Aiming for Mortgage Free!

Hazelnutty

rugbymadfamily said:

Cashed out my first £10 Swagbucks reward this evening, planning to put it towards some new jeans! Been putting the matched betting money towards mortgage OPs so feel like it would be nice to have something to reward myself! 

I've just done the same - but it was desperation as I don't fit in many of my old clothes! Lockdown, WFH and building work has not been good for my waistline... Hopefully lockdown jeans will be redundant in a few months.

rugbymadfamily

SWSEGirl said:

I’ve enjoyed reading your diary Rugby! We also have a sizeable London mortgage, so will follow your diary with interest. Good luck! It’s amazing to see the balance come down.

Comforting to see someone else with a large London mortgage, I had a slight panic when I first came on here about how large ours was compared to many other so it is comforting to see that we arent the only ones. Your signature shows you have made massive progress with yours so will have a read of your diary and see what tips I can pick up!

rugbymadfamily

Hazelnutty said:

rugbymadfamily said:

Cashed out my first £10 Swagbucks reward this evening, planning to put it towards some new jeans! Been putting the matched betting money towards mortgage OPs so feel like it would be nice to have something to reward myself! 

I've just done the same - but it was desperation as I don't fit in many of my old clothes! Lockdown, WFH and building work has not been good for my waistline... Hopefully lockdown jeans will be redundant in a few months.

Am also hoping that the new jeans will become redundant but they are needed in the mean time lol. Was doing ok with exercising and healthy eating at the start of lock down but when our honeymoon got cancelled and the need to were a bikini went out the window....so did the eating and exercising LOL! 

QueenJess

rugbymadfamily said:

SWSEGirl said:

I’ve enjoyed reading your diary Rugby! We also have a sizeable London mortgage, so will follow your diary with interest. Good luck! It’s amazing to see the balance come down.

Comforting to see someone else with a large London mortgage, I had a slight panic when I first came on here about how large ours was compared to many other so it is comforting to see that we arent the only ones. Your signature shows you have made massive progress with yours so will have a read of your diary and see what tips I can pick up!

Don't worry, mine was higher than yours when we bought 5 years ago 😱.  Bashing the mortgage down as much as possible early on makes a big difference since at the start you are paying more interest than capital.  Plus before children is good as you'll have a lot less after!

rugbymadfamily

QueenJess said:

rugbymadfamily said:

SWSEGirl said:

I’ve enjoyed reading your diary Rugby! We also have a sizeable London mortgage, so will follow your diary with interest. Good luck! It’s amazing to see the balance come down.

Comforting to see someone else with a large London mortgage, I had a slight panic when I first came on here about how large ours was compared to many other so it is comforting to see that we arent the only ones. Your signature shows you have made massive progress with yours so will have a read of your diary and see what tips I can pick up!

Don't worry, mine was higher than yours when we bought 5 years ago 😱.  Bashing the mortgage down as much as possible early on makes a big difference since at the start you are paying more interest than capital.  Plus before children is good as you'll have a lot less after!

That's a big part of it, want to start a family in the next few years so trying to make the OPs while we have some money spare, then hopefully will make a good dent before we remortgage in 2023 (by which time hopefully we will be lucky enough to have started a family, although my fur babies might not be so happy about that lol!). It's so tricky at the start of the mortgage, it's when you need to make OPs to make as big a difference as possible...but you dont have the money cos have just spent years saving for the deposit lol. But onwards we go!

rugbymadfamily

QueenJess said:

rugbymadfamily said:

SWSEGirl said:

I’ve enjoyed reading your diary Rugby! We also have a sizeable London mortgage, so will follow your diary with interest. Good luck! It’s amazing to see the balance come down.

Comforting to see someone else with a large London mortgage, I had a slight panic when I first came on here about how large ours was compared to many other so it is comforting to see that we arent the only ones. Your signature shows you have made massive progress with yours so will have a read of your diary and see what tips I can pick up!

Don't worry, mine was higher than yours when we bought 5 years ago 😱.  Bashing the mortgage down as much as possible early on makes a big difference since at the start you are paying more interest than capital.  Plus before children is good as you'll have a lot less after!

That's a big part of it, want to start a family in the next few years so trying to make the OPs while we have some money spare, then hopefully will make a good dent before we remortgage in 2023 (by which time hopefully we will be lucky enough to have started a family, although my fur babies might not be so happy about that lol!). It's so tricky at the start of the mortgage, it's when you need to make OPs to make as big a difference as possible...but you dont have the money cos have just spent years saving for the deposit lol. But onwards we go!

QueenJess

rugbymadfamily said:

That's a big part of it, want to start a family in the next few years so trying to make the OPs while we have some money spare, then hopefully will make a good dent before we remortgage in 2023 (by which time hopefully we will be lucky enough to have started a family, although my fur babies might not be so happy about that lol!). It's so tricky at the start of the mortgage, it's when you need to make OPs to make as big a difference as possible...but you dont have the money cos have just spent years saving for the deposit lol. But onwards we go!

Yep.  Exactly how I felt at the start and I remember being quite frustrated.  But if you keep ploughing through, at some point you suddenly realise you've paid quite a bit off the mortgage and then wonder how on earth you managed to do it!  If you get bonuses at your work, they are prime for overpayments too.  Your matched betting will definitely help too.

rugbymadfamily

QueenJess said:

rugbymadfamily said:

That's a big part of it, want to start a family in the next few years so trying to make the OPs while we have some money spare, then hopefully will make a good dent before we remortgage in 2023 (by which time hopefully we will be lucky enough to have started a family, although my fur babies might not be so happy about that lol!). It's so tricky at the start of the mortgage, it's when you need to make OPs to make as big a difference as possible...but you dont have the money cos have just spent years saving for the deposit lol. But onwards we go!

Yep.  Exactly how I felt at the start and I remember being quite frustrated.  But if you keep ploughing through, at some point you suddenly realise you've paid quite a bit off the mortgage and then wonder how on earth you managed to do it!  If you get bonuses at your work, they are prime for overpayments too.  Your matched betting will definitely help too.

Yeah have got a cash flow forecast in place which excludes bonuses (as not sure anything will get paid this year so just focusing on known income and then bonuses really are a bonus) and excludes the match betting (I know this will end at some point when the offers stop). Once I hit my emergency fund goal early next year then we should be able to plough more into the OPs instead. In normal circumstances I'd be less worried about having such a sized EF but with current uncertainties, I think it's a good idea. We are lucky in that my husband is a public sector key worker so his job is secure, all seems secure at my place but it's a private company so you just never know. So for peace of mind, want to get that EF to a good level before we really up the OPs if that makes sense?

QueenJess

Makes sense to me.  To be honest I think I did identical things at that stage (pre child).  Rebuilt an emergency fund as I spent everything on getting a good deposit percentage together and overpaid the mortgage.  Ploughed MB into it (long gone for me now) and any bonuses that I did actually manage to get from work (plus salary increases).

We then did remortgage every 2 years for our fix and the first one we did dropped our LTV % into the next bracket down so we got a better deal.  We never changed the original term as I prefer the comfort of having lower monthly payments and can opt to overpay.  When the mortgage payments went down, I just used that extra money to put back into overpayments anyway.

rugbymadfamily

That's my exact thinking on the remortgage!! Keep the term the same and then my monthly official payment will be lower but I just keep paying the same as before so essentially its an OP! Have done the same on salaries in the past, get a payrise but continue living in pre payrise salary with rest to savings.

My initial fix was for 5 years as Brexit was an interest rate concern when we got our mortgage so fixed until 2023 with a large fee to move but am keeping an eye on deals as interest rates move just in case.