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However, one thing to bear in mind is that paying down your mortgage is a pretty inefficient way to reduce monthly expenditure
That may be so, but just using the Google mortgage calculator on its stock settings, putting £20k in and reducing the term until the monthly repayable is the same reduces the total repayable by around £55k. Usual caveats: YMMV / depends what your priorities are / depends how much risk you like / depends on your mortgage deal etc etc.
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Jonny69
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just using the Google mortgage calculator on its stock settings, putting £20k in and reducing the term until the monthly repayable is the same reduces the total repayable by around £55k.
Time value of money though innit. If your problem is feeling a couple of hundred quid skint every month, the promise of compound interest in 30 years' time is hard to focus on ;-)
Luckily the offset gives you (mostly) the best of both words, albeit with a slightly higher interest rate to pay for the optionality.
NickCJ
The S&P500 is up 13% since the end of Q3, which will help!
As others have said, taking your gains and putting it into a 6-12 month fixed rate account (https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest/#1yrfixtable) seems pretty sensible. Would want to figure out whether that crystallises any CGT liability though.
However, one thing to bear in mind is that paying down your mortgage is a pretty inefficient way to reduce monthly expenditure, because you obviously can't re-borrow what you have paid. On a £200k mortgage it "costs" £20k to reduce your monthly payment by £100.
Maybe get an offset at refinance time and fund it with a bit of surplus cash on day-1?