The first hurdle - Nichelette v the huge mortgage

I am a similar age, similar situation! I also have a large mortgage and similar salary to you. I hope the Stamp Duty situation is in your favour!

A couple of points.

Longer term gives flexibility look what the overpayments do

£289,500 @ 2.63% £1164pm 30y
£289,500 @ 2.63% £1500pm 21y
£289,500 @ 2.63% £1750pm 17y 2m
£289,500 @ 2.63% £2000pm 14y 7m
£289,500 @ 2.63% £2250pm 12y 8m
£289,500 @ 2.63% £2500pm 11y 2m

Even modest variable amount overpayed will knock years off
A good target is to look at a LTV in two years that gives a better rate
ignoring HPI for now
£320k to get to these LTV needs payment of
86% £276,466 £1164
85% £272,000 £1345
80% £256,000 £1995
75% £240,000 £2645

85% LTV should be easy, 80%(£830pm overpayment) is a good target, 75% might be stretch to far without some help from price rises.

You seem to have the spending well under control and over time the spend diary will hone the numbers on the SOA to reflect reality.

What is missing is the longer term detail.

With a big surplus it is easy to overlook what can be planned in advance(the budget) as when things come up not on the budget you just use some of the money that goes to savings/overpayments.

A good example is the car, even if you drop to one you need to plan getting it replaced at some point, even a cheap £2k car in 5 years time is £35pm average over that time

Owning a house comes with maintenance, any plans to decorate a room or two in the next 5 years do some work on the garden...

White goods/household electric even with good runs getting 10y out of everything it is still around £100-£200py.

Many are happy to go through everything and just allocate that to an emergency fund but the reality is you can predict a lot of things and plan a lot better or allocate funds to specific tasks

once you start eating into your £10k cash it won't last long, you need some of your spare £1,700 allocated to cover the things that will use up money.

I work on a plan that an emergency(unplanned expense) should only happen once, as you put it in the plan for the next time, you might not be able to predict 100% but if your washer breaks and you get a new one it will happen again so needs funds put aside.

In reality the list of predicable events need a single pot of money and you hope they don't all break at the same time.

With a 5-10 year budget with as much predicted and allocated as you can you will find that £1,700 shrinks quite a bit but your emergency funds needs should be a lot smaller.

I would also put some holiday money into the plan, you don't have to use it but say £100pm gives you £2.4k to have the option for a weekend/longer away, go out to something special, or even staycation where you have some treats but use home as a base.

Hi Nichelette, happy new diary! And happy new year as well, seeing as we're that close.

I hope everything goes smoothly with your exchange and completion. As you read, our mortgage isn't quite as big as yours, but we've made a really good dent in it since we started overpaying in April. Sounds like you're already quite on it with budgeting / not living over your means, so I'm sure you'll be able to clear it much faster than the banks would like you too.

Maybe join the MFW challenge as well, it's really good for keeping you accountable and reminding you of your goals.

All the best!
julicorn