Our mortgage is rising by £500 a month – I’m relying on my TikTok videos to pay it

Lauren Witter will see her mortgage payments rise by more than £500 from January 2027, which she says is making it difficult to plan for her long-term finances. Lauren, 34, lives in Richmond upon Thames with her husband, 35, a full-time assistant head teacher, and their daughter, four. The couple have worked hard to increase their pay over the years and have a combined annual income of around £130,000. Before buying their current home, Lauren and her husband rented a two-bed flat in Richmond, paying £1,170 a month for rent. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the couple built up their savings and moved in with Lauren’s in-laws in Surrey. Shorts In March 2022, they purchased their first home, a two-bed ground floor flat with a garden in Richmond. The property, a renovation project, cost £384,000 to buy with the couple putting down a deposit of around £42,000. They have spent approximately £18,000 renovating the flat. Lauren, a part-time independent social worker, said: “When we purchased the flat, we took out a five-year fixed-rate mortgage with an interest rate of 2.5 per cent. “Our mortgage has been £1,200 a month, which we found manageable. We didn’t really have to cut back on anything due to the mortgage. Our daughter’s childcare fees were having a larger impact on our finances.” From January 2027, Lauren’s monthly mortgage repayment will be increasing by £508 a month, bringing her total monthly mortgage repayment up to £1,708 – an increase of 42 per cent. Lauren said: “I went for a five-year fix and the interest rate on the mortgage from next year will be 5.32 per cent. “Interest rates had been low for so long, so I knew mortgage rates would go up, but it’s a big jump. “I’m grateful that we’ve stopped paying for nursery fees. If they had continued, money would have become tight given how much our monthly mortgage repayment is increasing by. “We’ve not felt the benefit of the impact of our pay increasing because of nursery fees, and now a higher mortgage rate is on the way. It’s difficult to plan my finances for the long term when my mortgage is going up and swallowing up a large portion of my income. We’re not feeling the fruits of our hard work.” Lauren plans to mitigate the impact of her mortgage rate increase by working more hours as a content creator. She posts videos on TikTok for working mums covering topics such as finance, careers and motherhood. She said: “We’ve decided to operate our finances as if the extra £508 a month was already coming out now. I will have to be even more savvy with money and plan to get better and cheaper deals for our car and home insurance. “As well as my job as an independent social worker, I do content creator work on the side. I plan to increase my content creator work to boost my income and my husband plans to try and do more work via his side hustle as a musician.” Lauren and her husband worked hard to buy their first home and do not want to have to move to a different location. “Our family and lives are here,” Lauren said. Lauren expects interest rates to keep rising next year, adding that it looked like many people’s monthly mortgage repayments could continue to rise. What is happening to mortgage rates? Inflation is rising and the Bank of England is expected to raise interest rates, spelling bad news for borrowers. At the start of this year, UK Finance reported that 1.8 million mortgages were due to come to an end in 2026. Just under one million five-year fixes were taken out in 2021, when the average rate was around 1.59 per cent. Mark Harris, chief executive of SPF Private Clients, said: “If you are remortgaging, there are a few things to consider. An offset mortgage might be an option if you have savings that could be used to offset the debt as you only pay interest on the net balance. “There are fewer lenders offering these so there is usually a premium to pay on the rate but they offer great flexibility.” He said that if buyers have “spare” savings, paying down debt is another option. Harris added: “If you are outside any early repayment charge or within the product allowance, paying a lump sum to reduce the mortgage balance or making regular overpayments will reduce the overall interest paid and/or term of the mortgage. “Extending the term of the mortgage means lower monthly payments although you make more of them so it will cost you more in the long run. The next time you remortgage, you could review and shorten the term again, or make an overpayment. “Switching to interest only will cut your monthly costs as you will only pay the interest element of the mortgage and none of the capital. This means that at the end of the term you still need to pay back the capital, but you can review this when you next remortgage and switch back to repayment if you are able.”