Mortgage-Free Wannabe Welcome and Explanation

teecee90

I know it is not entirely risk free, but personally I prefer to invest my spare cash in a FTSE tracker ISA. Over the long term, returns average out at 11% per annum, so unless you are wanting to pay off your mortgage very quickly you would surely be better off paying the minimum amount on your mortgage and investing the rest.

bockster

excellent,
i'm thrilled this board has come along, right up my street, thought when i saw the debt free board that this would be natural progression. and after all, one of, if not the, best money saving ventures, is getting that mortgage down.
after saving like mad and the odd one off lump sums for approx 2 years, and just recently starting a flexible offset mortgage, along with a nicely rising stooze pot in the offset savings a/c, i reckon i'm on for the big zero within another 2 years, all things being equall.
i will be reading avidly, good luck all.

keith234

Please give me some helpful advice; I have £4000 left to pay on my mortgage, tracker til December 06. Should I pay off in full using a maturing regular saver (with the same company, Halifax), should I just pay off the mortgage (plus dilapidation??? fees of £150) or leave a little debt til completion of term (nine years from original date taking out the mortgage in May 2003). A previous mortgage company suggested keeping a small amount of money in debt thus ‘no need for involving a solicitor if I need to remortgage’ or something along that line. Someone must have come accross this dilemma b4?

volare

keithrafferty: my parents did that - left £1 on their mortgage, I think so that the mortgage company would have to hold on to the deeds and whatnot (in their safe not in our attic being chewed by squirrels!).

Thefunkygibbons

I think we need confirmation, but I am certain that deeds are not an issue any more because the details are all held centrally by the Land Registry

Alfietinker

I just discovered this forum becauase of the weekly email - thank you Martin it's just what we're looking for!

Without going into too much detail (I'll do that on another thread) we've been watching the 2 year programme with interest, and although we think it is a poor programme information-wise (do these people pay tax/insurance on their new business ventures etc), it has given us an incentive to pay off as much as we reasonably can.

Our fixed rate finishes next year, plus we have a separate further advance which we were going to amalgamate with a new deal. Instead, our first goal is to pay off this extra loan by January - £12,000 we don't have to include when re-mortgaging :j This is achievable without forcing ourselves. OK, we need to cut back a little but we're prepared to do that. (I have 4 months credit card payments left first - then I'm CC free. The re-mortgage will coincide with our 0% car loan finishing too, so we'll have extra disposable cash each month)

The next year or two will be spent making overpayments so we can reduce the mortgage as much as possible. We then plan to re-locate to a (currently) much cheaper area, to a bigger house (!) and hopefully have a mortgage of £30k ish. This is all so we can start a family and live the good life!!!! (well, we won't have to work quite so hard as we do now)

Will it work? Watch this space!

Thanks Martin

:T

Rebob

After reading this thread I have decided to have a word with hubby. I am thinking of starting small by rounding up the mortgage. It is £275 pm but now I am thinking of finding how much difference an extra £25 pm would make. I will get back and let you know later.

sophiedb

We've been putting around £1k into a savings account each month with this in mind, hoping to use it at the end of this year when we can re-mortgage. We lived overseas for 3 years before coming back to the UK and buying a house, so it was hard to find a mortgage at all let alone pick the best deal. This time round we should be in a far better position and I'm hoping to get one that lets you make monthly repayments, rather than waiting for the opportunity to drop a lump sum on the total.

Admittedly we don't have kids yet, but that's half the point - we do plan to have a family, but want to get ahead financially while it's still just us. What happens afterwards should be simpler to adjust to if our habits are good already.. That's the theory anyway..

karom

Thank you for starting this board.

I have been overpaying 10% for the last 2 years and after less than 3 years since our 1st mortgage, we've knocked down 10 years (15 years remaining).

My aim is be mortgage-free by 2013 and it's great to have a place where to track progress and discussed with others who have the same aim

Baileys_Babe

Maybird would it be possible for you to move to a larger property but in the medium term your children either share a room or the youngest has the smallest room, you could then rent out a larger room to a lodger to pay for the difference.