What was your turning point to become a real MFW?

steph123steph

When I received my first mortgage statement, and near enough all of my hard earned money had been eaten up as intrest! I started to look into saving money, stumbled accross this forum. I then realised my house price had dropped so quickly, and knowing that I want to move in the next couple of years, I worried about the equity keeping me here longer than I wanted...So the overpayments have begun :-) And now im totally obsessed with those figures dropping! hehe

zzzLazyDaisy

golfiematt wrote: »

for me the turning point was the amount of stress i feel having the mortgage and the amount i owe coupled with the threat of losing everything if i lose my job.I thought theres got to be be a way of getting it down faster and since being inspired by this board, what ive achieved is beyond my wild expectations, thanks for the support everyone as it really makes a difference

It was the same for me, but this was years ago! I was a high earner but I have a chronic health problem which meant that my continued employment was always uncertain, although what was certain was that I was unlikely to work until traditional retirement age. So I always felt I head the threat of possibly losing my job hanging over me.

So I focussed hard and paid the mortgage off. Three years later I had a bad car accident, was disabled, and didn't work again - nothing to do with my pre-existing health problem after all!

What really irritates me are the people who tell me that I am so 'lucky' that I had paid my mortgage off. Luck didn't come into it!

ajmoney

I had started overpaying by a small amount a few years ago when the interest rates first started really fluctuating, I increased the payments everytime they went down and left them where they were if they went up. I can't even remember the first time I came on this site, probably after seeing Martin on tv, but I used one of the mortgage calculators and the rest is history. It has kind of spiralled from there, joining different threads, setting small goals realising it isn't too difficult to get to it and setting another, oh and reading other peoples threads and comments.

abouttimetoo

setmefree2 wrote: »

When we moved to our current house and took out a mortgage of £250k I was totally terrified:eek:( Luckily so was Mr SMF2) Owing quarter of a million quid sort of focuses the mind. As others said on this the thread the threat of potentially losing everything with the loss of your job hangs over you too. 6 years on I no longer live in fear.

Finding MSE was a bonus. We had already paid off quite a lot of money when I joined the first MF challenge. It's great to come on here and share our journey with others and I have learned so much from MSE.

Well done on all your progress so far :T:T

I think this pretty much sums up my reasons, I bought a new house, decided to keep my old one and rent it out and was then in the position of having £270k of mortgages on just my salary :eek::eek: (at the time LTV approx 65%)

All this co-incided with a promotion and pay rise so I set to OP'ing. I just wished I had been able to do it sooner, I kid myself that I couldn't afford to but we all know that I could have found even a tenner here and there:rolleyes:

I can't even remember how I came across MSE but I do remember that Financial Bliss's was the first diary I found and I read it from start to finish and then set to with OP calculators and my own spreadsheets. I'd always known about OP'ing as my parents did it in the early 80's and had been nagging me from time to time to do my own.

I love the fact that everyone on here is like minded :j

needtopaymydebts

hiya,

i always looked as this board in amazement from the debt free board thinking that i would never get the debts paid let alone ever think about paying the mortgage. To be honest we kind of just found ourselves here, with the debts finally paid off, we've ended up in negative equity (entirely our own fault for getting sucked in by everyone promising huge rises in house prices and that we would be fine to take a 100% mortgage and then move onto an even bigger home and mortgage in a couple of years!). So now, we're really sticking at it, although it seems the harder we try the more money we need to find to pay out just to keep afloat!

but... i know that we can get through it as we still enjoy a fairly decent lifestyle... we will come through it and have a total different perspective on money at the other side.

my long term goal is to be without a mortgage as quickly as possible although short term i want to clear the negative equity and have enough to leave a decent deposit on a bigger family home.

short answer - we're trying to clear the mortgage as quickly as possible as i found this site and it made me realise that endless mortgages and debt isn't actually normal!

uzubairu

When we moved into our current home in 2006 we had moved from a property which had a mortgage owing of £30,000 (bought for £40,000 in 1997), to one of £113,000.

The large increase in our borrowing really gave us a focus. Especially after seeing how little the mortgage had reduced after the first 6 months.

We opted for a fixed rate mortgage which allowed overpayments (that was must), and we borrowed an amount that could be sustained on one income, so that we had room to overpay.

Since using this site, I've raised my expectations because I see the mortgage as debt similar to a credit card that needs to be cleared ASAP (the OH is fully on board now) and hope to be mortgage free by the time the fixed rate ends.

By reading the diaries of other MFWs I was able to see that you can have both, and that sensible budgets and savings made without a drastic reduction in your standard of living can pay great dividends.
The best thing is that we have still been able balance the overpaying with travel (1 free and 2 cheap holidays this year alone) and enjoy nice things but all with an MSE slant.

• July 2006 - December 2008 (2.5 yrs) - we reduced the mortgage by £15,600
• Year To Date 2009 - we have reduced the mortgage by £13,900 and look set to reduce it by £15,000 by year end

silver_4444_uk

Hello Everyone,

I am a new MFW, but I feel a "committed one" ( excuse the pun !).

I have become really dissatisfied by the interest rates that banks are now offering on savings and the way that as soon as they have met their quota of new savers for a new account they will chop interest rates very quickly. I have got fed up with continually opening and then having to move accounts. That's my "bank rant" over !

Also having been through two threats of redundancy within the last year alone, I have decided to take matters into my own hands and overpay the mortgage . I am looking at the "overpaying process",as basically being the same as building a " Sod you Fund " with regards job insecurity / redundancy (please excuse the language, but I hope you get my "drift").
It has been a stressful last year.

If I can pay my mortgage off within a reasonable time, it gets rid of my biggest debt, it gives us the freedom to do whatever we as a family want to do and hopefully for my wife and I to help our 2 daughters in whatever financial way we can (within reason).

Rgds.

Silver

mortgageslayer

Having had a 'normal' mortgage on our first property 6 years ago, we managed to save a fairly considerable sum on money. When getting a One Account was suggested we looked into it and found that out savings would work alot harder for us by paying off more of the mortgage. For us and offset mortage is a god send. We are seriously looking at being mortage free in our current propery within 4 years, and with the current economy we have avoided being in negative equity by paying off so much recently. This is such a weight off my mind, when people around me are struggling, and will also enable us to move up the ladder soon if we wish.

RosieTiger

I think I may well have always known that OP'ng was a good idea, but never really did anything about it. Too busy wasting money.

The pay your mortgage off in 2 years programme on TV interested me, but considering I was already working hard the idea of just suddenly coming up with a new skill would pay you lots of money for just didn't connect.

This board did. This had real people telling real stories and describing all the things I felt. More importantly the Roll of Honour made me realise that (1) it was possible and (2) I wanted the freedom to do what I wanted to.

In a James Clavell novel, he mentione F*"k You! money. This being enough money to be able to use this phrase to anyone you work for if you don't like what they are asking you to do anymore.

Being MF can allow you to do this - it's about choice.

Strangely, I also feel a real sense of achievement whenever I read of another MFW getting there. Thank you all !

gallygirl

RosieTiger wrote: »

Strangely, I also feel a real sense of achievement whenever I read of another MFW getting there. Thank you all !

Me too :T. Ialso feel a bit like we're in a long line and every time someone gets MF we all shuffle up a bit in the queue. Not a very organised queue though as sometimes others push in ahead of us or we stop paying attention and slip back a few places