Journey to a mortgage free future

labradorlove · 8 June 2018 at 7:49AM

kev2009 wrote: »

HI,

Thanks, when you say negotiate a new rate, I presume you mean you get to effectively move to the rate they advertise for a fixed rate for x years as opposed to getting a better rate?

ah ok £360 not too bad then Yes i did join up but need to find my password. Last time I believe they didn't have any deals and typically after i signed up to my fixed deals there was one out a bit later on. As said I've found Zog to be fine and no problems so far so will hopefully remain with them subject to the prices of course, i found they are cheaper than the big 6. Electricity i didn't find any real solid good reviews of the cheaper providers when i was looking so went with a bigger company who were not too far down the list of cheapest suppliers and also still meant i was cutting my daily standard charge in 1/2 plus a cheaper unit rate

I'm considering switching my car next year, it will be 3 years old then and out of warranty and will then mean paying for extended warranty. It still has a service plan till 2020 so that's ok but I found on my previous car if i leave it till towards end of the service plan, I don't get too much money back towards another so i'm currently thinking of either a) Keep my current one and run it until its no longer viable or trade it in and get a cheaper car such as maybe a Ford Focus and then have a small loan to pay back or if i'm lucky have nothing to pay back depending on the cost of the Focus, would be nice to get Brand new as never had a brand new car but also will consider a 1 year old one if price is better and spec is decent. So will have to see, ideally i would love to trade mine in and then pick up a focus for the value of the trade in as means no additional outlay for the car but will mean road tax is higher as my current car falls under the older cheaper road tax rates (£30 a year) however my insurance is extremely high and unfortunately based on quotes for a Focus, it will only come down by £100 which isn't a lot. After some investigation a while back on a different forum i'm on, we concluded that i'm in one of the top 3 or 5 highest postcodes for insurance so that's what keeps my premiums up

Kev

Yes but I think they offer your new rates based on your new LTV bracket, so the rates will be better than what you originally were offered before you fixed for 5 years.

Oh no there's nothing you can do about the car insurance unless you're willing to move

but a £100 saving is better than no savings! :beer:

labradorlove · 8 June 2018 at 11:22AM

Done well with having a full 3 NSD this week, apart from Monday for DF birthday, we haven't eaten out/ordered food for 3 days now, will be 4 if we can make it through today

(An achievement for us this past month) partly because I'm skint and refuse to dip into savings. Also we've taken pack ups to work everyday, the temptation to nip to the chippy was there (even today) but I'm resisting and will settle for my pasta lunch! Started to leave any loose change at home too so I can't use the vending machine.

So still haven't had to use my £10! Cooking again tonight and nothing costly panned for the weekend so hopefully I can carry on this NSD streak

kev2009 · 8 June 2018 at 8:00PM

labradorlove wrote: »

Yes but I think they offer your new rates based on your new LTV bracket, so the rates will be better than what you originally were offered before you fixed for 5 years.

Oh no there's nothing you can do about the car insurance unless you're willing to move but a £100 saving is better than no savings! :beer:

Hi,

ah ok so looking around at LTV, it seems the lowest on various bank websites is 60% LTV, is that the lowest? I mean can you get a 10/20/30/40/50% LTV bands? Also I noticed Santander no longer have a 60 or 65% LTV band, there lowest is 75% ? I wonder why they no longer have 60 or 65% whichever it was ?

Well you could call it £100 saving BUT that is only IF i don't have any claims as my excess has had to go up from £350 total excess (vol+Compulsory) to £500 (Vol + Compulsory) and it is still higher than last year by around £30 - £40...

Unfortunately moving isn't really a option, where I am is convenient to commute and moving elsewhere brings higher commuting fees let along the cost of moving itself and the headache of getting new mortgage etc so that's not really a option for now.

Kev

kev2009 · 8 June 2018 at 8:14PM

labradorlove wrote: »

Done well with having a full 3 NSD this week, apart from Monday for DF birthday, we haven't eaten out/ordered food for 3 days now, will be 4 if we can make it through today (An achievement for us this past month) partly because I'm skint and refuse to dip into savings. Also we've taken pack ups to work everyday, the temptation to nip to the chippy was there (even today) but I'm resisting and will settle for my pasta lunch! Started to leave any loose change at home too so I can't use the vending machine.

So still haven't had to use my £10! Cooking again tonight and nothing costly panned for the weekend so hopefully I can carry on this NSD streak

Congrats - the problem with NSD is after a while it gets boring and you think oh ok i done this for x period of time, i'll just have this or that.

My typical "excuse" is I often say oh I bought this item but its a one off, i don't buy them every week etc so it gets classed as a one off. The problem is, i seem to have a lot of "one offs" lol. Some examples are:-

Hard drives - classed as one of !!! don't buy them every month/year and will last a few years before i need to replace or they fail.

