To ask how much (or if) you overpay on your mortgage

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

Pure noseyness on my part. But I was just wondering how much people overpay their mortgage.

We are really keen to pay ours off as soon as possible. Bought the house 5 years ago and the amount we pay in interest on the mortgage makes me want to weep.

At the moment we are overpaying by £550 a month. Lucky to be able to afford.

[DoubleCarrick]

Wow, that's loads, op! Good on you. We have just started overpaying by £100 a month. Baby is due in Jan but we hope to keep overpaying and up our payments at some point because we will have no childcare costs as will work back to back shifts

[BarbaraofSeville]

Nothing. The interest rate is tiny and a lifetime tracker so has just gone down again to about 0.6%. Saving money up in current accounts that pay 3-5%. Also have the advantage that the money is still available should it be needed for other things.

[PortiaCastis]

Mine is paid off completely through inheritance, however I would rather have my lovely Dad back.

[acquiescence]

£100 per month here

[Oysterbabe]

Similar to a previous poster, nothing at the moment as it makes no financial sense. We get a good interest rate in our current account so are saving the money there which will eventually go towards the mortgage.

[Wishimaywishimight]

Around €600 p/m and have done since inception. Hopefully we will be able to keep doing this as it means we will have it paid off in 2023 rather than 2030.

[Lunar1]

£140 ish. We've overpaid by that for the 7 years we have had the mortgage. 1 year left of our current fixed, looking forward to seeing what a difference it makes.

[DragonMamma]

£175 a month. Which is about a third of the basic payment.

[Honeyandfizz]

We recently remortgaged and took 4 years off our mortgage term as the interest was so low we could afford the increase.

[AliceInHinterland]

Nothing

[Jaimx86]

Is it better to over pay or reduce your mortgage term?

[pitterpatterrain]

Nothing.
Currently have an offset mortgage so chuck all our savings in there

[Rachcakes]

Barbara which current accounts pay 3-5%? We're struggling to find anywhere that pays over 1%
We overpay our mortgage by £100 a month but that will increase as our interest rate will drop in line with the base rate. I think it's about 0.75% interest now.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

sorry portia

Which current account is goving you this fabulous interest rate of 3-5%?
I could do with getting in on that action

[DropYourSword]

My repayment is $2300, we were overpaying by $500-750 for a while, but now I'm on maternity leave its down to $250. I go down to minimum wage soon so will have to drop it, but still intend to pay $50. I worked out that even a $50 monthly overpayment will knock an entire year off my mortgage.
Am very of those with interest rates of less than 1%! Mine is over 4.5 (in Australia).

[blueturtle6]

Was paying extra £1k, it doubling it as had a mortgage with not repayment penalties and could afford it. But now only an extra £100, as on maternity leave

[MadameJosephine]

Nothing at the moment as house still jointly owned with ex but as soon as it is all in my name I'm planning to overpay by £150 a month which is about 25% extra

[OutToGetYou]

Santander pays 3% up to & 20k, but a £60pa fee.
TSB pays 5% on £2k
Lloyds has one too.

I use regular savers and move money around to get the best rates.

We don't overpay mortgage (dp pays it, not me, and he wouldn't pay more than he 'had' to) but last time I remortgaged I dropped the term significantly which is the same thing really (so dp pays more, because he 'has' to).

The only downside is that with an overpayment if money gets tight you can stop paying it. With a reduced term you can't (unless your mortgage company allows mortgage holidays or you remortgage again for a longer term, but neither is guaranteed).

[ShotsFired]

Would it not be more productive to express the amount as a % of the standard mortgage payment; or even of income?

Someone overpaying £500 on a £30k mortgage is vastly different to the same overpayment on a £300k mortgage.

[leccybill]

We overpay by about £50 a month. Mortgage is £480 a month.
All we can afford at the mo.

[Chihuahualala]

I am self employed so it fluctuated. I had my mortgage at age 22 and after fifteen years if initially struggling I started to over pay at the rate of £500-£750 most months (was always petrified of being skint after my earlier struggles so did it as a buffer rather than an overpayment)

I became mortgage free at 41 when I sold the house (£3.1k left on it at the time)!and moved in with DH. We then used my equity of £110k (shit myself seeing that much in my bank account)! to pay off the mortgage here and do the place up. Yes I'm on the deeds lol. We do have a bit left that's in a savings account but I want to blow it

[ZippyNeedsFeeding]

MrZippy's mortgage is so small that we only have to make payments twice a year (it's some sort of agricultural thingy from the Scottish Office) and each payment is supposed to be £350. I pay £100 a month because I want it to be paid off before he retires next year.

[Usernamegone]

I overpay by £100 a month. When our 2 year fix finishes early next year I should be able to remortgage at lower interest rate so (hopefully) my payment should go down by £100 and then I intend to try to overpay by £200. Seeing my mortgage statement scares me and encourages me to overpay!

[blitheringbuzzards1234]

It's good to overpay what you can afford when you can spare it. May I add a word of caution? I assume that with the mortgage there's an element of life/serious illness cover? When you have paid off the mortgage it may be a good idea to keep that payment going.
You don't know what's round the corner. My DH didn't do that and became terribly ill with a terminal illness completely out of the blue. He regretted it, we managed on benefits but the extra would have been a help.

[NiceCuppaTeaAndASitDown]

Nothing at all, but that's because we've only been homeowners two years and are planning a new kitchen and a utility/WC extension early next year. It's going to cost in the 40k region and we've been saving to fund that so we don't have to borrow any more.
Once that's sorted we'll look at overpaying, but we also want to start a family next year so may end up putting any spare money aside to cover the loss of earnings from maternity leave instead.