How can I reduce my outgoings/mortgage?

[HonoriaGlossop]

I am fed up totally and would love to reduce our bills even if only for a while, while I look for a job I actually want to do; I've been kind of 'trapped' into a manager's post that I didn't apply for, didn't want; and instead of working 15 hours over two days I now do four days a week and that's not what I want at all.

Our mortgage alone is about £900 a month (and I don't think we can downsize, that's on a mortgage of about £140k for a two bed house!) is there any magic way I can reduce this amount significantly?

I know this is probably the million dollar question but I just feel so fed up.

Can you change to another mortgage lender with a lower interest rate?

Other option is how many years to have left, you can spread it over 30 years whcih will make your monthly repayments lower although you will pay more in interest in the long term. You could however reduce the term again in the future. Most lenders will allow you do this absolutely free etc.

Could you ask your mortgage company if they have any other "products" to ofer you? Or even switch companies? We moved to a fixed-rate for 2 years and it reduced our payments by about £100 a month.

I have heard some companies do 'payment breaks', might be worth looking into that?

You could switch to an interest only mortgage for a while

Is that interest only or repayment ? Could you switch it to part and part and/or a fixed rate ?

thanks guys; we are already on a 30 year term fixed rate so I don't think we could get something so good even, specially as they've been pulling all the fixed rate offers.

And have already planned to take a payment holiday in August but to be honest this will simply enable us to mop up the overdraft

Am I making it up or could we swop to interest only payments on the same mortgage? Is that something people do as a short term thing or not possible?

oops x posts petronella and LIZ, so that is possible then? Interest only? What sort of difference would it make?

You sound already stretched to the max tbh! Will have to ask your lender is you can switch to interest only, look at your fine print.

You need to speak to your lender. Our bank (HSBC) will do an interest only period for a short while, but you're only treading water. The best thing is to see if you can economise elsewhere and overpay your mortgage. Then you pay less interest and your monthly payments in the long run.

Mortgage calculator here to give you a starting point. If you switch to interest only it is worth having an investment to enable you to repay it long term and /or opportunties to make capital repayments. If you have any savings , consider paying off some capital. You could make an appointment with your lender to see what else they might have and what charges there might be to change.

I'd checking out moneysavingexpert.com to ensure you are getting a good deal on gas/electric/telephone/car & home insurance/not wasting money on having sky etc

What we have done in the past is gone through all the direct debits and seen what we can lose or reduce.
e.g.
changed my phone to pay-as-you-go savings £20pm
stopped cable TV & brought a freeview box savings £20pm
told dh he had to drop at least one of his magazine contributions (never had time to read them anyway) savings £5 pm

I still have to check & swap energy suppliers though.

Don't know how you reduce mortgate though, especially as it will only cost even more in the long run

HG have you thought about offsetting to reduce or eliminate the interest on your mortgage? You would need to (both) have excellent credit ratings, but we have done this and reduced the interest charged on our mortgage to zero.

thanks for all the ideas everyone. Will definitely investigate the offsetting idea. Thanks.