Mortgage Free by 01/01/11...so goes the plan

wynnvegas

Hi Jock,

I'm right into the swing of it now. M has a shedload of old clothes that she was going to chuck out but it's all in the eBay sights now! Amazing that some people are willing to part with cash for old crap. At this rate, we'll be gutting the house and sticking as much as we can manage on the site - although I'm told Gumtree is worth persevering with! Sent it all registered courier through work so no fear of being backslid on the "no receipt thing".

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Hi babyb,

I can thoroughly recommend Alan's All Jigsaw Puzzles. He's an independant dealer but a lovely wee man (subscribe to his newsletter as it's great fun). He normally chucks in a free jigsaw roll or free jigsaw with a first order as well which isn't to be sniffed at.

Cheers,

Billy

gallygirl

wynnvegas wrote: »

Morning All,

I hope everyone is comfy - I'm in full on rant mode albeit now that I think about the general ignorance of people, it's probably not that big a deal. If only everyone's universe revolved around me, my life and my desires, I think things would run a lot more smoothly!!

Got myself sorted with the regular overpayment today (£1,678.65 since you ask) which takes care of everything down to a nicely rounded £2,500 to go. Got confirmation that the credit cards are both back in the black so we'll get the tiles tomorrow (incidentally, if anyone else is reading this and is at all interested, the bathroom tiles (ranging from bottom to top are floor, wall and decorative border tiles as picked by M are here - http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz190/wynnvegas/Jigsaws/DSCN4277.jpg).

Decided that today was the day, with one final overpayment to go, to query if the bank had any ideas as to a) what happened next with deeds and the like and b) if there was any reason they could think of that would mean it was better to keep some part of the mortgage ticking away. The answer to both questions was a resounding "what the hell do I care" - not explicitly of course - even HSBC aren't that daft. The best they managed to come up with in the 20 minutes I was in (having waited 20 minutes for the numpty in the first place) was "now that you've nearly paid your mortgage off, could we possibly offer you another loan, maybe for a holiday?" Of course, my full intention was to scrimp, save and steal to pay the mortgage off only to then take out another loan at five times the APR - unfortunately, it would appear that sarcasm is completely lost on the Chinese so I came away without any form of congratulations, any inspiring feeling, a leaflet for the great range of loans HSBC now offer and the full intention of looking for a new bank - not that I expect any kind of better customer service from any of them, mind, but at least I'll take their free offerings and intro deals in the process.

The next calamity, prior to my meeting in Edinburgh, was my notion to go and check out the i-phone4. When my current £10.20 balance runs out on the mobile I moved to PAYG at the start of the year (I'm guessing about the beginning of next month), I've decided to keep up with the world and get an i-phone. First question - "do you already have an i-phone 4" - first answer - "yes, of course - I just want another one for Tuesdays" (sarcasm lost again) - that I didn't have one seemed akin to somehow not having evolved properly. The idiot shop assistant pretty much chucked it at me and said "that's it" when I asked about it and, when I tried to get into the Apps Store, he nearly had a fit. I wanted to see some of these things in the flesh, particularly the Vegas casino apps where they keep you up to date with offers and the like. What I got instead was a lecture about how I "obviously" couldn't get into the Apps store without an Apple ID. Whilst fair enough, when flogging the bloody things, you would think they would have a generic show account to zip you round the top titles and the like - what I got was an introduction to a game where the main objective seemed to be catapulting a bird into a treehouse, doing it again and then doing it some more. I just walked out at this point, utterly confused and now wondering if I need to get into the Apps store, buy a couple of hundred of the things and then wander into the phone shop proudly demanding something to use them on. Sometimes, as a grumpy old man in training, I properly despair!

Anyhoo, the good news from my Chinese pal, is that I can phone up on the 29th of October, an HSBC phone lackey will adjust my online balance to show the outstanding amount including all interest up to and including that day. I can then clear the whole thing, uncouple the bank account and then plan the move away to the first place that will give M and I £100 each for the pleasure of our custom. I wasn't expecting balloons and whistles from them (well, not 100% seriously) but I did think they'd realise that paying off £105k at 29 would be a big deal and worth some degree of congratulation. Maybe I should have gone into my 18000 piece jigsaw to try to elicit some degree of enthusiasm - incidentally, the current state of the jigsaw as promised is here - http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz190/wynnvegas/Jigsaws/DSCN4279.jpg - they did at least seem excited about their Christmas party which was being heartily planned around the place with about 6 people wondering why they were waiting whilst all these uppity bank folk decided what they were going to wear. The women needn't have bothered as they all had !!!!!! like the number 3 bus so no dress is going to flatter them come what may!

The thing last night actually went off really well. Fond memories to be sure but it was mostly everyone just casually catching up. We all trooped outside before leaving to give the tree planted in M's grandad's memory a wee dram at which point the RAF kindly decided to give him a flyover with a couple of Eurofighters so that was a nice touch. Shame we couldn't have gotten the red arrows as well!

As for the weekend, a bit of a party on Saturday, a bit of visiting on Sunday and, thankfully, a lot of nothing tonight other than making up a couple of photobooks on the computer - maybe a bit of jigsaw and a catch up on the golf highlights...the 29th will be here before I know it!!

