The Mortgage Free Roll Of Honour

The date you decided to become a MFW.
Forever, ever since we started buying this house at least, which was 1985, it took a long time with many bumps but we are here.

Mortgage Debt at its highest
£42,000

Mortgage-Free Date
09/05/15

Your one pearl of wisdom.
Keep going, whatever obstacles you find in your way, just keep going.

:j Whoop Whoop :j

a. The date you decided to become a MFW

The day we took on the mortgage.29/7/13 We had been previously mortgage free but moved house upgraded.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest

£129555 :eek: before we sold old house as we moved before we sold it.
£51500 after sale of house.

c. Mortgage-Free Date

TODAY - 29/5/15 :j

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.

Every pound really does help. :money:


e. The MSE Mortgage guides and others that helped you

I have had tremendous financial training and help from the Elite 11+ on MSE. They have helped us still socialise, travel and eat well whilst paying down the mortgage. :A


ELite 11+ member

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
back in the 80s when we took out our £25,000 mortgage I was aware of overpaying but didn't really know how to go about it. This was back in the days of the 15% mortgage and after the interest rose twice in one day we have always been nervous of variable rates so all our mortgages have been fixed rate since then. I know we have paid more out than if we had been variable - especially in the last few years - but peace of mind knowing we could always afford the mortgage payments was worth more to us. Anyway, back to the main story, we moved and doubled our mortgage 7 years later and I am sure sometime in our years at this house the "Pay your mortgage off in two years" programme was on and we watched avidly. I finally got round to investigating how you go about paying extra. I began reading Alvin Halls books and other finance books. I started challenging myself on all my preconceived ideas about how we were living and the idea that "everybody" does this and "nobody" would want to live like that etc. Anyway after moving again into our forever home we blasted everything we could at our increased mortgage, about £125,000 this time round and when we got it down to about £100,000 we put an extension on the house taking the mortgage back up again, this time to its highest ever level of £153,000 and the process started again. In the last 5 years we have paid off over £50,000 which meant that when both my in-laws passed last year the inheritance we received has enabled us to clear the last of it. At times it seemed like we were throwing all our money at it and never getting anywhere since we kept increasing the amount owed however rationally we knew that was because we were making considered decisions to move us towards what we felt was important to us - a detached house in our choice of area. Many times I have come on here and read diaries, looked at my spreadsheets and tried re-juggling the same figures in case I had somehow missed something that would miraculously pay it all off in one magical payment and just felt so depressed at how long it was all going to take and been tempted to give it up and go get a better whatever or a bigger something or an extra whatnot like lots of our friends were doing cos it all seemed to be so many years away (however don't get me wrong, we didn't have totally hair shirt and knitted yoghurt lives all these years, we did have considered treats over the years, we have always had motorbikes or a car, had pets, took some holidays etc. The difference in our attitudes being we began to make considered choices instead of running about buying everything we wanted then wondering where all the money had gone each month.) My rambling point is that had we not continued with our overall plan, had we given it up every time it got tough or boring and monotonous, had I thought all those years ago that what I was planning was "going to take years and why bother ?" then when we got the inheritance it would not have cleared our current mortgage and we would be in the same position now that we had been years ago moaning that we will never get it paid off. Now my husband has reduced his working hours too and we are both considering changing careers because we no longer have the worry of what would happen to the house if it doesnt work out. Choice. Freedom. Wonderful words.
b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
£153,000
c. Mortgage-Free Date.
29 May 2015
d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
Get all your bills coming out of the bank account your wages go into and set up a weekly standing order to another account carefully calculating that you can afford it over a 5 week month as well as a 4 week month. Use this 2nd account for your normal spends ie food etc. This way it is much easier to budget for only a week at a time and the excess money on 4 week months builds up in your main account without you noticing - the start of savings ! This one tip saved us loads of money and hassle over the months and years.
Use pay rises (I am old enough to remember when the normal person rather than only bankers actually got those every year) to increase savings or overpayments rather than lifestyle inflation.
Give yourself (and any other adult in the family of course) pocket money - we had £25 a month at the start which allowed us to buy each other presents, buy frivolous stuff for ourselves or even stuff for the house if for example I wanted it but couldn't reconcile the expense to come out the allocated house money "pot". As we got better off over the years we did increase that but I imagine we will still keep it at our current £80 a month.
Use every hint and tip you can from the people in your life or on here.
Use spreadsheets, coloured boxes on drawings of your house, money envelope techniques, mortgage pigs, be a 1%er or a 10%er (all techniques picked up on here and used in the daisy household to keep us focused over the years) and whatever other way your brain works well with.
The best thing ever is internet banking - use it to sweep over any small amounts of money that come your way unexpectedly over into the mortgage.
Decide on percentages of any money and stick to it - this changed over the years depending on what work was needed in the house but we often used 50% to mortgage, 25% to savings/something we need and 25% to us. We applied this formula to almost any extra money that came our way - premium bond wins, handouts from parents, overtime moneys on the odd occasions either of us got the chance to work it, xmas or birthday presents (yes even presents, does that seem outrageous ? What are you 6? Do you want to pay it off or do you want a new CD to put on the shelf??) This gave us a wee bit of a guilt free treat (otherwise you get resentful that you are working away and never seem to have any fun pocket money) but we were still working towards our goal.
e. The MSE Mortgage guides and others that helped you
the mortgage free wannabe board, dithering dads challenges and tall girls diary were among the first I stumbled on, the diaries of other far too numerous to mention followed and although i don't post much everyone has had useful things to say.
f. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it.
no diary

thanks guys, keep slogging away putting every spare bit of cash you can into your mortgage, one day i was sitting where you are reading about this happening to other people but here i am now, it will happen for you too.

Daisy xxx

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
We bought our first house with a £70k mortgage in 1988, just before the mortgage rates went up to 15% :eek: We managed to struggle through that and moved a couple of times till we settled in Yorkshire in 1999. We were OK with the low fixed interest rates we managed to negotiate, but things were tight till we realised we were better off paying off the last 2 years from savings and having some ready cash to save as well as not scrimping quite so much.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
£255,000 just after we moved to Yorkshire.

c. Mortgage-Free Date
Last year

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
If your savings are earning less than your mortgage rate, consider if it's worth paying it off (as long as you have enough in reserve for a rainy day!)


e. The MSE Mortgage guides and others that helped you
I've been reading Martin's mortgage guides for many, many years, and used the recommended broker several times to get good deals

Got a mortgage for £100,00 in January 2015 for our retirement bungalow and intended to pay it off after we had sold our existing home, as the bungalow needed a lot of work before we could move into it.
Later in January 2015, was told I had been left a very unexpected large inheritance.
Started to pay mortgage in April 2015.
Received cheque for said inheritance on 6th June 2015.
Paid cheque into bank on 8th June 2015.
Sent another cheque to pay mortgage off on June 9th 2015.

Nice things do happen sometimes.