The future's bright - the future's mortgage free!

Treacle_Toes

Hi everyone!

I’m going to start a mortgage diary in order to make the ‘Treacle Toes’ family aims more concrete. With the economy being in the ga-ga state that it is at the moment, we were early to realise that the credit crunch affects everyone and we must try and do our bit to protect ourselves, rather than leave it in the hands of the banks.

So, who are we? We’re a family of three. Me and the OH are in our mid thirties and our DD (aka Little Monster!) is 14 months old. We live about an hour outside of London, and we’re in the house that should last us forever.

Our mortgage is about £118k and is due to finish in 19 years. But my aim is to knock 5 years off that, because that would have been 25 years from when we took out our first mortgage. When we’ve moved house in the past we’ve had to increase the term, so getting back to the original 25 year date would be great.

I’ve not made any overpayments yet, because when I enquired how to do this with our mortgage provider I was told the minimum amount was £1000. So I set up a little savings account to put our potential o/p money into with the aim of making an overpayment when it reached £1000. That’s now not going to happen as I realised we didn’t have any ‘rainy day’ money for if the worst happens, as mentioned by a lot of people on this forum. So now it’s tucked up in a good ISA.

Well, that’s about it for the first post – I think I’ve covered all the basics. Good luck everyone with your plans.

TT

Welshlassie

Welcome to the crazy world of MFW. You'll soon be addicted.

I have a DS who is almost 14 months old, they are gorgeous at that age. We have recently started on he MFW road and have a 28 year mortgage that we want rid of quick smart but realistically it will be a good few years before we see a significant dent in it.

Rainy day funds should be around 3-6 months of your income, so get cracking on that, but if you also want to do something towards the MFW dream how about saving £10/£20 per month toward the £1k so at least when you do have your rainy day funds you're not starting from scratch.

Good luck.

Treacle_Toes

Welshlassie wrote: »

if you also want to do something towards the MFW dream how about saving £10/£20 per month toward the £1k so at least when you do have your rainy day funds you're not starting from scratch.

I can actually do better than this this month. I checked my premium bonds online today and I've won!!! £50 towards the mortgage!!! It's the first time in ages I've won anything with them. I think starting this diary was a sign - the future is certainly bright if it carries on like this!!!

Yippee

abouttimetoo

Hi Treacletoes, just wanted to wish you and your diary well and say congrats on the premium bond win:T

StuartGMC

Good luck in your quest

groatie_queen

Good luck TT. I have got rid of a mortgage post divorce, in 4 years - it seemed impossible at first, particularly when my health bombed and I had to go part-time at work. But all those dribs and drabs paid in do add up, and I was helped by a legacy and also taking in a lodger. These may not be factors for you, but much of my overpayments were cumulative small amounts.

Enjoy your MF journey!

GQ xxx

Optimisticpair

Hello Treacle Toes,

Congrats on starting your diary and the premium bonds win for the mortgage pot. You've chosen a wise course by putting a bit by for a damp day. Keep adding to the mortgage pot though, all the small bits add up.

Gillybean

Welcome Treacle Toes,

Well done on starting your MF journey, keep us posted with how you're getting on.

shopgirl2512

Hey! Welcome to the forum. Good luck! Look forward to reading your diary!

shirlgirl2004

I too look forward to reading your diary. Good luck.

Treacle_Toes

Hi all and thanks for the warm welcome!So what’s happened in the past few days? Like a lot of people we’re in a fixed mortgage deal which ends soon (Jan ’09). After reading Martin’s advice and also being thrust a newspaper article by my Dad about the difficulties of getting a good new mortgage deal, I decided I should do some research. Well there are lots of deals but they certainly aren’t cheap!!! To stay on a slightly worse deal with our current mortgage provider was going to cost £895!!! Everything else fixed was very similar.Now I understand that sometimes it’s wise to pay a fee over the long term, but with interest rates being on a potential see-saw, I decided to look at other options. One deal that seemed to shine out was the FD offset life tracker at 0.79% above BOE rates. And it’s fee free. Lots of people on this forum appear happy with FD offset mortgages so I phoned up and 40 minutes later we’ve got a mortgage in principle, and hour later they phoned and said it’s a definite offer. I got very excited about this, but OH didn’t really understand!As I haven’t made any overpayments to my mortgage yet I decided to get the new mortgage over 18 years rather than the 19 years I’ve currently got, so I think officially I can count that towards the overpayments.Other money saving action – I made a fruit cake for my Nan this weekend for her Christmas present. She’s always hard to buy for and she doesn’t ever want anything, so I think this could be a good result. The ingredients cost about £10 and I’ve still got some left if I want to make another cake.TT