Onwards towards mortgage free living

gillynomad

Final overpayment for November completed! Ended up with £200 to add to the bucket (with the remaining £34 going towards my credit card).

Meant I overpaid by £800 this month which is the most I have ever managed...will be interesting to see what next month brings!

South_coast

That's a cracking result, well done you 👍

LadyWithAPlan

Well done on all the OPs! Hope the wall cracks are not too expensive to fix

savingholmes

Fantastic result. Hope you manage to get a low cost fix for the cracks.

gillynomad

Thanks all!

I haven't had much interest from builders/companies about the wall (posted on a few of the tradesmen sites) - got one that I'm waiting on a call back for but my dad has offered to come round and do some "DIY" on it. We know what needs to be done I just wanted to first see if there was anyone local as everything is a bit mad time wise at the moment in our lives. 

I did however get the £50 referral for my sister getting Virgin Media so that should hit my bank soon. Was a nice surprise as I had forgotten about it. Won't be putting it towards mortgage yet as it may be helpful to buy supplies/pay to fix the crack. Thankfully I do a have "home renovation" fund so when things do go a bit wrong with the house I can take from that first.

savingholmes

Nice win on the £50

gillynomad

So I did find a builder to come and do a quote for the work but he didn't turn up to actually do the quote. So looks like it's going to be a DIY job.

Since I lasted posted I've overpaid by £300 for the month. I did have a bit of a disaster with my phone as it broke. It meant I had to buy a new one but didn't want to use all my savings in one go so I used curry's "buy now pay in 6 months" scheme. I've done this before and it worked really well. Will look to pay £100-£150 a month to clear in less than 6 months. I've made the first payment with £100 from my savings.

If I have £50 left at the end of the month then I'll add that to the due credit too. The way I budget means my overpayments are basically accounted for already but I only put money across weekly. This means if sh*t really hits the fan I have quick access to "additional" money.

According to my current forecast I currently have about £280 to play with for the rest of the month (i.e. food/fuel/fun). So about £180 if I take about £100 for food and fuel for the rest of the month. This should leave me with some money for the phone and to put back in savings. 

gillynomad

So opened up an account with Zopa this afternoon as they have 2.86% interest with instant access which is 1.7% more than Chip are offering for their easy access that I have. Added in £500 to start from my holiday savings as I wait for a good chunk of the Chip money to make it into my bank account. (Will then replace the funds I took and add the rest to Zopa) 

Will keep the Chip account open as using their auto payments based on bank account level is really helpful in ensuring I save something every month. 

Also moved £160 out of the Prize Fund account I had opened with them too. Put £60 towards my savings, £50 towards my curry's loan, and £50 towards my mortgage. 

With that £50 it will mean £400 so far on overpayments this month. Looking to probably add another £400-450 to that by the end of the month. 

Flo08

In 4.5 years we will be 55

We have 4.5 years left on a 5 year 1% fixed rate

The balance on our mortgage will be approx: £55k

We currently have £25k saved in a high interest rate account

We also have £5k in an emergency fund

We intend to keep saving so that in 4.5 years we can pay off the mortgage balance

Only debt is a 0% interest loan which has £6k remaining (will be paid off in 18 months)

Not sure is this is the best plan...or if there is a more obvious/more efficient way?

Thanks for any advice! 

Flo08

(Should add we can access the money twice in a year without losing the rate)