Goodbye Mortgage

A question about : Goodbye Mortgage

Hello!

I've been lurking for a while and have finally plucked up the courage to start my own diary.

My OH and I moved into our current house a few months ago (it doesn’t feel that long!) We bought it for Ј125,000 and we have a mortgage with Woolwich for Ј102,000. It's a 3 year fixed at 4.28%.

The section of our keyfacts stating 'For every Ј1 borrowed you pay back Ј1.59' is haunting me, and I'm determined not to have it hanging over us for 25 years. I've been toying with figures and I'm hoping we could do it in 10 years. This depends a lot on the future though. We know we want to have a family in the next few years which will mean our income could change hugely, but we'll plod along and see!

My first challenge is finding out how to actually make overpayments on the mortgage. Woolwich seem to make it very difficult. I can’t view the mortgage online, so have been into Barclays and they have said I can bring in a cheque or cash to branch, but I was hoping they’d be a more convenient way as I don‘t go near the branch often. I’m going to call them today and hopefully find out!

Wish me luck...

Best answers:

• MFW no.54
  OP aim for 2015: Ј2500
  Total OP for 2015 (so far): Ј632.51 (25%)
  Overpayments to date:
  1. July 2012 - Ј500 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј101,069.51
  2. August 2012 - Ј600 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј100,245.28
  3. September 2012 - Ј550 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј99,469.01
  4. October 2012 - Ј531.20 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј98,830.45
  5. November 2012 - Ј25.26 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј98,642.76
  6. December 2012 - Ј5 OP.
  -
  7. January 2013 - Ј5 OP.
  8. February 2013 - Ј5 OP.
  9. March 2013 - Ј5 OP.
  10. April 2013 - Ј132.04 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј97,478.93
  11. May 2013 - Ј71.37 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј97,465.23
  12. June 2013 - Ј75.05 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј97, 324.23
  13. July 2013 - Ј36.41 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј96,658.53
  14. August 2013 - Ј25.11 OP.
  15.September 2013 - Ј15 OP.
  16. October 2013 - Ј52.02 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј95,924.45
  17. November 2013 - Ј160.65 OP. Mortgage Balance: -Ј95,546.06
  18. December 2013 - Ј106.32 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј95,120.31
  -
  19. January 2014 - Ј209 OP.
  20. February 2014 - Ј214 OP. Mortgage Balance: Ј94,360.15
  21. March 2014 - Ј209 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј93,806.66
  22. April 2014 - Ј205 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј93,376.94
  23. May 2014 - Ј277.07 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј93,003.87
  24. June 2014 - Ј275 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј92,478.36
  25. July 2014 - Ј109.14 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј92,193.06
  26. August 2014 - Ј215 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј91,767.93
  27. September 2014 - Ј75 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј91,439.17
  28. October 2014 - Ј94 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј91,175.50
  29. November 2014 - Ј161.25 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј90,930.75
  30. December 2014 - Ј460 OP. Mortgage balance: Ј90,430.75
  -
  31. January 2015 - Ј550.61 OP. Mortgage balance:Ј89,201.76
  32. February 2015 - Ј81.90 OP (so far)
  OP aim for 2012: Ј3000. Total 2012 OP: Ј2264.80 (75.49%)
  OP aim for 2013: N/A. Total 2013 OP: Ј666.58
  OP aim for 2014: Ј2500 Total 2014 OP: Ј2503.39 (100.1356%)
  OP aim for 2015: Ј2500 Total 2015 OP: Ј??
  Total OPd: Ј5600.38
  Mortgage at highest: Ј102,000 (May 2012)
  Outstanding mortgage balance at last check:Ј89,201.62 30/01/2015
• Check the Terms and Conditions of your mortgage.
  I checked the small print on ours and found out that during our fixed rate deal over 2 years, the maximum overpayment was 10% per year of the balance owing at the year end.
  After 2 years, most lenders including ours, do not restrict the amount you could overpay.
  Good luck in paying it back quicker. Its not uncommon for mortgage holders to pay back twice what they borrow and sometimes a bit more, over the life of a mortgage.
  Owning beats renting any day.
• Thank you NPowerUser!
  I've phoned Woolwich today to find out the details. We can overpay up to 10%/Ј10,225 (I wish!) between 1st June 2012 and 31st May 2013. He's also given me the Sort Code and Acc. no. I need to make overpayments by standing order/bank transfer.
  He said it won't reduce our term, but we will pay it off quicker (um?). Also, that it won't alter our monthly DD unless we make an overpayment which is 3x or more our monthly DD, in which case it wil be recalculated. I'm still trying to get my head around the details exactly, but I think I've just about grasped it.
  The plan is to (hopefully) overpay by Ј500 per month at the moment. I've set aside Ј250 so far this month and I'm hoping we'll have enough left by payday to bring it up to Ј500 for our first overpayment. I'm far too excited by it!
• I'm with Woolwich but now past my fixed deal. I haven't looked at a new fixed rate a it's at 2.49% (1.99+ base rate), I overpay by standing order like you mentioned, just wish I could view on line, surely woolwich should get this sorted!
