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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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Dilemma, Dilemma, Dilemma
Hello, I've been on MSE for many moons, gone through debt repayment and many challenges but this one feels the absolute worst. I'm kind pre 'mortgage free wannabe' but also needing the comfort blanket of a good ole MSE diary. So current situation, co-parenting with Ex H. We both have partners and everything is friendly. We…
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2025 Mortgage-Free Wannabes
MFW 2025 - 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 2025 thread! <3 Over the last few years, this challenge has been providing…
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More Effort Required - the next 5 years
Background: 2014 - Final LBM and DFW 2019 - DFD - exhausting journey but :smiley: 2020 - Back on the property ladder £300k+ 2025 - Mortgage down to £200k+ 2026 - Reset needed 2031 - Working towards MF by SPA Looks like I do these things in five year cycles, so hopefully this is the final one. How do I enjoy these next 5…
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Moving on up! 🏡
As of this week, I am mortgage free! Unfortunately, that won't be for long. I currently live with DH and our 3 dogs in a one bedroom semi-detached bungalow with no garden or parking. It's what I could afford on my own when I first moved in back in 2019, but now it's time for us to save and move up the ladder. Ideally, we…
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Learning to walk before I run
Hello all! :) I am returning to the forum in an attempt to gain your collective wisdom in sorting out our dire finances. I've been experiencing a series of mini lightbulb moments of late and have realised that it's time for a change. Despite being vaguely savvy as regards areas of personal finance such as pensions, 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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Bricks Not Books
The first day of a New Year seems like the best time to start this diary! I was on this board under another name for a number of years, but I felt like a change of name as well as a change of diary, so here I am! Completed on new home with OH in December, we haven't even owned it for a month yet. But we have a mortgage of…
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🌞 Happy Days in our Golden Years 🌞
Just over a year has passed since the final entry of my last
diary. A whole year of no debts and no
mortgage 😁 We
are semi-retired, using our private pensions to cover the cost of bread and
butter and running our own business part-time to put jam on it. You’d think I could do without a money saving
diary in those…
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Five Year Fix, Five Year Plan
I've not even got a mortgage yet, but here I go. I'm finally getting on the housing ladder and settling, after living around the country for the last decade. I've been in a position where "I'm just about to buy" for about 8 years for various reasons, so while I've not spent well, I could have saved better instead of…
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Steadily climbing the mountain, enjoying the view along the way
I have been pondering for a while stating a new thread, as at 700+ pages my old one is getting very long and doesn’t feel so aligned with where I am now. 2026 is going to be about getting myself to as healthy and happy a place as I can. Life is short and my inherent perfectionism means that I tend to want to achieve,…
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A new royal start
I mmmed and ahhhed about whether to start a diary on here or not. However, my head hurts with all my internal planning, so I thought I'd give it a go! I cannot promise excitement though! So here goes... we bought our house almost 6 years ago now and stretched ourselves quite a bit to get it (in the expensive South). I…
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There and back again...reducing the mortgage to manifest our forever home
Have been a long time lurker on MSE, and DP and I bought our first house together in March 2025 with a mortgage of £190,000. Had many plans for overpaying, what we wanted to get done however life has had other ideas so starting a diary for the first time to try and help me keep on track. We did manage to OP £3500 in 2025,…
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Mortgage free mayhem
Hi everyone! Really excited to track my mortgage-free journey at 52. Before becoming a uni lecturer this year, I've worked in charities my whole life. I've got a pension of £60K, an easy-access savings pot of £3000, and a mortgage of £84206. I want to see how quickly I can pay off the mortgage with my new higher income.…
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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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misstara's mortgage free diary
I've been kicking about dfw for years, firstly paying off debt, then saving a deposit and now am finally joining the mfw section of mse :smiley: We've just bought a wee 2 bedroom terraced house - missives were concluded last week, will sign all paperwork this week and get the keys next week. Thanks to an extremely generous…
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The Ongoing Saga of Ruby Trying to Own A Home
Hello, new home, new thread. If this is your first time here, welcome, I'm Ruby and together with my husband Mr Eskimo, we're on a journey to be mortgage free. We bought our first house in 2017 and made quite a big dent in the mortgage over that time, mostly due to some inheritance money and taking advantage of a very low…
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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…
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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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Future Proofing my life: Deposit saving then MFW journey in under 13 years
I have been reading lots of these MFW diaries over the last few weeks, some 300 odd pages long and tracking a decade or more of life. They have been fascinating, very inspirational and given me some great ideas. I am looking to buy within the next year, and then get MFW and o/p as soon as I can. My savings rate, income…
