-
Marginal Gains
After a lot of lurking I thought I should start my own diary. I am about to start a new job with 20% pay rise and a 5 year contract. So this diary is about how I can improve our financial situation over this time - so if my contract isn’t renewed I can afford to take a lower paying (and less stressful job). I have a lovely…
-
A Dream Worth Dreaming?
Long time lurker, first time poster …. Hopping on because I come here for inspiration regularly …. so my story and plan I will share because I’m starting to flag and lose motivation … insights and opinions appreciated 😊 bought a London flat for £355k in 2017… £60k deposit, £153k mortgage and £142k help to buy loan 2020…
-
Twinklies mortgage journey 2.0
New Beginnings So today is the start of our remortgage and as such I thought it would be nice to start a shiny new diary. Hopefully I can be reflective of the journey so far and make some new and focused goals. Just to bring anyone who doesn't know me up to speed. I am married, 2 kids, a dog, a house and an allotment.…
-
Roll on October 2025!
Thought I would start my own thread! * Mortgage taken out c.10 years ago for £95,000 * Have had several rate changes in that time * Now on a 1.4% fix through until October 25, with currently 9 years left on the overall mortgage term * Have overpaid a lot pre 1.4% deal and since savings rates went above this, overpayments…
-
Best overpayment tactic
Hello, I'm hoping for some help. I'm on a mission to pay off my mortgage asap. I have used the MSE calculators, have looked at my income/ outgoings and have settled upon overpayments averaging at £900 per month, allowing me to be mortgage free in 6 years. I am aware of the 10% overpayment limit (currently £8533 for 2024).…
-
Aiming to be mortgage free before I am 62!
It feels very bizarre to be starting a mortgage free wannabe diary! I (and we when I was part of a we!) have always been a bit of a on off rollercoaster between paying off debt and creating more debt! I can’t really put much of a potted history of my finances together as I don’t really know how things built so much or how…
-
770k reasons to be mortgage free
We have a very large mortgage. We are also lucky enough to have much a larger than average household income but with my husband approaching 50, we want to put the work in to get mortgage free so that we have the freedom to spend our life doing more of the things we enjoy! Current approx balances Sep 2023 £526,800.00…
-
Two years and then downsize...
Hello - I wanna be mortgage free! I have a mortgage in the high £40k's which has 14 years left to run and fixed at 3.04% until end Jan 2024. I'm divorced and have a grown up son living at home and job hunting, plus a teenager. September 2019 I got a temporary promotion at work and made the decision that all the pay rise…
-
Downsize to be mortgage free in 3 years
Hi, we're in our late 30s and we're thinking about downsizing our 5 bed to a 2 or 3 bed (we don't have any kids). Our current mortgage is £140k and about £60k on the help to buy. We originally purchased the house for £220k 5 years ago and is now worth £300k. Minus what we owe, we are looking at about £100k profit that we…
-
Using inflation to eliminate your mortgage
Hi all. I'm sure this has been done to death on here but I was wondering if anybody could document an example of the simple economics of eliminating a mortgage debt using inflation. I'm going to provide some example figures and would really appreciate a reply which can complete the picture. I'm not great with maths so this…
-
Debt and mortgage free wannabe
Hi everyone. I've been reading diaries here for years now, but never started one of my own and I've been a bit of a lurker. I've decided to start one myself because I completed my first SAO this evening and it came as a bit of a shock, and because I'm still living the 'mortgage is less than 1/6 of my income' life while my…
-
Quest for (mortgage) freedom
I'm a long-time reader of this forum, I find other peoples MFW diaries really interesting and inspiring. Now it's time to do a MFW diary of my own and hold myself to account. OH and I bought a house in February 2019. We've spent around a year making cosmetic improvements (lick of paint, new carpets etc) as well as some…
-
£200,593 to go
Hopefully the title is self-explanatory. My mortgage is over 31 years and just fixed at 5.42%. I'm doing this all alone and there is limited opportunities to overpay due to my salary and lack of chances to increase it. My house also needs a lot of improvements! I feel a bit of an imposter here, as it'll be a max of £100…
-
Frugally paying the mortgage down
Hello! I’ve decided to start my own thread here to keep myself accountable re: trying to reduce our mortgage. I read somebody’s daily interest calcs on their diary recently (sorry I can’t remember who!) and ours is at £15.03 a day - I can’t stand the thought of all that interest going towards the funding of arms and…
-
The Case of the Overwhelming Mortgage
I’ve lurked for a long time. I have no-one in real life I can discuss these issues with and thought it might be helpful to get it out of my head and on to paper. I am mid 40s, married, with two pre-teen children. We moved in 2017, with a 20 year mortgage of £140,000 and interest of £10 per day. We now have a mortgage of…
-
Extra Mortgage Payment Checks
Hi all, I received a letter from my lender last week advising that as of December 2023 they will be doing extra checks to ensure my payments are on track. It says the reason for any change to monthly payments would be either overpayments (meaning it goes down) or increased payment if charges and fees are added. It doesn't…
-
Mortgage Free by 53!!
#Saved for totals.#
-
Mortgage Free: The final countdown
Hello - Just signed up to Julicorn's MFW OP thread, but I felt I wanted to create a diary for this aspect of my financial life. Sorry for the thread title - @FootyFanDan and I were having some music banter over at the DFW diary's and I just thought it was a great idea for a thread title (pun included) Situation: As of the…
-
Overpayments resulting in unwanted recalculation
I am on the homeward straight and on a low interest fixed rate. I have been making annual overpayments with the intent of reducing the term. In previous years made the permitted 10% overpayment and a quick phonecall to request that the overpayment was applied to end of term. I wanted the monthly payments to remain the…
-
Nearly, nearly there!
We are very nearly there with paying off our mortgage, hopefully in the next 6 months! However, I do have a question. Is there any benefit to keeping a very low balance on the mortgage? We used to have a mortgage where you could borrow back your overpayment at the same rate as your mortgage but don't have this on our…