BeauBelles quest for mortgage freedom!

BeauBelle

Hi everyone,

I have been reading these boards for a couple of months and have been inspired by you all to try and pay down our mortgage.

I am 29, DH is 30 and we have 2 children (3 and 1)

Our current mortgage balance is £133,153.75 :eek: Quite shocking when you have to put it down like that! and we have another 25 years and 9 months remaining. I have worked out (I think!) that we are paying a disgusting £14.51 per day in interest alone

So the current mortgage free date is August 2035! when I will be 54 and DH will be 55!

I am aiming to make small steps and my target is an extra £100 per month on top of our normal repayment. So by year end 2011, I want to have paid an extra £1500 off the mortgage. This should be on top of the (roughly) £1800 a year we are currently clearing.

My DH is the breadwinner at the moment as I am a SAHM. Not really sure if this should make it easier to keep a control of our finances or not!

I hope to use this thread as a diary of my success! and would love any advice from all you current MFW's

Heres Hoping!!

BB

Froggy-G

BeauBelle wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I have been reading these boards for a couple of months and have been inspired by you all to try and pay down our mortgage.

I am 29, DH is 30 and we have 2 children (3 and 1)

Our current mortgage balance is £133,153.75 :eek: Quite shocking when you have to put it down like that! and we have another 25 years and 9 months remaining. I have worked out (I think!) that we are paying a disgusting £14.51 per day in interest alone

So the current mortgage free date is August 2035! when I will be 54 and DH will be 55!

I am aiming to make small steps and my target is an extra £100 per month on top of our normal repayment. So by year end 2011, I want to have paid an extra £1500 off the mortgage. This should be on top of the (roughly) £1800 a year we are currently clearing.

My DH is the breadwinner at the moment as I am a SAHM. Not really sure if this should make it easier to keep a control of our finances or not!

I hope to use this thread as a diary of my success! and would love any advice from all you current MFW's

Heres Hoping!!

BB

Best of luck on your journey! Will follow your progress!

Froggy

museumworker

:wave: Welcome! Good luck with your MFW journey, look forward to following your progress.

Have you worked out how much the £100 pm op will take off the mortgage term?

newgirly

Hi, just wanted to say good luck, there are lots of ideas to make an extra few pennies on here which would help with the overpaying.
have you thought of doing a SOA? I did one recently and I found there were still a few things that I could get cheaper elsewhere. I hope it all goes well for you

[Deleted User]

Hi there and welcome!
be warned this MF lark can get quite addictive! ..:rotfl:
as others havs suggested maybe do a statement of affairs (ie. everything that goes in and out) as that can be a good way of looking to reduce things also theres a tool on this site that calculates your mortgage plus overpayments to see how much you can save/how many years you cut off by making overpayments
good luck on your journey

BeauBelle

Hi All

Thanks for all your support.

Well, yesterday I made our first overpayment and managed the full £100 target for October!

I am really pleased with this and hope that we can keep it up over the next year.

I have also worked out that overpaying by £50 a month will save us £9569.80 in interest and cut our mortgage by 2 years and 10 months.

If we can continue to overpay £100 a month, it will save us £16,958.06! and a whole 5 years off our term!

I am so exited by this prospect! and you are right that being a MFW is addictive! I am already looking at selling a lot of the kids stuff that they have grown out of/don't look at anymore.

Best get sorting out! Will keep you all posted

BB
xx

katsu

Hi BB,

I made a list in the front of my online and paper diary of the things I'm doing/need to do - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2485549 if you scroll down to the second post it is my tracker of what I've done and still have to do, you might find some ideas there. You might also like to create a list like that for yourself - I find reading mine is quite motivating.

