Snug & Sorted: Our Race to Mortgage Freedom

kaycastle

The big update

I have a super big update - and I changed the name of my diary and first post to signify a fresh start.

After speaking with OH we've decided to go all out and overpay like crazy on the mortgage - including moving things out of savings that aren't doing as much for us. 

• Today we've made a £12k overpayment - bringing the mortgage from £290k down to £278k!!
• Lowering our base payment by £63 alone
• Plan to make another £18k of overpayments this week - just limited by  how much moving moneys around per day
• In total this month we will decrease our monthly interest by £117.00 and bring our mortgage down to £259k
• We're keeping £15k as an emergency fund. 

We will be re-mortgaging this time next year and my goal is to secure the lowest interest rate and monthly payments that we can.

I'm aiming to:

• Get under £250k by the end of this year
• Keep up with the £200 overpayments, rising to £500 when the childcare bills go down from May
• Making one off overpayments every month of what we have leftover whenever we can
• According to my budget we have between £1000-£1500 available each month for overpayments depending on how much we spend outside our budget - my goal is to try to overpay about £1000 most months
• We have a 20% overpayment limit - we will still not be near that but can keep an eye on it easily 

Some of the habits we will newly adopt:

• No spend days
• Must always pack a picnic - avoid eating out at all costs - we've been getting better and better at this and have even picnic-ed in the car during the wet weather. 
• Stick to meal planning - we've also introduced a new thing where we make new recipes at the weekend which helps us avoid eating out and baking - lots of baking  

Things to do:

• Keep reading diaries on here as it inspires me
• Update my forum signature 
• In April/May re-post SOA for any advice on reducing spends

ladysummerisle

Wow, well that is both exciting and decisive! Your budget far exceeds mine but I recall when I’ve paid off large amounts that there’s still the option of payment holidays to the amount overpaid. 

Will getting down to 250k get you to a lower LTV by the time you remortgage?

kaycastle

Thank you @ladysummerisle hehe yes - I decided to get super focused as my progress in earlier years was due to just focusing on one objective I think - which was paying down to get enough equity for a beautiful forever home. I'm really lucky in my career - but I foresee a lot of change in the future due to AI - not for a bit yet but I definitely think my 40s could actually bring a decreased income. 

Its amazing how close you are to paying off your mortgage - you've cut it down massively!

The overpayments this month take me from just above 65% LTV to under 60% LTV. I'm not sure whether I'll get under the 55% mark - it all depends on how far I get under £250k - I need to be under 244 for under 55%. Depending on how far I am at the end of the year it might be sensible to use some of the emergency fund to get under it and then spend a few months upping the emergency fund.

I think I'll know more by the summer - as I think it will be determined by how good we get at not spending

ladysummerisle

I don’t think it would make much difference on the rates available with 55% - just getting it below 60% would get you into the lower bracket. Perhaps the market will take care of that too?

I don’t think you’ll regret overpaying - it just gives options. My work has a severance package on offer currently which would be lovely but I don’t have the energy to look for another job. AI may affect things for mine too in the future but at the moment I’m just using it as an efficiency aid. Hopefully this will keep me in a job for long enough to fix the neglected house! 

The diaries are really helpful for picking up tips but also perspective on how well you’re doing. Hopefully the itchy fingers to overpay will overrule the urge to spend unnecessarily.

debtfreewannabe321

Fantastic OP! Cheering you on from the sidelines! Plans all sound brill. 😃👏🏻

kaycastle

Thank you @ladysummerisle , I have a little list of diaries to catch up on and have just done yours. I love AI as an efficency aid too, I even like that it might cause me to do something very different in my 40s which I'm quite excited about.

I agree, I dont know how worth it the next 5% will be, Looking at how the markets are going I'm hoping the position will be great when I come to remortgage and I might go on a 5 year fixed. I don't think it will be too much difference. Hoping as well if I go on 5 year fix at still a relatively high mortgage it will keep the op limit at 20% 


Thank you @debtfreewannabe321 I'm going to be very extreme about it hopefully and it definitely helps to be cheered on

South_coast

OMG, I love the new title. Snug & Sorted - isn't that what we all want in life 😀???

Epic OPs missus, looking forward to seeing you smash it x

kaycastle

Thank you lovely @South_coast I'm super excited to know what being mortgage free feels like  

On a less financial update - OH is putting toddler down and I've got hot chocolate, hot water bottle and chilling infront of TV as managing the miscarriage more this week. But I'm doing emotionally okay and feeling positive about the future.

I'm watching "Extraordinary" which I'm finding it quite funny - alternative world where everyone gets a special power at 18 and follows the story of a 25 year old who hasn't got hers yet and the hilarity that unfolds. 

kaycastle

Good morning!

Productive morning so far. Updating my diary and reading others while watching "Sort your life out" as reminds me not to accumulate clutter. I don't accept any random stuff from family like I did when I was young and I really try hard not to buy stuff but years ago when I first decluttered I distinctly remember I had somehow landed up with 47 teaspoons...so do need to not accumulate weird collections again 

The other week we decluttered and had 8 big bags to give to charity and a huge clothing bin sack, first declutter since moving and tbh a lot of it was unwanted gifts or read books - we did make about £600 selling things during covid time over about 18 months as it was pre toddler - but we only sell pricier items that are very easy to shift now as we've found with our toddler we barely have time to declutter let alone all the fun and games of marketplace. 

Things done today:

• Tidied and cleaned toilets 
• Made another £10k overpayment - reducing standard payment to £1397 - pleased it was over £1500 at the start
• Now at £268k
• Got one more day tomorrow of making a big overpayment....then it will get a bit less exciting!

kaycastle

I've found something to occupy my time a bit/use to learn more technical skills that solves a real life problem for me and naturally I've got started right away 

I think meal planning is great but I find it time consuming and boring and still feel like I waste food as I'm not good enough at making sure I'm picking meals that sharing ingredients - just don't have time/concentration levels.

So I've decided to build my own automatic meal planner using google sheets and python. Crucially I refuse to pay any money to any API or other products that do this anything which pretty much means a lot of data input for me at the beginning. 

Two things I want it to be able to do at first:

• Generate a meal plan that uses up all fresh ingredients on the shopping list, and fulfils other criteria like 2 veg meals, slow cooker meals on certain weekdays etc. etc. and keeping things varied and healthy
• Generate the shopping list
• Keep track of what meals we've done/what ingredients are left/what's in the cupboard etc. 

And I'll benefit from the learning...