DH keeps making mortgage overpyamentd ton reduce the term

[Redratefree]

We have a take home of £4k and a £1.9k mortgage. DH keeps making overpayments to the term of the mortgage, it was 27 years but it's been reduced to 25.25 years due to overpayments. However, I want him to reduce our monthly payments as this will give us more breathing space. He disagrees and wants to continue to reduce the term because it offers more flexibility when remortgaging. I received 2 emails from the bank this weekend for 2 overpayments of £500 and then one for £50, as soon as he gets paid he'll make an overpayment.

Going back to your OP, it sounds as if he is trying to get you into a better LTV position before the next remortgage. Is that what you mean by more flexibility? Which is a hugely sensible thing to do, as you will be able to get a better interest rate, and hence lower monthly payments. Which in turn means you have more money left over each month for your short term desires. Can you get on board with him overpaying as much as possible until remortgage, if he will then pause for a while? Although, once you are on a lower LTV, you may well be able to overpay a smaller amount and still have more left over.

I’m with your husband we’ve just put ours up to max overpayment without penalty it’s brought the term down from 32 years to 8 and we’ll have it paid off sooner than that, when you look at the interest it’s an absolute joke

It is absolutely insane to have 1.9k mortgage with 4k take home and 2 kids. We have this amount of mortgage and I know with all the extra council tax insurance bills etc you effectively have nothing left. Not sure how you have money to put food on the table.

Just decrease the payment and start living a little. Life is too short to focus on decreasing the term of your mortgage imo.

That is what I think. We are going to have school clubs and extra tution to deal with from September. DH just wants to reduce the mortgage term. I'd be onboard with reducing our monthly amounts; if he has chosen to reduce our monthly amounts we be £70ish a month better off, which would pay for a club or 1.5 of tuition.

I’m team DH. If interest rates go up you could be stuffed. Overpaying now will give you more breathing space in the long run and insulate you from shocks like redundancy.

cars are a waste of money beyond being reliable and efficient. Clothes are cheap now Vinted exists. The only thing I would prioritise is a holiday.

I'm confused by the people claiming 2k isn't much for monthly expenses (excluding mortgage).

This is our budget, which is £2176 per month and we don't feel particularly hard done by?

Without knowing the ins and outs of your finances it's difficult to know who is being unreasonable. DH is right to prioritze the mortgage over nicer cars and clothes. But not to the extent that you're skint.
But you need a joint budget. He shouldn't be making these decisions entirely alone.
But your mortgage is massive on your income! Did you get a spectacularly shit interest rate or something?

We overpaid our mortgage, took the hit and stayed less affluent but it made a tremendous difference when we moved. We had a lot less to pay on the outstanding mortgage and so had a lot more to put down on the next home. We reduced our 25 year term by 5 years. It's so worth bit.

Why don't you sit down and go through your finances so you can then account for the extra outgoing in September and set up a realistic overpayment plan that you can both agree to? You should also include increasing your pension payments and look into that, its all very well paying the mortgage off but you need the money in your pension now - rather than after the mortgage is paid off as it has longer /more years to grow

Id not want to be frittering money on a new car - they sit on the driveway for 9% of the time depreciating.

You don’t say how much he has overpaid by in total, but 1.75 years @ £1,900 a month has saved £40,000 in remaining payments from the 25th to 27th year of the original term - and I’d guess he’s overpaid by a lot less than that. So if you can afford reasonable life at the moment you seem to be in a good place :)

I'd recommend overpaying if you can manage it. It makes a huge difference to the overall amount you'll pay in total because you'll pay less interest. We took out a 20 year mortgage rather than a 25 year one as it only made a small difference to the payments, and overpaid whenever we could. We were young and in poorly paid jobs, so it was only a few quid here and there but it was totally worth it.

That’s a huge mortgage on very small take home. I wouldn’t be happy with that at all.

It depends on your age but I would be considering extending it rather than trying to shorten it.

In a world where you and your husband separated, and lived based on your individual preferences on this issue; if you were to fast forward ten years he would be living much more comfortably than you.

