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  • BachSoon
    BachSoon Posts: 172 Forumite
    . Hehe. Not legal no. I thought lawyers paid for there houses in cash?

    Perhaps it’s not as glamorous as it seems..

    Ah well, I just assumed because the 2 year training for a trainee solicitor is referred to as a training contract also :rotfl:

    Nope definitely not. Especially when you're only 2 years pqe and at a firm in a region rather than one of these big London firms. Not that I'd want that. I value my work life balance and my family over pots of money. :D

    Regarding paying off the student loan early, I wouldn't. Martin has written an article about it :money: his approach is to see it more as a tax. I have a rather large student loan and it hasn't affected anything. Pre DH, I had a mortgage on my own where having a student loan made something like a £2.46 difference to my DIP! It's affected nothing since then. My opinion is that you'd be much better off paying towards other debts/saving/mortgage/pension contributions over making extra payments to your student loan.
  • Just overpaid by £2100. Odd number but it reduces the term to 34 years exactly so felt good!

    Had a chat to husband and we decided reducing our buffer in our savings account in favour of reducing the mortgage was worth it. Won’t be able to go on a foreign holiday for at least 3 months anyway so can save up for it again in that time and that way we bring the mortgage down faster.

    Really feeling motivated to reduce the loan to value bracket by the time our fixed term ends in 2021 and we remortgage. I know that depends on the housing market but that’s out of our control so concentrating on what we can control and that’s the overpayments!
    Jan 2019: £211,500
    September 2020: £197,600
    Target: mortgage free by 2032
  • Nichelette
    Nichelette Posts: 2,090
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    Well done on the overpayment. You inspired me to check how much student loan i have outstanding. Turns out it was more than I thought :rotfl:. I'm not going to pay that off, though I was looking forward to the extra in my pay. It seems I will be waiting a few years!

    We have a 7.5k emergency fund. I feel like it's a lot when our jobs are about as secure as you can get, but equally having the cushion stops me from having sleepless nights so I'll probably continue to sit on it.
    Finally bought a home
    Starting mortgage £289,500 31.01.19 - Current outstanding £207,243.66
    Overpayments since 27.03.19: £46,161.46
  • So, no more overpayments since I last posted but I don't get paid until the 30th (was expecting it on Friday because I'd forgotten how payday works in my current job!).

    Handbrake cable on car broke = £125
    Husband has bought train tickets for weekend away = £73 (but would have been >£100 if we hadn't used a ticket splitting website so was please about that anyway).
    Spent about £30 on paint for the house from Wilkinsons - went for the cheap own brand paint rather than the brand name stuff at twice the price, no idea if that will be reflected in the quality??

    Other than that things basically going to plan.
    Did the weekly shop at Waitrose last week instead of the usual combination of lidl and Sainsburys. Was a lot less stressful and got some lovely food. Had £6 off when you spend £30 vouchers and needed £61 worth of shopping so put it through the till in 2 halves and saved £12. Hopefully will do the same next week. Just have to be careful not to get too used to Waitrose so it's difficult to go back to Lidl.

    Another good thing is that we're sticking to our weekly meal plan instead of going out or getting any takeaways. We haven't had a takeaway since we moved in in January. Every time we're tempted we just say to each other that we'd rather put the money on the mortgage and cook something instead. Said no to a Chinese restaurant for my sister's birthday yesterday and came home and made mushroom stirfry instead, very virtuous!

    Also, husband has quit drinking. He's fed up with the hangovers and the calories. I'm not quite ready to give up on gin and tonics (or red wine, or lovely stouts) all together but have reduced in support, and not having it in the house at present. So that's a big saving really. Although I can recommend Lidl's own brand gin (think its called Horus?!) which is only £14.99 a bottle. But still, lime cordial definitely cheaper.

    Will endeavour to check in after payday..
    Thanks for you post Nicholette, lovely to be doing this as part of a community.
    Jan 2019: £211,500
    September 2020: £197,600
    Target: mortgage free by 2032
  • Brindlebabe
    Brindlebabe Posts: 92
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    Forumite
    My lovely husband sold some stuff on E*ay so have put it straight on as an overpayment - £134.73. Enough to bring the term down by another month.
    Feels good to be chipping away! (Such a long way to go though!)

    x
    Jan 2019: £211,500
    September 2020: £197,600
    Target: mortgage free by 2032
  • BachSoon
    BachSoon Posts: 172 Forumite
    Congratulations on the extra payment from the eBay sales BB
  • BachSoon
    BachSoon Posts: 172 Forumite
    Oops, posted too soon.
    Sounds like your DH is really on board and wanting to make progress too which is lovely.
    Well done on the ticket splitting. It's something I've heard about but never actually tried. Which site do you use?
  • Brindlebabe
    Brindlebabe Posts: 92
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    Forumite
    Hadn't done it before. Used ticket splitter. Was really easy and worked fine. Just meant that he had about 15 tickets to keep track of instead of 2. But saved more than £30 so worth it! I would definitely do it again.
    Jan 2019: £211,500
    September 2020: £197,600
    Target: mortgage free by 2032
  • Brindlebabe
    Brindlebabe Posts: 92
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    Forumite
    So I'm off work this week. I haven't had a week off since just after the move in January and that week was taken up with things like buying a fridge so wasn't much like a holiday!

    Decided not to go away, partly to save money, partly because we thought a bit of time in our flat with the dog exploring the local area was what we actually wanted to do. We've struggled a bit (especially my husband) to connect with the city, having moved from the countryside, and thought connecting with it would help us feel a bit more settled here.

    So far we've done an open top bus tour, boat trip, gone to the beach, gone to the cinema and eaten out quite a bit. So not very money saving... Have tried to use vouchers where I can. Have also bought some wireless headphones, an expensive harness for El Doggington, a Rugby shirt and probably other things too. Its an interesting balance - between saving for overpayments and spending enough money to enjoy life a bit. I think we've been a bit too one way since we moved. But I feel quite anxious about money so I don't feel comfortable spending it. Which isn't a bad thing I don't think.

    Any way. I'm trying to think of it like it would have cost around £400 in accommodation to go away for the week, even somewhere in the UK, and we definitely would have spend money whilst away too. So I shouldn't feel too bad about spending money whilst on 'staycation' instead. But it is difficult.
    Going on a national trust walk today and taking a picnic so that shouldn't be too pricey!

    The other thing is that my husband has really been struggling in the new flat. It's on a main road which he finds noisy and stressful, and as I said, he hasn't really bonded with the city. One of the reasons he's very keen to be mortgage free (or at least mortgage reduced) is so that we can sell and not worry too much about what the housing market is doing. So definitely has been a relief to see him have some fun and relax and home and around and about, and if it means we can stay here a bit longer it will definitely be worth it!

    Hope all well.
    BB
    Jan 2019: £211,500
    September 2020: £197,600
    Target: mortgage free by 2032
  • Hi there,

    Thought I'd crunch some numbers for you,

    With £210,000 remaining @ 2.29%, every month you're paying £388 interest.

    This means you're paying £344 off the capital every month. Every time you overpay by £344, you take a month off the term.

    It's a long term marathon to pay off so much, so don't sprint and burn out, but keep a realistic long term target that you can keep up for a long time. Consider a ratio of £344 as a target which means you can equate this to time off the full term.

    When I started out, I tried to take an extra month off the term every month, using a calculation similar to above.
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