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Starting (again). My mortgage-free journey took a detour
I am re-stating a diary of sorts because I feel I am at a genuine fork in the road and this type of diary really helped me early on when I was just starting my MFW journey years ago. In summer 2025 I was around five to six years away from being mortgage free. That was based on regular overpayments and the possibility of…
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Light the fire...
Hi All :wave: After lurking for a few years and having been inspired by lots of the amazing stories on this board I have decided that its time to join in and post my (our) journey. I am a mum of two (DD is 8, DS is 3) and have been married to my lovely DH for 10 years. We moved into our current house 4 years ago. We paid…
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2026 Mortgage-Free Wannabes
MFW 2026 - The annual challenge for everyone who would like to track their mortgage overpayments, mortgage payments, or even house-related savings. Feel free to join any time throughout the year. A very warm welcome to the Mortgage Free Wannabe 2026 thread! <3 Over the last few years, this challenge has been providing…
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Halving our income and still aiming for mortgage free!
Hi everyone, A long time lurker of DFW forum, and then here. Finally starting my own diary as I feel it will help keep me on track! As the title suggests we are halving our income as I have resigned my job in order to keep sane and support DD with home educating for the next year. The last two years we have managed to…
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our forever patch challenge
well, this week sees the new start to my mortgage free plans. After 18 months clearing debts, then paying for our wedding, which took most of our hard earned savings, we are at the beginning again. Due to restructure at work, OH is on a reduced monthly pay, so the savings are even more of a challenge! Our plan is over the…
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Where to focus - mortgage, renovations etc?
Hello, My partner and I bought our first home together last year (we're late 30s, and both had homes of our own before). The mortgage is high, but it's a forever home and we also only put down a 15% deposit so as to keep some cash back for renovations. Although we have a lot in savings, we've found the cost of materials,…
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The Piano Diary
Good morning diary and all, I recently became debt free after 31 months of debtbusting over on Debt Free Wannabe, following the advice and diaries on this site. Here is my previous diary My debt free diary I have found keeping a diary really helpful in staying focused and also therapeutic being able to think things through…
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Mortgage Free Plod
Hello MFWs I'm de-lurking after living vicariously through you all for a very long time. I've exchanged on my first house today! So now I'm a MFW too. My context: I'm a divorced, single mum (1DS). We'll be moving into a little 2-bed house with our moggy. I've taken out a 95% repayment mortgage over 27 years, which takes me…
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Pay off mortgage and start having even more fun 😁
Finally after twelve years of part one of this diary it’s time for part two 😆 Heres part one, slightly lengthy now to say the least! https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2408201/pay-off-mortgage-and-start-having-fun/p1 So condensing 12 years into a few sentences…. I joined the mfw board in April 2010, with a…
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Knocking years off the mortgage…that’s the goal!
Good morning! So thought it was time I started a diary so I can keep track of progress we have made. Bought our home in 2019 with a £240000 mortgage. Consistently overpaid £100 a month for the last 4 years and now starting to tackle the mortgage seriously, we are able to overpay around £600 a month so we are clearing 2…
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Impossible challenge
Hello! Trying to keep motivation so decided to stop lurking in the shadows and start my own thread. Family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children) with a very large mortgage of now £470k over with just over 23 years left. 1.5 years into a 5 year fix (thankfully a cheap one). OH and I are fortunate to have well paying jobs but…
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+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++
My third diary. <<<out of cheese error>> documented our debt free journey and then paying off the mortgage +++ Whoops! Here comes the cheese! +++ focussed on early retirement plans, and then my first year as a widow. This time I will be focussing on a positive new start in my brave new world. Final stages of renovating a…
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22 Foxhole East
I just made my first mortgage overpayment. We bought a 5 bed Victorian terraced house in the East Midlands in April 16 that has been badly neglected. It needs everything doing, it has been let out on a room by room basis and used as a rental machine. Now it is our family house (4 kids = one bedroom each!!). So far I have…
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Living the Good Life - mortgage free and living in line with our values
Evening all, I thought it was time I started a
new diary, as we've now been mortgage free for 18 months and the last pesky bit
of mortgage debt (on the 0% card) went in October. We're now almost through Mr
MV's 40th, Christmas, New Year and my 40th (coming up next week), so it seems
like a good time to start afresh and…
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I dream of a MF home for my plants
I’m starting myself a diary here after spending the last few days reading and lurking on the site. I used to have a diary over on debt free wannabe many years ago that was super helpful in getting my debt paid off. I can’t remember my old log in so am starting afresh. I have 12.5 years left on the mortgage - it’s split…
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And now we go again...
...new diary title taken from the line I had already added in to my signature! Regulars will already recognise me - I've been here a while, although aside from one fairly short stint always on the DFW boards. A quick summary of our MSE history for those who have not stumbled across me before though - started out with a…
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Apple muncher's number crunching
Time for me to start a diary :j. I work 2 days a week, dd is at school and dh was made redundant in the summer. We are living carefully, although the redundancy money is being nibbled away at of course. We are fortunate to have no debts other than the mortgage, so I would like to get rid of it! We'd also like to have a…
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This is it! 2027 is the goal...update
Hello I have been lurking around these boards for the past year, I have finally made the decision to start a diary to track the progress of my goal. I'm hoping that it will hold me accountable and perhaps inspire others along the way. As of May 2019 my mortgage balance was £118, 842 4 years into a 10 year fix over a 20…
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Prosperous and Creative Soul Year 5
Close to 4 years ago I finalised my divorce and completed on my biggest ever mortgage - £202K and switched from interest only between 2 of us to repayment on my own. I took the term for as long as I could - so 22 years - which means I would be 73.5 by the time I was actually free. Then I owed c£1.5K on a 0% but had a £2K…
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MF by Christmas 2024 - let's do this!
Hi everyone, I’m taking the plunge and starting a MF diary as DH and I
want rid of the millstone around our necks. We both work full time and are currently supporting DS2 who
is in year 2 at uni. DD finished uni in the Summer and has a temp job so we aren’t
charging her rent atm. DS1 lives with his GF so they are…