TV - again don't buy a TV all the time so classed as a one off. However i'm still considering buying a new one this year as the one i bought was purchased in 2015, is a Samsung 40" 4k tv but the remote is sooo appalling its untrue - literally i turn it on and i have to wait a good 2 or 3 mins before the TV will respond the the remote control and then afterwards if i want to change channel/increase volume/bring up tv guide or anything, it an take 4 or 5 goes, even moving the remote around, before it will pick up the signal, very bad. Its a shame as the picture quality is pretty good and that's just on standard TV channels, I don't have any channels I can view in 4K and I've only watched one 4k movie on it and tbh it was a good picture but didn't really see a major improvement over 1080p for example so i'm considering a different model TV and maybe slightly bigger as the bezels have got smaller

However i can't go too mad as i don't have alot of room for it so i'm thinking absolutle max is probably 48/49" tops and realistically probably 42 or 43" so it doesn't look too out of place.

My immediate "one off" purchase I am looking at is a new Power supply for my PC as I've noticed over the last few months or so that every now and then when its really hot, there is a funny kind of burning smell. The only thing on in my room is the PC so the toe day i have a look and googled my power supply and sure enough it seems to be a common issue with the power supply as the top fan doesn't seem to kick in even though it shouldn't initially it should if too hot s its a silent power supply or meant to be so currently need a replacement, i can still use it but i no longer leave it on for several hours.

Kev

labradorlove · 11 June 2018 at 10:56AM

So after just finding out my company had a pay rise in April and that my wage has gone up as I've passed my 6 months probation, I have completed a SOA on my new take home pay which is around an extra £1400 a year :j The SOA is calculated on my wage only, so all joint bills are halved

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 0
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1285
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1285
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 250
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 60
Electricity............................. 10
Gas..................................... 10
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 10.5
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 36
TV Licence.............................. 6.2
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 14
Groceries etc. ......................... 60
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 40
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 18.5
Buildings insurance..................... 6
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 11
Other insurance......................... 8
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 180
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 20
(Unnamed monthly expense)............... 0
Christmas............................... 30
Gym..................................... 20
Sofa Interest free finance.............. 10.65
Dog Walker.............................. 40
Apple Music............................. 7.5
Total monthly expenses.................. 848.35

Assets
Cash.................................... 500
House value (Gross)..................... 140000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 500
Total Assets............................ 141000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 118782...(250)......2.21
Total secured & HP debts...... 118782....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
MBNA...........................1900......100.......0
Total unsecured debts..........1900......100.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,285
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 848.35
Available for debt repayments........... 436.65
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 100
Amount left after debt repayments....... 336.65
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 141,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -118,782
Total Unsecured debt.................... -1,900
Net Assets.............................. 20,318

kev2009 · 11 June 2018 at 8:04PM

HI, interesting SOA... Couple of Questions - the house value - is that the house's current value or what you paid for it?

Mobile phone - £36 a month? how comes? I am with 3 and I have unlimited mins, unlimited texts and 4GB data for £10 a month. I did however buy the phone sim-free so maybe yours includes the phone? Maybe look at buying a phone sim-free? This is how i look at it - lets say from your "spare" month you saved £250 a month, thats 3k a year, lets say you buy a new phone every 2 years, so you saved 6k in that time, spend say £500 or £700 on a new model phone, keeps the monthly costs down, at least that's how I do it, i prefer to pay a larger one off cost and go that it done and dusted, now back to normal monthly outlay. I save a set figure every month I can - some months i can't as literally every penny is gone but most months i can and then every 2 years i buy a new phone mainly because the one I have starts to deteriorate i.e no longer keep charge for a whole day or some odd behaviour happening.

Haircuts = 0?? How comes? You never cut your hair? lol

Where did you get the SOA from, out of interest, might put mine in and see what it shows lol

Kev

kev2009 · 11 June 2018 at 9:23PM

Hi, just going through this SOA and does your £14 internet Services include the line rental? I pay my line rental upfront at around £200 odd quid a year.

Also, does your building insurance include contents? mine does, all in one.

Also, don't forget to factor in any regular savers you pay into or savings you want to make each month as i effectively class these as a bill so as i ensure i pay money into those accounts.

Kev

kev2009 · 11 June 2018 at 9:33PM

Hi,

do you include pension payments? u don't see it listed.

Kev

nickdentrinos · 19 June 2018 at 11:34AM

Best of luck in your quest to be mortgage free

kev2009 · 26 June 2018 at 7:16PM

Hi any updates labradorlove?

I been looking at mine and IF my calculations are right i'd end up owing a bit more than i originally thought my not reducing the term but the monthly amount so i'm now aiming to try and offset that with a over payment this year. From what I can tell the over payment can be between Jan and Dec, it doesn't go from when you took the mortgage out for example June to June... which i originally thought it would. I worked out if i can pay 2k this year then i should be in a good position to get to the figure i wanted to be at at the end of my 5 year term, providing i can make my following 2 over payments in 2019 and 2020 before the fixed rate ends.

This should leave me in good stead i hope to offset any potential interest rate rises, fingers crossed.

I'm thinking at the moment of phoning the bank maybe in October and discussing the overpayment option and see what they say.

Ideally i want to keep the term the same and reduce the monthly payment BUT then just set my monthly payment to the same figure i pay now so effectively overpaying a small amount each month, then towards the end of the following year, make a larger one off payment, without going over my 10% limit. But that may not be possible. Will have to see.

Kev

Journey to a mortgage free future

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