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My situation, target too ambitious??

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  • Caixta
    Caixta Posts: 226 Forumite
    Go for it, northum! :T

    To me, you sound contented rather than obsessed. You have identified your needs, assessed your capabilities and realised the need for balance in your life.

    You're being practical, while also allowing yourself to dream a little.

    I wish I'd had the same maturity at your age. If you are able to pay it off, and even if your target ends up slipping just a little bit, you will always be glad you got it over with.

    When I'm wondering whether to spend some money on a treat, or whether to pay it off the mortgage, I ask myself which would give me more pleasure. It can go either way. With my birthday money this year, I "bought" myself the present of a mortgage overpayment, and it did make me smile. But other times I have spent money on a modest treat and really taken time to appreciate it. Because I'm quite frugal nowadays, even a modest treat gives me a lot of bang for buck! :rotfl:
    "By not unsettling men, you will reassure them. By unsettling men either through timidity or malice, you are always compelled to keep a knife in hand." - Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527
  • Prudent
    Prudent Posts: 11,637 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I don't think you are. I paid off £28,500 in two years. My salary is about the same as yours now, but was less then. I think it was about £27,000. I did get a lump sum at one point, which I think was about £5,000 off the mortgage (had all the figures on last computer that has now died). I lived below benefit levels to do it. I also have one child who was 11 when I started paying it back, so kept the two of us, ran the house and car and paid off mortgage. It was tough going, but mse helped a lot and gave us ways of getting the kind of extras we would have otherwise missed out on.
  • Prudent
    Prudent Posts: 11,637 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I should add that I have no regrets and feel proud of doing it. Especially glad that I have a secure home for myself and my daughter.
  • northum
    northum Posts: 11 Forumite
    Thanks again everyone, its really good to feel encouraged as I don't often get to discuss these things!

    I will try and keep this thread updated with progress ;) I managed to get my car fixed this week for about a third of the (over £1000) cost that a main dealer would have charged. I'd prefer that it didn't break in the first place but I'm feeling relieved anyway.
  • northum
    northum Posts: 11 Forumite
    Monthly overpayment made successfully again this month :T

    Offset account has broken through the twenty grand barrier :D

    Mortgage remaining £55225.65....
  • gallygirl
    gallygirl Posts: 17,240 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Well done!!!!:j :j :j :j Don't you just love it when a plan comes together!!!!
    A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort
    :) Mortgage Balance = £0 :)
    "Do what others won't early in life so you can do what others can't later in life"
  • Sounds like a plan to me

    I was just completing the charge release form yesterday, and it is a great feeling

    If you can afford to do it, then do so as the interest saved is huge leaving you more money for living once the mortgage is gone
  • Go for it. I decided at the ripe old age of 30 to pay my new mortgage off by the time I was 40. I paid my mortgage off by the gae of 34. Its amazing what we can achieve when we put our minds to it.
    We recently took out another mortgage to enable us to buy another house. We renovated it & have now moved in, sold old house & paid off mortgage outright again. Being mortgage free allows you the freedom to do things like that.
    I'm now 37 and lived mortgage free for 3 years. My only advice would be to continue to save some of what was your mortgage payment monthly. Security is a BIG issue for me. I now know that even if I lost my businesses, I will always have a roof over my head which cannot be taken off me.

    Go For It & Good Luck!
  • Wow you are all impressive! I'm 26 and only got mortgage this March but my plan is to pay off 25 year mortgage in 7 years in April 2013 - will make a great 33rd birthday present! :D Hoping then to be a stay at home mum or at least work part time as I can't see it being possible while have the mortgage. Hating my job is my motivation! :rotfl:

    I love MFW because Mr Pincher finds anything to do with money very boring and my friends all seem to advocate 30 and 35 year mortgages to pay as little as possible each month. Don't like to tell my family as they may not approve. Also colleagues at work advocate taking several payment breaks to take holidays etc so I'm a bit on my own in my views, I think!

    My plan is to make the maximum overpayment we are allowed to make of £500 every month while I'm childless and to save as much as we can and pay lump sum when fixed end in April 2008, hopefully reducing the amount owed to around £60,000. To do this I have worked out how much I can spend on food, holidays, transport, pet, presents, health & beauty etc (anything non-bills / not savings / not mortgage) to achieve it = £3,000 max per year. Mr Pincher has around £4,500 a year to spend (even though he's on half my salary! But I do encourage him to use this money to buy me treats and take me for meals out etc ;)).

    As we won't have much savings thought we should remortgage with 5 year fixed rate rather than an offset but with a new term length of 12 years with us overpaying £500 a month and then we can pay smallish lump sum of around £5,000 when fixed rate ends in April 2013 to make us mortgage free.

    Am I missing any better approaches though? Is it at all realistic to be able to pay it off sooner while still enjoying ourselves? Any advice welcome x
  • Dr.Lou
    Dr.Lou Posts: 266 Forumite
    Hi Miss Penny Pincher, your plan sounds good.

    I think for your own sanity you have to allow yourselves to enjoy yourself a bit whilst still focusing on paying it off. Have you played around with some of the mortgage calculators at the top of this thread with your numbers to see if they fit? For me a spreadsheet was a massive motivational tool, and we would save more each month just to see the graph go up a little it more. Sad eh?

    I know what you mean about not wanting to tell people about paying off the mortgage asap (thats why I like MFW so much as everyone has the same goal), for me it feels a little bit like a guilty secret! I have told my Mum and my sister all along about our plans and bored them in the process (but only because they are mortgage free themselves) and only just told my best friend quietly when we managed to get there earlier this month and she was really great about it. We've not told anyone else for fear of coming across as boasting/ them not understanding/ wanting to borrow cash -LOL!

    For us too, I think the main reason was to become secure enough (at least with our home I hope) to be able to start a family, and I think thats why I mentally set a goal for getting there by 30, which we have only just achieved.

    Good Luck with your goal!

    x
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