mortgage

10 years of being a homeowner

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I’m a couple of days late writing this, but Friday marked 10 years since we got the keys for our house. In that time, we’ve done a lot of work to it:

  • Renovated the entire downstairs, including a new kitchen in 2022
  • New central heating boiler and new radiators downstairs
  • Complete re-wiring downstairs
  • Removal of old gas fires and associated gas pipes
  • Opened up the cellar to use as a laundry room
  • Renovated our nine-year-old’s bedroom with new plaster, floorboards and furniture
  • Re-decorated the bathroom
  • Added solar panels and a battery

Despite this, the house is still a work in progress. Although we have redecorated the bathroom, and made some minor changes (new taps, new bath panel, replacement shower and shower screen), we’re planning on renovating it once money allows. In particular, at present we have a shower over the bath, but would prefer a separate shower cubicle. After that, there are also our bedroom and our spare bedroom that need renovating, and the landing. But we’ve done more than half of the house now and it’s much nicer for it.

This also means that I’ve had the same address for 10 years – my longest period of stability since moving out of my parents’ home in York, back in 2002. Another eight (and a bit) years, and this will have been the place that I have lived the longest. I’ve already spent more time living in Sowerby Bridge (15 years this November) than Bradford (8 years).

We originally took out a 25 year mortgage in 2015. However, we’ve re-mortgaged a couple of times, most recently in 2022 when we took out a five year fixed deal shortly before the Truss-Kwarteng Fiscal Collapse. And changes to our payments, plus our over-payments via Sprive, should mean that next summer will be the mid-point of our mortgage repayments. So we’ve got a way to go before we’re mortgage free.

Sprive – a mortgage over-payment app

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A screenshot of the Sprive app on iOS

If you’re lucky enough to own your own home, and are paying off a mortgage on it, then you may want to consider signing up to Sprive.

Sprive is an app for iOS and Android, that lets you easily make over-payments on your mortgage. Once you’ve registered, it’ll ask to link to your bank account using Open Banking, and you can then set a minimum and maximum amount to over-pay each month.

The minimum payment can go out on a date that you set, and then Sprive will monitor your current account balance and suggest further payments if you have sufficient money left. Sprive normally gives you a notification a few days before it talks a payment and they’re easy to cancel.

I’m using the absolute minimum amounts – £25 per month, and a maximum of £75 per month. However, even such small additional contributions should mean that we pay off our mortgage earlier. The Sprive app visualises this, and reckons we’re on track to be mortgage-free about 18 months earlier than we would be without over-payments. That translates to around £2000 less interest that we would have to pay otherwise. It’ll also show you what loan-to-value rate you are eligible for, and how much of your house you own. Having bought our house not quite 9 years ago, we now own 55% of it, although this is more due to the house increasing in value rather than our repayments.

Sprive Rewards

As well as siphoning off money from your bank account, there’s Sprive Rewards. This allows you to buy gift cards for many retailers (including all the major supermarkets) where a percentage is then used as a mortgage over-payment. For example, you could buy a £50 Tesco gift card, and have 3% (£1.50) used as an over-payment. You can, of course, use these gift cards for your own shopping, so whilst the savings may not seem like much, they can add up. You can even save 1% with Amazon; when I spent £75 there recently, that 75p has the potential to save me as much as £16 down the line in mortgage interest. I’m not a fan of gift cards, but this is where they can be used to save money.

MoneySavingExpert has a useful mortgage overpayment guide, including what you need to bear in mind. Most mortgage providers do let you overpay up to 10% of your mortgage each year, but it’s worth checking your paperwork. If you over-pay too much, you may pay a penalty for doing so.

If you like what you’ve read, and want to sign up to Sprive, you can use my referral code which is HTWH65PM. This will give you an additional £5 head start – so it’s basically free money, albeit not much and only redeemable as an over-payment on your mortgage.

Looking forward to 2014

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Newton

Following my review looking back on this year posted on Friday, I’d like to take a few moments to look forward to the new year that starts in a couple of days’ time.

House shopping

Even though our wedding is all paid off, I expect 2014 to be another expensive year for us – namely because we’re intending to buy a house. So far we’ve been renting, which is fine when you’re still getting established as a couple. But in the long term, it’s expensive (our mortgage repayments are likely to be less than we’re paying in rent), and it’s restrictive – we can’t really decorate, for example. We’d also like to move out of a flat and into a proper house with a garden.

My parents gave us quite a bit of money towards a mortgage deposit as a wedding present, but we’ll probably need a bit more. Also, something else has to happen before we can buy: we both need to learn to drive.

Learning to drive

Right now we’re restricted to living close to Sowerby Bridge railway station, and on a main bus route, as neither of us can drive a car. So we are both going to learn to drive this year, allowing us to choose a home a little further off the beaten track. Those of you who have read this blog for many years will know that I had driving lessons in 2006-7, however, after failing my practical test twice I gave up, and haven’t tried since. Though I won’t be starting from scratch, there’s a lot that I’ve forgotten in six years and so I’m not expecting to be qualified until the summer. I also need to re-take my theory test; though I passed it last time, it was only valid for two years and so has now expired, and it has got more difficult since.

So learning to drive will be one of my New Year’s Resolutions. Another will be going to the gym more, as that has fallen by the wayside somewhat since the wedding (not helped by a series of colds since September). Whilst giving up lactose has helped me feel less bloated (and so clothes fit better), I could still do with losing a bit of weight and improving my fitness.

May, as well as being our first wedding anniversary, will also play host to my 30th birthday. Which is a somewhat daunting prospect.

Weddings

We have been invited to two weddings this year – one in March, in Nottinghamshire, and another in the summer, in the Lake District. Hopefully one of us will be driving in time for the latter but we need to sort out transport for the former very soon. As many of our friends are at the same stage in life as us, I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up being invited to more weddings this year. I’m just pleased that I won’t have to organise one again.

We haven’t yet booked a holiday for this year but we’ve talked passively about a trip to Ireland. I’ve never been but Christine had family living there for a while so she has spent quite a bit of time there as a child. We also have tickets for a concert in Manchester in March. And we’ll be spending New Year’s Eve (i.e. this Tuesday) with friends, probably drinking the leftover champagne from our wedding.

So, to all of you reading this, I would like to wish you a very happy, prosperous and loving new year, and my best wishes.