2008 MFW newbies

Moniker

polesana wrote: »

Hi everyone
I have just moved into my very first flat complete with big scary mortgage!:eek:
I would love to start overpaying as soon as possible. I don't earn lots but as a dedicated MSE'r I look after the pennies....
I am with Nationwide (2yr fixed) and any advice would be much appreciated! :T

Hi Polesana, I'm with Nationwide too and we started a 5 yr fix two years ago. The good thing about Nationwide is that you can pay any amount up to £500 per month extra off your mortgage, though don't go even 1p over this max as you will incur penalties. Be aware though that unless you tell them not to they will adjust your normal monthly payment to take account of over payments which has the effect of keeping the term the same. If you want to reduce the term make sure you tell them not to reduce the monthly payment you have started out with. I started making overpayments in 2002 and usually could only mange the odd £50 - £100, but now I am working full time I pay the max each month and we are set to clear the mortgage by the end of the fixed deal (July 2011). So go for it! You have nothing to lose but your debt!

Love Moniker

belfastgirl23

Hi polesana and welcome. I'm also a nationwide person (halfway through a 2 year fix and praying rates come down before I have to renegotiate). I'm dead impressed you're planning to overpay so soon - it took me till 2 years in before I could even think about it. My tip is to set up a direct debit if you can - this way the money is gone before you think about it. If not you can also use online banking to make overpayments. Don't forget too that overpayments can be drawn down again at any time so this can also be your reserve fund if some kind of emergency crops up ...

Moniker is right about them reducing payments, although my experience was that they didn't do this till the fixed rate ended...at least there has been no sign of my payment going down thru overpayments, but then again my mortgage is so ginormous that £10k would barely make a dent in it

Good luck!

edit - should also add that I try to put about half of any quidco payment etc into my mortgage...similarly with interest on stoozing etc...every little helps.

elantan

unfortunatley i am going to have to pull out of this challenge for this year hubby has been off sick from work for 8 weeks he is back at work now but it will take us a wee while to make up the loss of wages etc and then i have the possibility of redundancy looming over my head so i will pull out but if anything changes i will be back


sorry

Little_Orange

Hello all,

Can I join in? I'm currently in the process of trying to work out how much of the mortgage me and OH can pay off before our fixed deal ends in May next year. We've been doing little bits and pieces but am going to make an effort to do a proper regular payment. We want to move in the next couple of years so we have space to think about having a family, so we need to make a bit of a hole in it!

Will hopefully come up with some kind of target in the next couple of weeks...so looking forward to speaking to all of you.

bellsbells

LilacPixie wrote: »

Can I please join you all??

I have recently changed the way I think about debt. I have came to the conclusion that everything including my mortgage and OH student loans is a debt and therefor should be cleared as soon as possible or at the very least offset. At the end of Feb this year we had 26k of unsecured debts plus a 54k mortgage and OH has 7k of student loans. Now we have 16k of unsecured debt plus the 54k mortgage and OH 7k of student loans. We are throwing over £1400 minimum a month at the unsecured debts and mortgage combined. We have cleared all our C cards and are left with 2 loans and Car finance that is due to finish within the year with no overpayments.

According to the snowball calc if we continue with payments as they are we will be DF, MF and SLF in 61 months so just over 5 years.

Most of our unsecured debt is now at the stage where we cannot overpay without penalty so we will be turning our attention to overpaying our mortgage. We can overpay up to 5% of the outstanding amount every year. Once that has been exhausted the remaining is getting put into a high interest account.

I hope its ok joining you while technically I am still trying to be df.

of course you can join - consider yourself part of the gang. Let me know what mortgage targets you want to set yourself for the year and I will add that info to the first post.

bellsbells

Moniker wrote: »

I would like to join the list if I can please? Two years ago after finally converting all our mortgage to a repayment type I persuaded my DH to go for a 5 year fix at 4.98% with the Nationwide. He was reluctant to fix for 5 years but I had read that to get a fix under 5% at that time would be a good thing! I also showed him that if we bit the bullet and made the maximum overpayment allowed (£500 per month) we would clear the mortgage completely in the 5 year period. We started the 5 year plan with a mortgage of just over £62000, and in July we went under the £40k mark for the first time! I can't tell you how thrilling it was! At this rate we should be under £30k by next April and it will be paid off in July 2011. It has meant being absolutely fixed on paying that extra £500 each month no matter what - but I treat it ,as Martin says, as if I was paying myself! (Which I am in a manner of speaking).

