Snug & Sorted: Our Race to Mortgage Freedom

kaycastle

I've had a very productive day!

• Defined data structure for my meal planner and started adding recipes (the tedious bit!)
• Almost finished tesco delivery order with manual meal plan and supplies for any weekend picnics 
• Cancelled 2 subscriptions worth £10 a month - £120 saving a year
• My home insurance renewal quote is £50 cheaper than last year - down to £166 so I'm pretty chuffed with that
• Started spring clean cleaning - scrubbing wood work, and just lots of scrubbing.... house is looking better
• Had to pay £190 extra to deal with the accumulation over winter - didn't want them to automatically put up my direct debit because then it seems to take ages to be automatically put back down again and I've noticed they make it harder and harder to adjust yourself or get refunds.
• I'm really hoping March starts to warm up and heating requirements decrease 
• Our tumbler broke within warranty and it took over 2 months for them to sort it - just got sorted last week so haven't had to warm up the house to dry clothes since then. Also need to contact them as they promised £30 compensation for taking so long which I'm sure they won't be forthcoming with until we've chased 

I'm now chilling out reading more diaries before toddler pick up.

I finished another book last night - bringing my total books read so far to 10 this year - that included Pillars of the Earth and Wild Swans - both hefty tomes I've been been meaning to read for some time. Really loved them both. 

kaycastle

The final 10k moved over this morning. So that's the end of some of the excitement. 

Some results from that:

• Mortgage down from £290k to £258k, I'm so pleased to get so much further away from £300k
• Minimum payment down from £1512 to £1345! 
• I paid 11% of the mortgage!!   
• LTV from above 65% to under 60%
• Principal payment per month has gone from only £400 to well above £500 So over £100 more on the actual debt each month

So yes I'm pretty pleased  

I'm excited to see how well we keep up with overpayments this year. The only major expenses coming up are in April:

• We're going away in April for 3 nights self-catering on a farm. Already paid all the accommodation. We are just going to do free explore/national trust places with our membership and of course will pack picnics and make dinners ourselves so hoping to have a low cost adventure!
• Also have 1 night away - which is free as it was a redeemed gift from a work leaving presents ages ago that have only just managed to organise redeeming. The only thing will need to pay for is food. I'm going to be very MSE and take a pack lunch for the daytime for us I'm excited for an adult only night away
• Petrol will be a bit more expensive for April as a result but also I won't be getting the train to work obvs so that does actually cancel a lot out

We don't really go away or do nights away so its a bit out of the ordinary (we do caravan/camping) so this should be the most expensive time of the year but going to do my upmost to keep the food expenses down.

debtfreewannabe321

That's an amazing achievement Kay well done! 

kaycastle

Thank you

Just a quick update on the week so far, work has been busy and stressful but I have a bit of a renewed energy with the mortgage focus.

It's funny to think without overpaying it would have been almost 5 years before the mortgage reached this level. 

Money wise things are going well this month, I think there will be extra leftover for more overpayments. We definitely have a new love for avoiding spending. I've already packed a picnic for today incase we go out later. Although does seem rainy and cold. But must not be lazy!!

I was thinking I'll probably do a bit of a 80/20 split on leftovers. 80 onto overpayments and 20 just topping up emergency fund as always unknowns. I've found advertised salaries in my work have got lower over the past year. There are also less hybrid or remote working yet companies aren't paying more for added commuting costs. I think part of this is some early influence of AI but also I think companies are protecting profits by paying less. All this makes me think a small trickle increasing the emergency fund is a good idea. 

I'm so excited for how much less childcare bill will be from April.

I did adjust the heating to a shorter time and then it got really cold again. Darn weather 

eat_that_frog

Just catching up on your recent posts and OP, wow you've done really well! Well done for getting so much further away from £300k. It's so motivating when you can see how much more you're paying towards the debt itself rather than the interest. I find it quite addictive actually   

KajiKita

Just read this diary 😊
I think it was the right shout to use your savings (less the £15K EF) to pay down the mortgage asap. It will save you so much more interest that way. You are going great guns 😊👏

KK

kaycastle

Thank you so much @eat_that_frog you definitely inspired me to simplify and focus. I'm so excited to see my mortgage start with a 1 again some time

I've found we've spent a lot less this month and picnics have become the norm. Ive never seen our extra spending be so low sincr covid, and thats been even with some necessary home fixes, I'm excited for payday next week as that will be when I move whatever was leftover to overpayments and emergency fund growth.


Oh has just gone to pick up a second hand compost bin. Only a £10 instead of the around £50 garden centres want. I'm determined to become a composting nerd, saving space in the bin and money.

kaycastle

Hiya All,

Now we've been paid I've put the leftovers before payment to good work I've kept to an 80/20 split for overpayments/savings. This might be the last hefty one as it completely removes buffers sitting in current accounts from before too.

There was £2500 leftover this month.

• £2000 overpayment gets the mortgage down to £256k
• £300 back on the ISA that I raided for those big overpayments :P 
• I'll have OH set up another savings account to put £200 in later.

Its crazy to think without the big overpayments - we wouldn't have been at this level until 2029

I'm quite excited to have finally got OH excited about mortgage overpayments - for the first time ever his saying things like "that can go to our overpayment" overpayments blah blah - never heard him mention these things before even when I've go over stuff so I think his benefited from the focus as well and the illustrations I gave him of just how much interest the bank is getting from us. 

I'm getting so excited at the prospect of lower interest rate when remortgaging next year too! 

Note on spending:

We still have until Monday but in March we have so far spent -£1000 less than the average of the last 6 months and -£500 less than February. February we had already started to lessen our spending.

I'm so chuffed - half of that is from pretty much obliterating eating out and reducing shopping.

I'm excited to see what we achieve now the buffers have reduced - we have got some time aways in April so there will be that but fingerscrossed I can keep our spend down there Especially with the much reduced childcare bill yay!

kaycastle

ooooh excitingly the mortgage free year just crept into 2039 from 2040 - yay!  I have a spreadsheets with proper formulas - I simplify it a bit by keeping the interest rate the same but I'm getting pretty sure that the remortgage next year will be substantially lower than current.

kaycastle

Not much of an update yet this month - I'm waiting for our time away to see how much we land up spending! So will do a large spending update the week after next.

There has been some dentist costs this month and a few other small unexpected so I predict an expensive month.