Planning to pay off small mortgage this week

TimSynths

I've never made an overpayment to my mortgage. I have two, the main one form the property purchase from 2003 and a second secured loan I took out in 2004 to help fund a new bathroom and kitchen. The balances are approx £48k and £2.7k. This week I plan to clear the smaller balance in full. Financially I've had to count the pennies since 2008, it was a real struggle till about 2015 which sore me working 2 jobs and also renting out my spare room to help ends meet, fortunately since 2015 promotions and salary increases have made things easier for me and I even stopped renting my spare room two years ago- although not my choice, I've adapted my finances as I've gone. This month I've already payed the last of my interest free credit card off and this week its mortgage time. Once done it will free up £155 pm which I plan to use to overpay my Santander mortgage, although not a huge amount I'm a firm believer in mighty oaks grow from small acorns. It may have taken me the best part of 12 years but I am (excluding mortgage) debt free with a healthy funded pension plan, some cash savings which increase every month and no big bills on the horizon. I am just waiting for my settlement figure to be confirmed in the post as I already called on Friday to discuss my plans and as soon as it drops I'll be making the call- will probably have a tear of Joy once paid. Feels good.

bethjames5681

Firstly - good for you - how exciting! Also, kudos for redirecting that money into overpayments...it will feel amazing to chip away at that other mortgage and £155p/m is a massive figure!

TimSynths

That's it- I've paid the smaller mortgage off. Was about to set up a monthly over payment to Santander and have decided against it, instead I have opened a stocks and Share ISA with Vanguard. Already paid £100 and have set a DD to pay a further £100 in every month on payday. Interest rate on mortgage is 2.69% which is fixed until May 2025 as I like stability, but I think over the next 5 years I can better that in the stock market, with just 8 years left on the mortgage as soon as the ISA account equals the mortgage account I shall clear in full. This is the most amount of "adulting" I have ever done in one day! May need a lie down....

Tahlullah.H

Congratulations!!

TimSynths

Tahlullah.H said:

Congratulations!!

It's a strange sensation almost surreal, you have this amount of money leaving your account for a quarter of a century then all of a sudden you don't- I think this is why I've instantly started putting it towards (albeit leftfield) towards the big mortgage (wow- I only have one now) rather than have a month off and an extra £150 to play with, effectively I've given myself a £55 pay rise as not allocated the whole amount to the new ISA but if things go okay I can always adjust it to make an actual overpayment to the mortgage- Just had a look @ Santanders online banking for the mortgage and it all seems pretty straightforward to do. £48k to go....

TimSynths

Since lockdown started I've been selling my used books and magazines on eBay and as of this morning I had £1050 in my selling account after costs. I've probably sold about 150-200 items and its been good fun although I've had to deal with a few items that have gone astray and refund one book that failed to turn up but as of this morning I've pretty much sold everything unless some one wants to buy my copy of Homers Iliad? I have just transferred £750 to my World All Cap Equity Index Fund ISA, so in my mind that is another £750 paid off the mortgage, By the end of July the balance should be £950 and I'll make another manual additional payment to round it up to £1k. I'm +0.5% in ten days, I was only getting 0.1% on the money sitting in my Starling account so so far so good. Good vibes this morning.