Family of 5 here. Council tax is £350 a month. Electric and gas is another £350. Food is too much to calculate. Fuel for the car etc. takeaways are a very very rare event and a family meal out is for birthdays and other celebration. where tf are you getting hair cuts for £30??

If if a monthly budget most people can get by with a hair cut every few months and small children don’t need a hairdressers so the 30 could be an average or it could be a training school

edit to add 2k for everything but housing certainly possible and what lots of families manage on

I’m with you op.

We could overpay on our mortgage and bring it down faster…but how much faster? Maybe paid off 5 years to 7 years earlier…when I’m in my early 50’s as opposed to my 60’s.

And struggle for the next decade.

Instead, DH and I earmark around £1000 a month or a few hundred over for vacations. And as previously mentioned in many other threads, we come to Florida multiple times a year and stay here up to 6 weeks. I am loving life. I live for these vacations. And whilst here, we blow other savings on days out, park tickets, lovely meals, clothes, shoes, treats.

We’ve been living like this since we were 27 and could afford to. I definitely don’t want to wait until my fifties to start living life to the fullest. Do it now when you’re young is my mantra.

Which could be what he’s doing if due to remortgage soon.

the overpayments will be reducing the term of the current mortgage, but when they remortgage back to the original term the payments will be lower.

More sensible to overpay in housing than transitent items like car or clothes

Your husband is making the tiniest overpayments and barely making a dent. He’s being sensible. I’m struggling to understand why you are opposed to what he is doing.

If you want more spending money you should get another job.

Most financially literate people choose to overpay their mortgage. Interest payments are dead money.

I used to have low living expenses and a high salary and went on shopping sprees every week and to the salon all the time.

I’m grateful that my partner was financially responsible and bought property in his early 20’s and has been overpaying the mortgage. There’s a housing crisis in my city. Houses I wouldn’t even consider occupying are selling in outer suburbs for well over a million dollars. Rent for a dated townhouse is almost $1k.

I don’t understand the issue. If you would be £70 a month better off then surely he just reduces the amount you overpay? It’s not a fixed amount you must pay £500 a month,..pay £400 or £300 or one month nothing etc

I regularly overpay ours but reducing monthly payment is much preferable in my opinion. It gives you flexibility and its far easier to agree a reduction in term with your bank than agree a reduction in the monthly repayment amount, should you need to for any reason in the future.

Having said that there is a happy balance to be had and my husband is in full agreement with my approach to ours (he leaves the household finances to me generally, which suits us both). If your husband is not willing to consider your wishes, or a compromise, then he is being unreasonable.

You both have to agree how you spend your money.

There also has to be balance in terms of enjoying your life and saving for the future. While making regular mortgage overpayments is sensible, he seems to have become obsessive.

I recently went to a funeral and heard about a man and his wife who didn’t take family holidays, didn’t redecorate the house, and lived an over frugal (and to their children pretty miserable) life to save for their retirement. The wife died the year the husband retired and the husband then couldn’t enjoy the money. It all sat in the bank.

so while I will never leave myself Pennines in my old age, I will also allow myself to enjoy life now.

1.9k is a pretty big % of take home pay - I'm quite surprised you were able to secure a mortgage on these terms- have you recently had to remortgage?

Overpaying is sensible where you can but not at the expense of, eg, a sensible savings buffer and a little bit of 'living'.

I can't imagine £2k a month goes far with a family of 4.

Better in my view to have it in savings and you have flexibility of how to use the money for 'rainy day' needs if things go tits up, and probably saving at a very similar (if not better) rate to mortgage means your money is better kept in your control and no loss of financial benefit?

If that £70 is going to make such a difference to you then talk to him about reducing the amount he is overpaying by £70.

I agree with everyone on here saying that paying down a mortgage is more important than a nicer car or nicer clothes.

But I do think that life is for living. Scrimping and penny pinching is not fun and just brings you down. You need to have a talk and try to get on the same page.

I disagree with your DH.