Moil at a mountainous mortgage

Elinore · 27 September 2016 at 12:08PM

Bam! completion has happened (Whoop Whoop!) We are first time home owners

Now to turn our energies to bringing this huge debt to heel.

Tropically · 27 September 2016 at 1:22PM

Yay! Congratulations!

themadvix · 27 September 2016 at 2:03PM

Congratulations Elinore! Good luck with the mortgage and enjoy settling into your (and the bank's) house!

Elinore · 23 May 2018 at 10:22AM

Firstly an apology. I was going to dutifully post every single month. Then bam! Two years of being MSE has flown by.

We are due to re mortgage shortly and we have done ok, we met the target we set ourselves of making overpayments of £355 per month and as such we are under £300K (even though we are three months early to re mortgage !!!8211; So not bad!)

To achieve this both had extra jobs and had minimal outgoings - basically we lived like anti-social hermits for two years . Not my recommended way to MSE. It was a bit brutal.

This was not our intended path to reducing the mortgage but the best laid plans and all that. Just after we got the mortgage the OH was moved to different role (which was one of those good news bad news situations) a relief as the company announced it was shedding a number of jobs just after he agreed the move. The role he moved to was much more secure but he was on slightly less money and lost the opportunity to do overtime which had figured into our plans.

Added to this to my car died, then the boiler self-destructed then the dog became ill and so on. We suddenly were rather strapped for cash. So it was a bit of a fraught uphill struggle - so finding the £355 was hard work.

We went a bit mad. Even to the point the OH has learned to cut my hair cos every penny counts (he!!!8217;s got really good at it!). We have both rotated through the same menu of super cheap lunches day in day out over two years (under a £1) that it!!!8217;s become legendary at our offices. Luckily my work has sent me to far flung places so that!!!8217;s been in lieu of holidays and we have a friend with a static caravan in wales when we just want to get away.

One the re mortgage goes though we are going to take a bit of an overpayment holiday because we have reached the stage where everything needs replacing because we have just worn it all out! You can only darn socks so many times and everything had reached to point it needs refreshing/ renewing or its will become for expensive in the long run. Also I think we need to take a breath and chill a bit.

We received a lovely helping hand in regards to equity. Suddenly due to a huge local regeneration project and parkland allocation our locale is now a hot place to live. The jump LTV married with the overpayments has allowed us to increase the LTV rather nicely. As such we have kept our payments static and instead whacked a huge chunk off our term. At this rate when our potential fix is finished we will have wiped 12 years off the mortgage.

I was considering keep the momentum going and get the mortgage under £200K for the next re-mortgage which in my mind would help potentially insulate us against rate raises, affordability and health issues as we hurtle towards old age(as much as you can). However that would mean doubling our current overpayment!!!8230;!!!8230;which we have agreed is a bit ambitious.

I have recently been promoted so our income has increased and we could push to it but it means a repeat of the last two years for the next five. I think we have struggled so hard so though we are going to overpay I think we need to scale it back a bit!

Moil at a mountainous mortgage

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free