Overpayment 'Breaks'

black_taxi_2

yeah no point being miserable doing o/p.every 3 months im treating myself to slap-up meal at steakhouse.

your more inclined to stop o/p if you never go on holiday/eat out occaisionaly because of the grind of it

id rather it took 3 more years to pay off mortgage than live without paying it off earlier

enjoy your holiday

pawlala

ironman1 wrote: »

Pawlala if that post was serious

deadly! It depends on where you're at with your journey. If you have years and years still to go before the mortgage is paid off then holidays along the way is sensible. I'm on the MfIT-T2 and can easily cope without going on holidays for 3 years. Barring the odd weekend and Xmas to visit family and stay over, I have no inclination to take further breaks away from home:)

ironman1

Fair enough, like you say if you are closer to paying the mortgage off completely then you can cope more without 'treats'.

As we have a minimum of 18 years to go before wiping it out it seems quite silly and well... Tight to deprive ourselves of holidays and nights out.

If I didnt have the occasional drinking session or restaurant meal i'd go mental

alfiesmum

I don't have holidays or eat in restaurants, but I don't consider myself to be going without. I'm certainly not suffering! I don't think it's taking over my life. I just don't waste my money, that's all. What's waste to one person is essential outgoings to another. Horses for courses.

Best of luck with your Mortgage Free Journey.
alfiesmum
xx

uzubairu

The standard mortgage payment and a £500 overpayment by standing order go out of the bill paying account at the start of the month.
I then try to generate extra throughout the month (extra budgeting, eBaying, overtime, cashback etc) which is also added to the mortgage.
Some months the total OP is £900 and other months it's £700,

In our monthly budget we set asisde money for holidays.
Using this site, cashback sites and other bargain sites has made our money go much further so although we have gone on holiday abroad 3 times this year, one was free (Egypt with Tesco Clubcard points) and the others were relatively cheap (Manchester-New York return £141 and Miami return £230).

We do plan 2 holidays a year and more if a cheap deal appears and there are sufficient remaining funds in the holiday account.

There is no way my OH would have agreed to the MFW journey if we scrapped the holidays (even though we now hope to be mortgage free within the next five years).

We do eat out once a month, and sometimes we may use money off vouchers, or eat out when the restaurant has a discount.

We still need to have treats, to get through the year and have something to look forward.
When we are mortgage free, we will have even more treats.

ironman1

Interesting to read everyones different point of view. Think we'll knock it on the head for Jan and Feb and crack on with it from March onwards, just want to enjoy ourselves. it's not as if the Overpayments are a debt...

black_taxi_2

its prob better doing an auto-matic lower o/p everymonth and top up when you want

Queen-Bee_2

Having cleared the mortgage completely on a one bed flat around three and a half years ago, I moved to where I am now with a £100k mortgage. I know that there are people on the site who have much larger mortgages, but to me that seemed a lot, especially as it was just me paying it!!!

I started being very frugal and overpaying as much as I could and putting the rest away. Keeping a spending diary helped, and I also started to make little savings like wearing smart tailored trousers rather than a skirt to work, because I realised I was forking out a fortune on tights every week.

I reviewed and rationalised all my bills, have drastically reduced the amount I spend on food (simply by keeping a beady eye on what I spend rather than stopping off at M&S every night) and have recently started to take in a lodger during the week.

I then shortened my mortgage so that I could start to make some really big overpayments and started dipping into my savings to pay off as much as possible as quickly as possible. My mortgage is now just under £60k.

I'd echo the thoughts of other MFWs on here, who talk about the journey being a marathon rather than a sprint. It really is like that, but somehow the longer you run that marathon, the faster your speed becomes!! Good luck!!

QB

black_taxi_2

queen-bee---you said you cleared mortgage---one bedroom flat---3 years ago.
do you lett out that property or did you sell for good deposit moving up the propertyladder.

im in a 1-bedroom flat now hoping to clear mortgage

Queen-Bee_2

black_taxi wrote: »

queen-bee---you said you cleared mortgage---one bedroom flat---3 years ago.
do you lett out that property or did you sell for good deposit moving up the propertyladder.

im in a 1-bedroom flat now hoping to clear mortgage

I had to sell it *sigh* because the equity was needed to help me up the property ladder! I'd been there 12 years, so prices had risen quite a bit. Just as well really - my current place was literally twice the disposal price of the flat and more than 10x my annual income...
QB