• Thank you! That makes it much clearer
  Marko21, I couldn't agree more. It's so silly not letting peopel view them online.
  Not a lot to report today. I had a NSD, but also had a letter saying that I underpaid tax by just over Ј100 last year. A few of my collegues got the same letter for exactly the same amount, so I'm going to speak to payroll and look into it.
• We are also with W00lwich @ 2.49%. I agree it is a hassle not being able to see the mortgage account online. We pay online through our B@rclays account using the mortgage sort code and account number whenever we have some spare money.
  Good luck in your MFW journey.
• Maybe it's their way of trying to put people off overpaying... hide it and hope they don't realise how much they could save
  I've not long finished work and have ended up on the computer, but found an email for a free graze box in my inbox. I've reactivated my account to recieve it, and will cancel after. I'm sure there will be some nice 'bits' I can put in OH's lunches that will shave a little of the food shopping as my Ј200 monthly budget is dissapearing far too quickly!
• I'm another one who can't see our mortgage online.. that's why i keep my spreadsheet up to date then i can see at a moments notice how much we owe back.. (not that i check it all the time, cos that would be sad )
  Good luck on your journey, it's great that you've started OP'ing straight away, that pesky mortgage will be gone in no time
• How strange, are you with Barclays for your current account? We are with Barclays and moved our mortgage to Woolwich in August 2011 I can see the account online and just click a button that says overpay. Also it tells me how many years I have on the mortgage due to offsetting etc etc.
  If you are with Barclays I would go and talk to them, because obviously it can been done and I agree it is very very handy!
• Hi, I spotted your link on peonie's diary and wanted to say best of luck!
• Well said on identifying: "For every Ј1 borrowed you pay back Ј1.59' "
  Just think that every Ј10 you pay back is effectively Ј5.90 saved over the life of the mortgage. That's a huge carrot isn't it!
• I think it's right about the offsets being the only ones we can view online. It's really annoying, but hopefully it won't make too much difference. It would just be nice being able to log in and see it going down!
  I haven't got much to update on the MFW side of things, although it's been an expensive few days. I had to take the dog to the vets this morning as I spotted a lump between his pads last week. Although I've been bathing it in salt water it's not changed. They've prescribed him a weeks worth of antibiotics as they think there's something in there. If those don't work then he'll need to be sedated and have it lanced. They said it's likely he'll need that and I should claim on his insurance if he does, which I'm dreading as we've never claimed before so have been able to cancel our policy and take out a new one every year to keep getting the introductory discount. I also came out of the vets Ј65 lighter, he's worth every penny but it's still expensive for what it was!
  I've got a couple of hours of paid training this afternoon for work, then about 11 days straight as I've taken on some extra shifts. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but it's worth it to eat away at that mortgage!
• Just think about the mortgage when you're at work.
• It does seem to help doesn't it!
  Now, I wish I had a fantastic and productive report to make, but it's actually quite the opposite. At the end of last month I divided our money up, and put Ј600 into savings (split between Mortgage OPs/OH's New Car Fund/Savings) with the intentions of adding our leftovers at the end of the month. I've now had to take money back out, and have generally gone to pot a bit. I've gone over my Ј200 food budget by about Ј20 so far, and that's with sticking to my meal plans and buying cheaper things that I would have bought previously.
  We're also having a bit of bother with British Gas not being able to register my Nectar Card due to some 'fault' on my nectar account and them 'working on it', which could take months apparently (while we're on expensive standard tariff, of course!). I was hoping to have it done so I could change tariff (or supplier), but I think I'll just have to do it and loose the potential nectar points as we had to submit our meter reading online and I was shocked at how much we had used. Our DD was estimated at Ј36.50. Turns out we used 787 units in our 2 months of living here, which I think is insane. They calculated our bill and we now owe them Ј32.94 extra meaning we're really spending about Ј52.97 per month. I'm trying to look at the tariffs and different suppliers on the comparison sites but everytime I do a comparison it throws up totally different results and I'm a bit confused if I'm honest.
  So a big aim for me is to keep electricity consumption down and get my head around the crazy lists of suppliers/tariffs. We had a key card at our old house, and although it was expensive I'm embarassed to say I think the simplicity was almost worth the extra!
  Today's meter reading is: 2261.7
• Have you checked out the guide to deciding on suppliers on the main board? It might help you get your head round it all.
  We all have times when we don't achieve what we want as MFW- the key is to keep going!