Mr & MrsC Mortgage-free by 2015

MrC-117

About time for an update! Had two non-overpayment months as it looked like a good idea to switch to a better rate ISA and save a bit more money, but every bank lowered rates again so it doesn't seem quite so appealing. Also wanted to make sure we had enough wedding/holiday money in the bank. So I suspect it's back to overpayments again next month.

The wedding and holiday were great. We're trying to buy some more photos from the wedding chapel in Las Vegas but we seem to be the first people that ever tried that - and it also seems to be the most difficult thing they've ever been asked! Enough of that though, I have a separate thread in the wedding part of the forum.

Radiator went ok, but I need to change a few other parts of the heating system I think. Hopefully I'll do that over the summer.

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

Glad you had a lovely wedding and hols too.

Eek on the radiator... certainly won't need it in this weather but good that it's fixed for the next cold spell!

MrC-117

Right, after a couple of months off (mostly saving a bit more money) we've set up overpayments again. Slightly bigger this time.

Interest rates are staying the same for another month which is mostly good news for us. I've also found out how to pay extra money into the mortgage, so I might keep putting in extra if we have any.

We managed to get a copy of all the wedding photos in the end for an additional $50 which we were very happy with.

setmefree2

Well done on all that progress :T:T:T

THRIFTY_GIRL

Keep it up:j

MrC-117

Not a very exciting post this time really. I've opened a new ISA and am hopefully going to move them all into one ISA that pays more interest. Not that that's very much at the moment anyway. MrsC and I have a few ISAs between us for the emergency money.

There's been a lot of people talking about it being better to not overpay and keep more savings. When I add up the numbers I don't think I'm much better off. Maybe £100 in a year or so. Also that doesn't account for the clauses most of the good savings accounts have, like if you miss a payment into a high rate account that reverts to the low rate, etc. So overall I think it's better for me to keep repaying - worth paying a slight premium for reduced stress! But it is something I keep thinking about

MrC-117

Thought it was about time for an update. I thought it had been several months, not over a year. Sorry about that.

Anyway, been carrying on with the overpayments, and paid quite a lot more off. Thinking about it, for me it's become a routine. I keep track of payments in my spreadsheet, notice the amount I owe go down and don't really think about it. Maybe that's a bad thing, as I don't really get to 'enjoy' each overpayment. On the positive side it shows that there's not a feeling of missing out on spending money on other things.

Edit: need to update the footer now, the amounts have changed quite a bit in a year.

CathT

Hi Mr and Mrs C! Just caught up on your diary, sounds like you're doing brilliantly. Your tracker rate is fantastic!

MrC-117

Probably time for another update. My company has been having some redundancies. Think I'm safe, but it's a good reminder of one of the reasons we wanted to get rid of the mortgage in the first place!

We've been carrying on with the overpayments, and filling up our ISA allowances each year. This means that, if we're really lucky and nothing goes wrong, our savings will be higher than our mortgage in about a year from now. In other words, we could pay it off in about a year!

It's still useful to keep some savings so, depending on interest rates, then plan is to pay it off in the next four years. We'll see how it goes. I think when it gets to the point where we could pay it off it won't seem like such a big burden.

MrC-117

Well, good news and bad news.

Good news - We're on target to have more savings than mortgage by about October this year. Because we're on a low rate we've been filling up our cash ISA allowance as it's earning slightly more interest. Sort of a home made offset mortgage. So that's pretty much mortgage free. At least if we need to we can pay it off.

Bad news - Notice I said about redundancies? Well I missed the first round but we were told yesterday the site is being closed at the end of 2012. We'll all be paid until the end of 2011 and some people will be around in 2012 still. Not sure when I'm going yet. Slightly unusual feeling as I know I'll be out of work sometime next year as it's quite a long time away. Also because the mortgage is covered we can easily live off Mrs C's salary. So I don't have the normal "I'm going to be out of work, panic!" feeling. Mostly I feel a bit sad. Had a lot of fun working there as there were a lot of great people to work with. I'd have worked there until I retired if I'd had the chance. Feel sorry for a lot of my friends there with young families too.