“New year, new me”, that’s what everyone says. I’m all for making a new years resolution, but how many of us have made it past the first few weeks of January before we give in to our denied favourite treats? I want to make new years resolutions this year that don’t deny me of something I enjoy, but instead add more enjoyment to my life. One of the ways I believe I can do this is by cutting monthly costs and having more money spare to do the things that I enjoy.
I started working on my goal by sitting down with last month’s bank statement and writing a list of all my regular monthly outgoings. I then looked how I could try and reduce any of these. So I cancelled the monthly subscriptions I can do without, switched utility providers, generally neatening things up here and there. These are small things that everyone is able to do in order to spring clean their finances, that may save a few quid, but the main thing that I will do this year is take advantage of the lower fixed mortgage rates available by remortgaging.
Like many other home owners out there I purchased my property when mortgage rates were higher therefore I can save money by remortgaging. The most surprising thing is even though I am currently in a fixed deal, it will actually work out better for me to pay the early repayment charges and get out of my current deal as I can access much lower rates now. However, this is not always the case for everyone, so if you are considering remortgaging before the end of the tie in period you should seek independent financial advice.
For those on standard variable rate mortgages securing your monthly payments by remortgaging into a fixed rate mortgage could be a no-brainer. With all the uncertainty of other outgoings you may not have the extra monies hanging around to pay extra if interest rates were to rise?
So how long can we secure this for? Well although you may have already heard of 2 year and 5 year fixed rate mortgages, lenders are increasingly bringing out longer fixed term mortgages too such as 7 and 10 years. For the right person these products can be brilliant allowing you the security of knowing what your mortgage payments will be for a very long time. These longer fixes often require you to have more equity in your home and due to early repayment charges which may apply they won’t be suitable unless you intend to stay in your home for the duration of the fixed period. However if you are able to access these deals it may be worth thinking about.
If you want to explore how you can clean up your finances in the New Year make an appointment with one of our independent financial advisors.
Sammy McCann BSc (Hons) Cert CII (MP)
16th January 2017