyone. I'm looking forward to a day of walks in the sun today. 

Tomorrow is the first day that our new mortgage amount comes out, I'm looking forward to seeing £834 come off the mortgage balance in one go  (and then watching £250 of it creep back over the rest of the month ). 

I have a three day week this week so very much looking forward to my long weekend from Thursday. 
I'm so grateful to have a job at the moment given the current economic climate although the feelings of it being a wrong fit are still lingering from a couple of months ago. I'm not interested in constantly thinking about development and feeling challenged every day, is it wrong to want a job which I can perfect and know what I have to do each day? I like feeling comfortable in my job, I know that's apparently bad for development but I don't want my life energy going towards my 9-5pm and leading on new strands of work which are complicated. It's really hard to know how to articulate that in career conversations without sounding ungrateful and lazy. Hopefully others may be less judgemental on this forum and will understand my point. 

Numbercruncher_mfw

Time for another monthly update. Hope everyone reading is keeping well. 
Financials:

• Paid £2,400 in overpayments this year so far. Upping my standard monthly mortgage payment to be £834 instead of £588 is working well as it means it happens automatically. 
• Emergency fund is up to £5k and S&S is at £1.5k. Aiming to get a total in the bank of £12k which would represent a year's worth of comfortable living expenses for me (my share of bills plus £500 monthly spending money) or a year's worth of joint bills if both me and my partner found ourselves out of work. 

Aims for this year:

• Try to read for at least 20-30 mins each day. I love reading and used to devour books when I was younger but never make time to read anymore. I've read 13 books so far this year (the most I've done on the goodreads challenge ever) so I'm going to try and make it a regular habit. It's much more beneficial than scrolling social media. 
• Try and do yoga/some form of exercise once a day. I don't think it's healthy to go from sitting all day working in front of a computer to then go and sit on the sofa infront of the tv screen all night. 

What is everyone's morning routines like? Since WFH I find myself sleeping in until 7:30 and then starting work at 8 but I don't think it's the best way to start the day. Interested to get ideas of how to shape my morning before work.