770k reasons to be mortgage free

thegentleway

Wow that's an impressive income to be able to overpay so much! 

I'm a bit confused by your target to save £240k in 40 months though; wouldn't you need to save closer to £6k per month to achieve this?

We have a similar sized mortgage on 5 year fix as well but all interest only fixed at nearly double your rate (2.33% until Aug 2027). Your diary does inspire me to try to save up enough cash to have 60% equity by then (we are at 80% currently).

Savingtomove said:

You are off to a great start.  Nice to hear how someone with similar mortgage amount gets on.  It feels a little never sanding at times!! 

@Savingtomove - are you overpaying/offset saving as well?

Savingtomove

@thegentleway we have bought a house which needs a massive amount of work so have some debt to clear first.  The roof is being replaced in spring and then we will be starting a debt free diary and then aim for mortgage free.  I think our balance is at about 610k now.  How about you?  

thegentleway

Savingtomove said:

@thegentleway we have bought a house which needs a massive amount of work so have some debt to clear first.  The roof is being replaced in spring and then we will be starting a debt free diary and then aim for mortgage free.  I think our balance is at about 610k now.  How about you?  

@Savingtomove sounds like a great opportunity; we did up our first property but couldn’t do it again as we did most of the work and we have two young kids now! Did help us buy our forever home. It needs redecorating as it was an old couple who lived there for 26 years previously, lots of wallpaper, artex ceilings, lavender bathroom suite, etc… we have applied for planning permission to extend and make open plan kitchen/diner. Our mortgage balance is £600k. No other debt and I salary sacrifice as much as I can with a view to using pension to pay off mortgage. 

StrivingForSimple

New bathroom now fully fixed and re-tiled so now we’re back to we’re we were a week and a half ago! DH and I just need to get the painting finished, give it a really good clean and order some new towels- ours are over 20 years old, some were already second hand and are all fraying or falling apart. 

Payday today which is sooner than it used to be so caught me off guard. Did have some money left in the current account so first thing I did was send that £28.28 to savings so that we could make it to £7k overpayment this month. That feels very good!

I need to finalise the budget for November but any further payments I make now I’ll count as November as it’s from that budget / pay.

End of October review

Started month £7908.66
Added to savings £7000.00
Mortgage offset savings   £14,908.66    6.13%

StrivingForSimple

thegentleway said:

Wow that's an impressive income to be able to overpay so much! 

I'm a bit confused by your target to save £240k in 40 months though; wouldn't you need to save closer to £6k per month to achieve this?

We have a similar sized mortgage on 5 year fix as well but all interest only fixed at nearly double your rate (2.33% until Aug 2027). Your diary does inspire me to try to save up enough cash to have 60% equity by then (we are at 80% currently).

Savingtomove said:

You are off to a great start.  Nice to hear how someone with similar mortgage amount gets on.  It feels a little never sanding at times!! 

@Savingtomove - are you overpaying/offset saving as well?

Yes we are so lucky to have this income currently, which is why we really want to put it to good use now because nothing in life is ever certain. 

You’re completely correct. My spreadsheet tells me that we’d need to save £6008.97 for the remaining 38 months so have the full lump sum. 

That’s some way off the ‘normal’ overpayment that we have in our budget! We currently should be able to overpay a larger amount for the next few months of £5750 until I think March, then it will drop so I think something like £3500.00.
We do have quite a lot of variables in our budget and income. House renovations - we have some saved for this but know there’ll not be enough to complete everything, education - we will have one child heading to uni in this time period, work - I’m not currently working in any paid roles (though several voluntary ones that I enjoy and keep me very busy) and that’s something that could change. My husbands income is highly commission based and it’s been a fast growing industry but equally the wider economic situation in the country does impact this so there’s potential to both over and under perform. We also have built up other savings that I have earmarked for education, retirement, holidays etc but that we could access if we decide to or need to. 

Like I said, lots of variables so on balance with some peaks and troughs added in to the picture, I believe we can get to the target on time, but who knows?!

StrivingForSimple

Haven’t completely got the budget organised for November yet but I’ve got the basics worked out. 

£225 I’ve pulled from an account. This was used as a ‘float’ for expenses in husbands old job as we’d end up short when they were slow to repay on certain items but new job is set up very differently so this isn’t needed any more.
£3500 ’Normal’ over payment 
£636.86 mixture of money left in current account at month end, and extra that’s not needed in the November budget.

I’ve a few variables that I need to work out or wait for bills for so I’ve kept an extra ‘buffer’ to one side for this. Hopefully I can move more to savings in a couple of weeks once I have more info around these. 

Current position
Mortgage offset savings   £19270.52    7.92%

thegentleway

StrivingForSimple said:

thegentleway said:

Wow that's an impressive income to be able to overpay so much! 

I'm a bit confused by your target to save £240k in 40 months though; wouldn't you need to save closer to £6k per month to achieve this?

We have a similar sized mortgage on 5 year fix as well but all interest only fixed at nearly double your rate (2.33% until Aug 2027). Your diary does inspire me to try to save up enough cash to have 60% equity by then (we are at 80% currently).

Savingtomove said:

You are off to a great start.  Nice to hear how someone with similar mortgage amount gets on.  It feels a little never sanding at times!! 

@Savingtomove - are you overpaying/offset saving as well?

Yes we are so lucky to have this income currently, which is why we really want to put it to good use now because nothing in life is ever certain. 

You’re completely correct. My spreadsheet tells me that we’d need to save £6008.97 for the remaining 38 months so have the full lump sum. 

That’s some way off the ‘normal’ overpayment that we have in our budget! We currently should be able to overpay a larger amount for the next few months of £5750 until I think March, then it will drop so I think something like £3500.00.
We do have quite a lot of variables in our budget and income. House renovations - we have some saved for this but know there’ll not be enough to complete everything, education - we will have one child heading to uni in this time period, work - I’m not currently working in any paid roles (though several voluntary ones that I enjoy and keep me very busy) and that’s something that could change. My husbands income is highly commission based and it’s been a fast growing industry but equally the wider economic situation in the country does impact this so there’s potential to both over and under perform. We also have built up other savings that I have earmarked for education, retirement, holidays etc but that we could access if we decide to or need to. 

Like I said, lots of variables so on balance with some peaks and troughs added in to the picture, I believe we can get to the target on time, but who knows?!

Awesome, best of luck with target and renovations! Does your spreadsheet take into account the interest earned on the savings? That will reduce the monthly amount required a bit.

What kind of volunteering do you do?

StrivingForSimple

I add interest payments in to my OP totals each month- at the moment it’s really helping add to the total as I’ve managed to get some great savings rates. 

I volunteer for both my childrens’ schools and also for a national charity- this was meant to only be 4 hours a week but seems to have grown in to several days weekly now. I really should be looking to scale this back and balancing with paid work but I really enjoy it and have always loved to give back…

Savingtomove

You are doing so well! It’s great to see such good progress.  It feels never ending with such a big sum.

StrivingForSimple

£400.37 added today mixture of extra savings and interest paid on some savings.

Current position
Mortgage offset savings   £19,670.89   8.09%