You've reminded me I should update my list again, so thanks

Some suggestions you may like to try:

* use quidco and top cashback for online purchases (and check them for cashback on signing up to online surveys - I joined ipsos via Quidco and got about £1 of Quidco cashback)
* get a cashback credit card and use that for monthly purchases, then pay off in full at the end of the month
* walk where possible - I got a granny shopping trolley and wheel it to the Mr A which is not too far from home, saving petrol, parking and giving me some exercise too
* use autoaid or boncaster (I use autoaid) for breakdown cover at around 1/3 or less the price of AA/RAC cover
* use petrolprices website to find the cheapest place to fuel up
* check tyre pressure regularly to help keep fuel consumption down (I am a bit rubbish at this)

BeauBelle

Just a quick update:

Am staying focused on the MFW task and even seem to have got DH interested in the amount we could save by overpaying.

I have been proactive and cleared out a couple of boxes that haven't been unpacked in 4 years since we moved in:eek: with the thought that if we haven't needed it in that time then we don't need it.

DH listed all these "not required" items on Ebay last night and we have so far sold 4/12 with 6 days still to run!:j Its only a little bit but it will all help.

The car insurance is also due and I can get £20 cashback via Quidco to add to the pot!

I am also partaking in an NCT sale on the 6th Nov so am busy sorting out all the kids stuff that they have grown out of/don't use/Don't need and labeling it all.

By the looks of it I might make as much as £200 by doing the sale if I sell everything and it also has the added advantage of reclaiming some space in the house! Either way it would be fantastic:j

Should be on target to overpay our £100 this month as have cut down on shopping and eating out and have saved loads, have some Christmas presents to get though so will have to see what is left at the end of the month!

Still feeling positive about the whole MF journey and am finding it quite addictive!

BB
xx

getmore4less

Good luck on the MF road.

Definately worth doing a proper long term budget along with a SOA.
No point in overpaying the mortgage if something comes up that could have been planned.

Challenge everything on the SOA and look to cut costs wherever possible without loosing quality, look forward for things that need saving for.

Think like a debtfreewanabee. eg: if you have
Sky/cable : can you make do with freeview
Mobile phones : are you using the free/nearly free ones.
Utilities : check regularly
cars : can you run a cheper one or even none at all

Don't forget the emergency fund just in case something comes up.

Once you have the cash flow sorted another couple of tricks

0% pruchase credit card, you put purchases on there and use the money to save/overpay for a few months, with a plan to pay it all off before the 0% runs out.

IF you can save about £100pm then if you have an annual bill of around £100 rather than save a bit each month overpay the mortgage and just miss the overpayment when the bill is due.

Both only makes a small overall difference, but every little helps as they say.

checking the numbers
I use http://www.whatsthecost.com/mortgage.aspx

£14.51 per day means a rate of a round 3.98% so on £133,153.75 over 26 years(312 month) thats £686pm with a total of
£80,690.47 in interest over 312 months
overpay £50pm
£70,537.23 in interest over 277 months 35 month early
overpay £100pm
£62,737.75 in interest. over 250 months 62 months early

BeauBelle

Well, after listing items on ebay last week they finished on Sunday and we made £55! DH has even said I can pay it off the mortgage so am hoping to make an overpayment of £150 this month.

Have done well with shopping only when necessary this month and cutting some of the rubbish out.

Have also make cakes for the kids instead of buying them and used the fruit and veg stall at our local market which turned out to be cheaper than I thought and I got more than I would have in Asda!

The bad bit was that the car insurance was due today but I went through all the comparisons which were coming out at about £200 dearer than last year despite no claims etc! Madness considering the car is 14 years old and I have 10 years no claims!

Checked AVIVA and it came out at £40 cheaper than last year and I got an extra £20 for going through Quidco! Bonus! Needless to say I snapped their arm off!

DH gets paid next friday so will be updating the overpayment fund then, also have my NCT sale on Saturday. Am hoping that it will generate some more money that can come off the mortgage.

Am now looking for some extra things to list on Ebay!

Hope everyone is keeping motivated!

BB

tootallulah

Hi BB you are going great guns, every little helps and it is great to be more in control of your own destiny. Nice that your OH is supportive, many seem to be more like sleeping partners!