Mortgage Free by 55

VDOT47 · 23 January 2018 at 11:36AM

So, home insurance renewed with a different company for £138 rather than the £171 we were being quoted by our existing provider - just need to remember to call them to cancel the renewal now!

Still struggling to get builders to give a quote to do the porch extension, even though they now have the plans from the architect which surely makes the job of providing a quote easier? One company even replied to say the job was "too small for them"! How difficult is it to give someone some work!!

VDOT47 · 23 January 2018 at 12:15PM

Correction - first quote just came back. £20,000!! For a 3.5m2 porch with downstairs toilet! Unbelievable! Hope the others are (MUCH) cheaper.

VDOT47 · 24 January 2018 at 4:28PM

So we are slowly getting somewhere with maximising potential for savings - both Nationwide accounts are now fully open and online banking is set up. The first is fully funded (and paid out a small amount of interest already) and the second is partly funded and will be fully funded come payday at the end of this week.

I am also going to open regular savers attached to each account, which will be a home for £400 pcm at 5% (could increase to £500pcm in the event of a payrise).

Meanwhile, will slow stooze spending onto the new purchase CC, which will allow a bit more to be paid to the mortgage each month, rather than repaying the existing credit card in full.

All of the above should earn us about £500 in interest over the next year, and allow for about an extra £200 pcm to be paid to mortgage than would be the case without the stooze.

VDOT47 · 26 January 2018 at 10:50AM

Well payday has arrived (woohoo!) and a sweep of the various accounts has allowed an overpayment today of £874.41.

That will get the balance below £250,000 and based on the purchase value of £374,000 that gives us an LTV of approx. 66.8%. Not too far to get below 65%.

This will be the last of the big monthly overpayments for a few months though as part of this month's payment came from rounding down our emergency savings fund a little bit, together with a car tax reimbursement. Also, from February the monthly car and CC repayments start (combined, about £300 pcm), and from April my auto-enrolment pension contributions will increase thus reducing my take home pay slightly.

Also, as the previous post indicated, I am putting £400 pcm into regular savers at 5% rather than using that money for overpayments at 2.19% which is the sensible thing to do, much as I love seeing the mortgage balance drop!

VDOT47 · 29 January 2018 at 11:49AM

Not much doing this weekend from a money saving point of view. Had a de-clutter and found some (very) old premium bonds and checked on the NS&I website for historic unclaimed prizes, but didn't find any. Oh well.

Nearly 2 weeks into driving the new car and my mpg has been 43, compared to 35 in my old car. Should save me nearly 25% on petrol costs, which at current prices is no bad thing. Maybe £25 a month if I am lucky. Every little helps.

VDOT47 · 30 January 2018 at 1:05PM

Second porch quote in - £20,000 - £27,000 plus VAT!!! Think I know the business I should be in to make vast amounts of money!

Think the idea is going to be a non-starter as there is no way that we can afford these sorts of amounts.

Will have to find cheaper, simpler ways to deal with the insulation and storage issues, and just live with the lack of a downstairs toilet.

greent · 30 January 2018 at 8:04PM

Ouch! I'm not sure where you live, but for a porch and downstairs loo that seems high! My bestie and her husband are spending 30k on having internal walls knocked out (rsj in), new internal walls/ doors, 2 new bathrooms, new boiler/ pipework/ radiators (full CH overhaul), new front and back doors, new patio doors into conservatory, some other internal doorways moved around and some minor bits like sockets etc moved around - seems like good value when compared to your quote (although location may make a huge difference) (Mind you, our kitchen refit is costing almost 32k.... - without any building works involved)

SuperSecretSquirrel · 31 January 2018 at 9:53AM

VDOT47 wrote: »

Second porch quote in - £20,000 - £27,000 plus VAT!!!

Will have to find cheaper, simpler ways to deal with the insulation and storage issues, and just live with the lack of a downstairs toilet.

An awful lot of money, especially if you're planning on moving in a few short years. Would you claw it all back when selling?

Any chance of building a brick outbuilding for your storage needs? Or depending on what is being stored, an off the peg wooden or metal shed even?

VDOT47 · 31 January 2018 at 10:34AM

Hi SSS, thanks for reading.

I think we would claw back about £10,000 in additional value when selling, and if we were going to live here for 15/20 years then I would consider it more carefully, but it doesn't seem worth it for the short amount of time we get to use it. Not to mention we would have to borrow to fund the cost in the first place!

We do have a decent sized garage for storage of bigger items. The porch is more used for storage of things like shoes, coats, pushchairs etc and it would be nice to have a bit more space for that.

Counted up the coin jar last night and now have £16.79 to pay into the bank today. Every little helps.

VDOT47 · 1 February 2018 at 1:27PM

Greent - home counties, which probably explains the costs for everything!

Just done a calculation and (I think) daily interest is down to £14.99. It was £16.19 at the start of the mortgage, so in theory we are saving about £36 of interest in an average month compared to a year ago.

Mortgage Free by 55

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