2008 MFW newbies

bellsbells

Just a quick message for you - due to lots of spam PMs being sent to members at the moment the site has upped the amount of time you have to wait between sending a pm from 60 seconds to 600! This meant that tonight it took me over an hour just to respond to all the pms I had been sent! So if you are just sending me an update I will not reply to your pm - I am not being rude, honest. I will still send new members a pm and of course reply to any other 'chat':rotfl: but at certain times of the month my inbox is innundated and I would be there all night:o

ta folks

abouttimetoo

Hi Bellsbells

Just to say thanks so much for this months totals - I know it can't be an easy job:rolleyes: I've noticed quite a bit of spam myself this last couple of weeks

Regards
ATT

violetblue

I'm a very happy bunny today - had a phone call from my bank offering to review my mortgage, and they have given me a lovely fees-free tracker deal, which I am very pleased with!:j

Now I know Martin says you should never just go directly to your bank but I did go to an independent whole of market broker a couple of months ago, and with the deal they offered it just wasn't worth switching - I only have a smallish mortgage and it wouldn't have saved me very much overall.

Anyway, the new deal is limited to 10% overpayment each year for the first three years, and the minimum they will lend is £25k. So here's the plan: as soon as my current deal ends (1st August) I will pay it down to just over £25k before the switch goes through, then I can still overpay by another £2000 to get it down to my target of £23k by the end of the year. :cool: Phew!!

After that I will try to overpay the maximum at the start of each year, and stick any leftovers into savings for the next overpayment or to pay it off once the first three years are up.

Ooh, and the best thing is, the new mortgage will reduce my term from 19 years remaining to just 6!!! :T So because I'm paying more each month then in effect I will be overpaying without actually overpaying if that makes sense!

Shineyhappy

Congrats Violet you must be pretty chuffed!

My lodger gave me his rent yesterday so when my mum comes back from holiday I will give her 200 pounds of it to make the total payement 1000/5000 so only 4k to go. I need some sort of savings so the rest is going in the bank incase of any unexpected events. I know Martin says you need 3 months wages but I am going to settle for quite a bit less as I know I can access money if I really need to.

I want to pay her back in lumps of 500 pounds or it will start getting complicated so that makes this easier too as I cant afford 700 pounds this month.

Lunar_Eclipse

Hi Bellsbells,

I'd like to join please. I really wanted to join the MFi3 challenge, but found it too late, so did my own thing completely alone and not on MSE, detailed below and then found you guys today! I have been thinking of writing a MFW diary, but haven't got round to it (yet?)

We have undergone a serious overhaul of our finances this year, in an effort to clear the mortgage as early as possible. Our fixed rate also comes to an end in November so it would be great to overpay as much as possible before this time.

We are calling our Mortgage Goal '40 by 40', meaning we would like our mortgage debt reduced to 40k by the time we hit the big 4-0 birthday in 3 years time. The target for 2008 is to reduce our mortgage by 100k. In January it stood at 207k, down from our 2004 high of 252k!

For those who are curious (as I would be ) about the reality of paying off such a huge amount, our income is nowhere near this level! The first phase of our plan was to liquidate any 'assets' we could and then stick to a budget and save, save, save. Thus overpaying on the mortgage has become our financial priority.

In January of this year our mortgage was 207k and since we haven't saved a penny since our first child came along in 2000, this is no mean feat! We are good with money and have only ever had mortgage debt (& hubbie's small student loan), but our income has not enabled us to overpay on the mortgage or save, since our income reduced and costs increased when starting our family. Additionally, I (temporarily-ish) gave up work in April, so we are now down to a single income. Quite scary but bizarrely, with increased free time, I have been able to save more than I previously earnt every month.

A thorough budget later and we set our target.

On July 1st, our mortgage stands at 114k = on target. :T The target for the end of 2008 is 107k.

So in summary:

Mortgage Jan 2008 - 207k
Target Dec 2008 - 107k
July balance - 114k

Good Luck all!

ETA: Do I get a 'number'?

zavarony

Hi Lunar - if you pm bellsbells she will add you to the first post - you just need to let her know your target for the rest of the year (until 31 Dec)

Hope that helps
Zav

torbrex

No numbers on this thread we are all equally trying to achieve our targets the best way we can and it has been going too long now I think to start thinking about numbers.

Bellsbells of course, is number one in all our eyes, she does all the work to keep things updated for which we are all grateful :kisses:

bellsbells

torbrex wrote: »

No numbers on this thread we are all equally trying to achieve our targets the best way we can and it has been going too long now I think to start thinking about numbers.

Bellsbells of course, is number one in all our eyes, she does all the work to keep things updated for which we are all grateful :kisses:

thanks torbrex:o

bellsbells

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

Hi Bellsbells,

I'd like to join please. I really wanted to join the MFi3 challenge, but found it too late, so did my own thing completely alone and not on MSE, detailed below and then found you guys today! I have been thinking of writing a MFW diary, but haven't got round to it (yet?)

We have undergone a serious overhaul of our finances this year, in an effort to clear the mortgage as early as possible. Our fixed rate also comes to an end in November so it would be great to overpay as much as possible before this time.

We are calling our Mortgage Goal '40 by 40', meaning we would like our mortgage debt reduced to 40k by the time we hit the big 4-0 birthday in 3 years time. The target for 2008 is to reduce our mortgage by 100k. In January it stood at 207k, down from our 2004 high of 252k!

For those who are curious (as I would be ) about the reality of paying off such a huge amount, our income is nowhere near this level! The first phase of our plan was to liquidate any 'assets' we could and then stick to a budget and save, save, save. Thus overpaying on the mortgage has become our financial priority.

In January of this year our mortgage was 207k and since we haven't saved a penny since our first child came along in 2000, this is no mean feat! We are good with money and have only ever had mortgage debt (& hubbie's small student loan), but our income has not enabled us to overpay on the mortgage or save, since our income reduced and costs increased when starting our family. Additionally, I (temporarily-ish) gave up work in April, so we are now down to a single income. Quite scary but bizarrely, with increased free time, I have been able to save more than I previously earnt every month.

A thorough budget later and we set our target.

On July 1st, our mortgage stands at 114k = on target. :T The target for the end of 2008 is 107k.

So in summary:

Mortgage Jan 2008 - 207k
Target Dec 2008 - 107k
July balance - 114k

Good Luck all!

ETA: Do I get a 'number'?

hi lunar and welcome to the gang:T

I could put your target down in the way that most of us do, ie counting up the amount we have overpaid or if you prefer I can do it how you have written in your post - counting down how much of your mortgage is paid off.
Just let me know what you would prefer!

bb

loomacdon

moneysavingwannabe wrote: »

Hi,

We saved enough for the extension in ISAs and then put as much of the costs as we could on a 0% cc so we were earning interest on the money for as long as possible but knew we had the money to pay it off if we needed to. I personally wouldn't take money back from the mortgage cos you end up paying so much more interest.

We had to pay cash to some of the builders but new kitchen, sofas etc went on the cc. Hope this helps. Everyone will have a different opinion-it is what you feel comfortable with.

Thanks for this but only have one ISA and some shares in America - think I should leave the shares where they are and have decided to keep the ISA as a backup so..............

Will leave the mortgage challenge at the moment (so as not to reduce the overall figure for everyone) and resume when things even out with new mortgage figure and start over again.

Thanks to all for support over the first half of year and good luck for the next six months. :beer: