What are you doing without to overpay your mortgage?

[coodawoodashooda]

Not a stealth boast. Expecting cms contribution to stop imminently and trying to get rid of as much debt as possible before then. We have enough but it's hard going. Anyone else in the same boat? Please don't be offended. I'm not trying to antagonise anyone. Just looking for moral support.

I think CMS is child maintenance.

Sounds like you are upsetting some people and they just can't stop getting a dig in.

We have young children so decided to forget about holidays until they are all older, that was to afford a deposit.
We go on plenty of days out and walks (free stuff mostly) so I don't think they are missing out. We have stayed with family and the idea of spending £££ on a holiday with screaming kids being tired doesn't seem worth it. It won't be fun yet.

I don't see whats wrong with cutting down on daily bits and bobs either. Sometimes I'll want a roast but have bean on toast, mentally calculate that's at least £8-12 quid for the savings/ mortgage.

We still go for meals a lot but have cut down on takeaways and going out and put that into the mortgage aswell. It's been easier to stay in since the prices have gone up.

I don't want to be paying off a mortgage when I'm 60. I'm aiming for 40 but we have a longer term mortgage.

that little buzz you get when you realise you've paid off an extra year of your life is addictive. it's like gambling that you win every time.

Our mortgage will definitely Increase when our fix term ends so we are paying as much as we can (without sacrificing savings) before it goes up.
It's a good motivater, knowing you will be paying more for owing less. Its really annoying actually.

Surely if you can't afford the mortgage you sell and buy a small property or remortgage and take a longer term so the repayments are smaller?
You cant live your life like this

Investing less

The OP said she's not eating proper evening meals in order to overpay the mortgage. That is a little different from cutting back on takwaway coffee and expensive days out.

I think the last few years have taught, anything can happen and our lives could change dramatically in a short space of time.

Whilst I get paying extra to a mortgage will reduce debt it should not impact daily living, proper meals etc. There has to be some enjoyment otherwise you will feel you are on the never ending treadmill!!!!

I'm hoping you mean cutting meals as in having jacket potato and salad or something simple rather than going without as such?

OP what's purpose for you overpaying? Is it because the mortgage will be up for renewal shortly, your income will drop and you are trying to get the affordability down or reduce an LTV bracket.

Do you have other debt or any savings?

I am a huge advocate of overpaying the mortgage but you need to build a savings cushion first and make sure it is the debt which saves you the most money.

Having a clear goal is good. I want mine gone by the time the kids are at secondary school so I can afford nicer holidays etc. At the moment they absolutely love camping or a cheap caravan. We are still having holidays but they are very budget which at this stage is fine.

I've never bought take away coffee and I always take my own lunch. Buy very little in way of clothes and currently cut my own hair and the rest of family (bought a crea clip in lockdown and not been back but we have mad curls so quite forgiving!)

We are quite strict with food budget and I will stretch meals with lentils and veg to get two nights rather than one out of them but this has a health and convenience benefit too so don't really see it as a sacrifice.

I am quite careful with every penny, probably too much so at times!

If your mortgage is on a low rate, you’re better off saving money into a high rate savings account and using it to pay a chunk off the mortgage before the end of the term rather than paying off an extra £xx per month.

I mean the kids are happy with a toasties for dinner rather than a roast with the trimmings.

I overpaid my mortgage from the day we got the mortgage but when we were short we didn't overpay the mortgage.

I don't know what cms is but just stop overpaying if you can't afford food on the table if you do.

We have over paid for the last 11 years, the last year we ramped it up and this month is our last mortgage payment. It’s a great feeling.
in terms of going without the house needs updating, not by a massive amount but we have been holding off till the mortgage has been paid. Furniture is old (sofa is over 20 years old ) and cheap. Holidays have been budget or in this country.
I don’t feel like we have done without though, still did meals and coffees out. Looking at friends however and they did more and spent more than us on having a life. Just hoping it’s worth it.

Life is too short. Sounds like you can't afford to overpay your mortgage so you may as well prioritise eating well and enjoying life instead.

100% this

My mortgage runs until I'm 67 - in fact will likely have to extend a bit further to pay out on a divorce. As long as it pays off by time I retire I'm not going to scrimp and go without for the next 30 years. Can't tell you how many people I know who didn't make it to 68 And what do they have to show for it now? Years of austerity so their kids and/or spouse get a lump sum after they've gone

We haven't overpaid on our current mortgage yet and are on a rate of less than 1% until end of 2026. When we have to get a new rate we know it will be a lot higher so will start overpaying it then
But we will continue to live as we do now just use the amount we save every year for overpayment rather than it going into savings
I'd never scrimp to overpay and go without nice food or holidays unless I was in a position where it wasn't due to be repaid until I was past normal retirement age
Worst case is we don't overpay and its paid off at 63 I think it is

I’ve cut back on haircuts and products and clothes and shoes. Also on books (I use the library now) and music (playlists on YouTube and put up with ads) and wine (am teetotal 99% of time) and eating out.

I make sure I still treat the kids and I still make my charity donations. And I still have a cleaner!!! Sometimes I’ve considered ditching my charity spend but seems it’s good for my soul and so far I haven’t had the heart to (since the reason would be purely selfish).

Good nutrition is an investment in your employability and earning power if you want to see it in economic terms, op - you need nutrients to support cognition, immune system etc. And it's important for your kids in growing up healthy.

Put simply, if you live off toasties and then get sick and can't work then you'll have less money in the long run. As well as all the discomfort, stress etc involved.

There are plenty of ideas out there for cheap and nutritious food. It helps to think of food as energy dense (carbs, fatty sugary food, not many vitamins) or nutrient dense (full of vitamins and minerals). A toasty is probably energy dense but not nutrient dense, depending on what you put in it.

Overpaying your mortgage is nice but not worth harming your health for!

Have you checked recently that you are on the best deals for all your monthly bills OP? Obviously there's nothing to be gained on switching your gas and electric at the moment( though that might change quite soon), but if you haven't checked recently then worthwhile savings can often be made.

Power bills should be going down a bit later this year..

Good luck.

Another one who doesn’t understand exactly why you’re set on over paying your mortgage. Yes, your CMS is stopping soon but that’s a long term change I guess? So your mortgage payment needs to be what you can afford, not over paid at the expense of eating properly.
You don’t a roast dinner to count as a proper meal, that’s your mind set so can be changed for free. But whilst there’s nothing wrong with a quick toastie sometimes, it’s not nutritionally a good option if it’s just that.
You should sort out your meals before thinking about the mortgage.

We paid off our mortgage early, but never went without food. A chicken from Aldi and fresh veg may actually be cheaper than toasties when you look at the price of bread, cheese and butter. We did it by making small changes as others have said; no new clothes, takeaways, using libraries, going to the park, looking for free events locally, cheaper insurance deals, we used Money Saving Expert to check for deals and offers. We use a budgeting system that looks at every penny and all the extra money went on the mortgage. We saw it as a game and enjoyed the process rather than feeling we were going without.

We were hoping to pay ours off before our deal finishes in 3 (4?) years. We've decided not to. We'll still be over paying and saving where we can (which is less now obviously) but decided that we weren't willing to compromise enough in our daily life to pay it off completely. It's disappointing but best for us right now.

What have we given up/stopped? Nothing that isn't obvious.

• our house desperately needs work. We're keeping up with maintenance/necessary stuff but things like decorating have gone on the back burner (our living room was last decorated 13yrs ago and is looking VERY sorry for itself!).
• takeaways are no more. I can't remember the last time we ate out as a family. That makes me sad actually.
• budgeting better for food.
• being much stricter with random spends like coffees out. We have different accounts for different things to manage this.
• stopped all subscriptions apart from a few TV ones which get swopped and changed a lot to make sure we're using them/not overpaying. I did have a couple of craft subscriptions I enjoyed but can't justify them now.
• I've changed my haircut to a cheaper/less high maintenance one. My daughter also happened to change hers and it now costs less than half of what it did. Unfortunately I can't cut either of them myself.
• for a little while we both did more overtime (we're lucky to have that option) but again, it wasn't a priority for us.

You should only cut back on things you won't miss. I got rid of the car - for all of the turn key and drive off convenience it was also an inconvenience - no parking in the village, wondering what would go wrong with it next etc.

I would never skimp on food to overpay a mortgage.

I still don't understand WHY.

Also, the kids may be happy with a toastie for now but I would feel guilty passing them up more nutritious and wholesome food in order to pay off the mortgage.
You're kind of giving them an almost pauper lifestyle so you own your home. Strange

We went down to one car. But we've always looked at how much we had spare at the end of the month and paid some extra off.

We've paid our mortgage off now, which is life changing because it means we can afford for me to be a sahm. Also avoided what would have been a massive increase in interest rate from our fixed deal.

@Hungrycaterpillarsmummy The reason for us wasn’t so much to own our home but to have no debt. Not owing anyone a penny means that we have more freedom to do what we want with our money. The earlier you pay off your mortgage the more money you save on the interest that you are paying to the bank. It’s about financial freedom to us.

This perfectly puts my views.
Health absolutely is the top priority, debt/mortgage is second to it.

I also overpay the mortgage, with current inflation hoarding lots of savings is unwise. We don’t go on holidays at the moment as we have small children and I can’t be doing with that. When youngest is 4 holidays will resume, hopefully. By that time mortgage should be almost paid off.