Cheers,

Billy

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:



:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

PS - have you calmed down yet . Seriously, I can see you would feel quite demoralised, it's such a big thing for you to have achieved. We think you've done great :kisses3:and you and M should be proud of yourselves :T. Here's to a virtual party on the 29th _party_!

PPS - Nice tiles

PPS - off to look for nice Mr Jigsaw man

RosieTiger

Billy - counting the days down for you and enjoying your posts. Brilliant !!!!

taxi73

Wow...what can I say...just read your whole diary and am really amazed at what you've achieved.Such a old wise head on young shoulders..you should be so proud of yourselves..

CathT

I think I would have been thoroughly unimpressed at HSBC too. You have achieved so much and a little recognition would have been nice wouldn't it! Good job we have this forum and like minded people!!

They just don't understand it in the real world!

Jock_Tight

If you think of it from the banks point of view you are actually a bad customer for them! They dont want you to pay off your mortgage early they want to make money off you in interest over as many years as possible.

On this site however we appreciate the hard work you have put in. Your diary is an inspiration, and like others I am counting down your days!

Jock

wynnvegas

Morning All,

Thanks for the very nice comments - somewhat cathartically, my little rant on Friday has gotten me properly focused now - that and I've found out that an Apple shop exists in Glasgow so I'll pop through there to look at the i-phone and i-pad options - if anyone can sell it, they're bound to be the best - not sure why I was busy trawling all the phone shops in the first place now!

HSBC were the main culprits of my Friday mood. Cath - thankfully, I know (being one myself) that there is no end of supportive souls on this forum to keep the motivation up! I think, in lieu or certainly in advance of looking at IFAs and such, I might stick my head round the door of the investments forum once we've wrapped this up to see what bright ideas they have. Thus far, we estimate that we can save £150,000 in five years (£2,500p/m). We'd like to turn that into £250,000 within the 5 years which would potentially give us a £175,000 house with £250,000 in realisable assets (whatever they may be!) and a £400,000 "build the big house with no mortgage fund." Any ideas!? This is our plan for 2016/17 ish as 2011 will be house improvements and a wee bit of 2012 will be M getting a new car. Definitely 3 holidays a year from 2012 though!!

Gally, I can't wait to report in on the 29th. It should be a very nice phone call to the bank to get the amount updated and a very nice few mouse clicks to finalise the freedom! I will, naturally, head straight over here to alert the masses and finally scrawl my name on the mortgage free roll of honour board! M, incidentally, is very appreciative of the positivity around her tiles.

Rosie - thanks for popping in again. I'm a big fan and enjoying your diary no end.

Taxi - thanks for the comment. I find my premature maturity is a bit of a dull curse! However, we'll both lose our sensible heads for a wee while in the lead up to Christmas before we buckle down to some more life as we'll know it planning!

Jock - I'm possibly one of their worst customers and proud of it! I worked out a wee while back that the estimated £24,000 interest they were expecting over the period of the mortgage will only actually see them realise just under £3,000 by the time it's done. That and my failure to take any of their daft insurances or value added products leaves me a less than attractive customer - not that I'm bothered much mind! Thanks for the pep talk though - it's nice to finally be in a really comfortable position and if I can inspire a few people and/or ideas along the way, so much the better!

Cheers all,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning Folks,

The post-weekend update with just the 26 days to go now. The main expense and activity of the weekend came on Saturday as I had to go and pick up the discontinued tiles before they ran out. I think (using my expert and very professional guesswork!) that we may have went a bit ott with the 20 square metres of tiles but they were more than half price and discounted again in the sale so £170 for all the tiles we'll need for probably both the bathroom and the toilet was a steal - just a backbreaking steal! That now gives us floor tiles and wall/bath tiles so only the fancy decorative tiles and bathroom suite to go and we'll be on course for an April install. I'm pretty sure it will be April now as, in my head at the moment, I've been budgeting for the 2011 projects and February seems just too tight.

I'll put something down on paper this week to kick off some detailed planning for the holiday, bathroom, kitchen, floors and doors as each is a decent sized expense and, as such, needs proper consideration. We'll save a wee bit on the floors and doors as we've decided to re-carpet the top hallway and stairs instead of putting wooden flooring and stairs in after we were advised it's not particularly advisable on safety grounds to have potentially slippy wood at the top of the stairs. This leaves only the three downstairs doors and living room floor to do which should cost considerably less than we were initially planning.

We popped round on Sunday to friends of ours who have just moved into their new house. It's a nice 4-bedroom detached number but even some of the small sacrifices and concessions they're making have 100% confirmed that we won't be buying another house. I'll need to think about the basic planning for our final house. We've been asked by an architect friend to think about all the things the house should have so she can start doing some pictures for us. M is unfortunately still adamant on her swimming pool - thankfully now qualified as "not an olympic sized one." Once we've got some base drawings done, I'll share them here and see if there are any ideas floating about to incorporate - an MSE grand design on the way!

Cheers,

Billy

taxi73

Am loving the idea of an MSE grand designand am looking forward to that.
Am also looking forward to reading about doing your bathroom as we are doing our house up after paying the mortgage off which will be about a year behind you with any luck