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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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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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Life after Mortgage (before the Next One!)
I have been a long time reliant on these threads and at times considered starting my own but bottled it...now I am just going to go for it! It seems like a strange time to be starting a thread as a 'mortgage-free wannabe', but I can't imagine being off this group! It's been such a lifeline to be with like-minded people.…
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Overpay now or later?
I can now access my 25% tax free sum from my pension. I started the mortgage late so we have 10yrs to go £300k to pay off still Which is the smartest of these two moves: take my 25% now - value £30k and use it to overpay the mortgage now Wait circa 5yrs, when the 25% tax free sum will be bigger (circa £50k) and use it to…
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Tip toe towards my goal
Well I read mortgage free diaries all the time and find them motivating. So going to do a diary myself and log how I get on. Property purchased five years ago for £155000 now has I think £119570.24. This was a five year fix and and at the end of December will have 19 years and 4 months left. It has interest at 2.99%. I…
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Mortgage Redemption
I’m planning to pay off my Nationwide mortgage in full this month (yippee!). Currently the money is split between different accounts (cash ISA and non-ISA savings) with different institutions, none of it in the Nationwide. Am I better consolidating it all in one account and making a single payment to Nationwide, or would 2…
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MF Date 2037 - MOP it up by 2030?!?
Hello my fellow MFWers. I've decided to start a new thread now that I am debt free (4th June 2025) - yippeeeeee! I took out my mortgage in 2021 for 16 years and I'd absolutely love to get it paid by 2030 but we've recently been told that our tiny team in work is being transferred to another department and our job is very…
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My mortgage clobbering post
Putting this here because I'm an enthusiastic mortgage over payer and I have no one in real life to tell! Single parent for 15 years, left in £35,000 of debt by ex husband. (Paid off over 6 years). No maintenance paid in 15 years. Unable to pay capital for many years as I had to use the old endowment policy to pay off my…
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Powers’s mortgage free thread
Hi everyone, I’ve been reading lots of MFW diaries and wanted to start my own, sorry it’s going to be long! background: met a nice man with a not so nice house that he still owned with his ex wife and was in negative equity. Eventually remortgaged it together in May 2017 with a mortgage of £68k. We’ve made some…
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One step at a time
2024 has been a big (and expensive) year. I got married! We also moved into our ‘forever home’. Weddings and moving house are so expensive, and I am now looking towards getting a hold on our finances in 2025. I have been on the MSE forum for years, and contributed to some threads particularly on the old style moneysaving…
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Alternative living to escape the rat race....
Has anyone here managed to escape the rat race and semi‑retire before 35? I’ve been part of this forum for around 15 years, and it’s been an incredible resource for navigating all things money. But until about six months ago, I was like most people—caught up in the rat race. Constant bills, rising mortgage payments,…
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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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Strange Discussion today with Santander
I called Santander today to ask questions re paying off my mortgage in full later this year and waive the early repayment fee (which I can due with inheritance money). The conversion was straightforward right until the end. I said "thank you for answering my questions" to which he responded, "actually I have a question for…
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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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I'm paying how much interest a year??!!
Starting this to keep myself honest and on track. This is the year, well the first one of a few. I've always had the annual mortgage statement come in and put it away, little to no attention paid to it but not this time. If this was a credit card with this much interest per month I would be putting every spare penny…
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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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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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Mortgage Free in the slow lane
Hi all, I have been enjoying reading the diaries so much, I thought to start one for 2026. We are a family of two parents and our kid. We bought our forever home and now have a mortgage of 220,130, with 24 years left to go. We have offset 4500 in an investment account. Our financial goals are the following (in order of…
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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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Should I overpay or save?
Not sure if this should be here or the general mortgages board?? Hi all, interested to know what you would do if you were me. Mortgage is £53400 left, current deal is 1.29% (£335pm) fixed until October 2026. There will be 14 years left in October. I could probably overpay between £100pm and £200pm. Would this make sense,…