The next year is going to be tough as DD1 is going back to uni to study for a masters and we will need to support her (i.e. paying her rent etc - she has saved the fees herself). But I am absolutley determined to keep up the overpayments. We have kept the endowments going - we had no luck trying to get compensation as we bought them direct, so we thought we might as well let them run. After a period of not doing well they have picked up a bit - though they still wouldn't pay off the mortgage.

Anyway to anyone who might be in doubt about the value of paying off the mortgage early I would say it is definitely worth it, and even if you can only throw small amounts at it, do it! When I started overpaying in 2002 I could only afford to pay irregular amounts, but it has all made a difference. I only wish I had taken more interest in the whole thing and persuaded my DH to act sooner!

I will post actual amounts owed at the start of August if that's ok? Sorry for the long post!

Moniker

welcome moniker! you are added to the first post! You have done amazingly well - you must be so chuffed at getting below 40k!

bellsbells

Snaggles wrote: »

Hiya Twinklie

Yes, it can be tough sometimes, although I wouldn't change him for the world. A lot of Ryan's problems are sensory issues, so loud or sudden sounds are painful to him, he can't bear certain tastes or textures, gentle touches can hurt him, although he might not feel pain if he is genuinely hurt....the list is endless really. He also struggles to process instructions etc at school, and his social/conversational skills are a long way behind his peers. So life is pretty confusing and frustrating for him, which often leads to angry/aggressive outbursts.

He is also incredibly brave, and has a beautiful heart though, and I can't even begin to describe how much I love him or how proud I am of my beautiful, tall, blond angel. And yes, he is very funny - he has an unusual way with language sometimes, and is unintentionally extremely witty.

Sorry, a bit off topic really, although actually, Ryan is a lot of the reason I am doing this - he needs his own room, so that he has a safe place where he can go when he needs to escape, and the only way we can afford to give him that is by getting this mortgage as low as possible this year, and then either building an extension, or moving house next year.

What a fantastic motivation for overpayment! Have you looked into how much an extension would cost verses moving? I suppose with the housing market as it is an extension might be a safer bet????

bellsbells

polesana wrote: »

Hi everyone
I have just moved into my very first flat complete with big scary mortgage!:eek:
I would love to start overpaying as soon as possible. I don't earn lots but as a dedicated MSE'r I look after the pennies....
I am with Nationwide (2yr fixed) and any advice would be much appreciated! :T

welcome polesana! you so have the right idea, to start overpaying from the start of your mortgage. I wish I had!

bellsbells

elantan wrote: »

unfortunatley i am going to have to pull out of this challenge for this year hubby has been off sick from work for 8 weeks he is back at work now but it will take us a wee while to make up the loss of wages etc and then i have the possibility of redundancy looming over my head so i will pull out but if anything changes i will be back


sorry

sorry to hear your news elantan - it sounds like life is being a bit mean to you at the moment. I will keep you in the list if that is ok with you - at the end of the day you have overpaid this year and should be proud of that! Also we want to keep you in ready for the grand total at the end of December:rotfl:

take care bells

bellsbells

Little_Orange wrote: »

Hello all,

Can I join in? I'm currently in the process of trying to work out how much of the mortgage me and OH can pay off before our fixed deal ends in May next year. We've been doing little bits and pieces but am going to make an effort to do a proper regular payment. We want to move in the next couple of years so we have space to think about having a family, so we need to make a bit of a hole in it!

Will hopefully come up with some kind of target in the next couple of weeks...so looking forward to speaking to all of you.

welcome littleorange! You are added to the first post:beer: