My Mortgage free diary!

hazelreed

Hi Guys,
I am someone who has never posted on this forum before. I have been lurking for a while, taking in tips and enjoying reading others mortgage free diaries and following their journeys. I have thought about attempting a diary before but have never got round to it. So here goes nothing!!!!
I am 30 and live with my OH, 5 year old and our 4 cats. Back in 2007 I split up with my ex and ended up with a mortgage of £115000:eek:
I am on interest only payments but since then we have been overpaying when we could and have now got the mortgage down to £102500:T We are overpaying by around £470 as have recently increased the DD to £900 per month!! Our aim is just to pay the mortgage off ASAP!!!!

Not quite sure what else to write now so any suggestions would be grateful!!

dimbo61

well done on the overpayments so far !
You dont give your interest rate or if you have any emergency savings ?
You should try and build up 3/6 months of income in cash ISA,s
Keep up the good work Mortgage Free has a nice ring about it do9nt you think

newgirly

Hi hazelreed, welcome to the board
Sounds like you have made a great start, there are lots of good tips on here and ways to make a bit of extra cash, it all adds up!

hazelreed

Thanks for the reply dimbo61. Our interest rate is 4.89% fixed till March 2012. We currently have around 3mths income in savings between the two of us in ISAs. I cant wait to be mortgage free it definitely has a fantastic ring to it!

dimbo61

when your mortgage deal is up have a look at offset mortgages as we have found them a great way to reduce the mortgage while also building up savings

hazelreed

Thanks for the reply newgirly. Will look out for some usuful tips!! My dad always said look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves!!!

hazelreed

Forgot to mention that my OH is totally onboard with the Mortgage free aim and is as MSE as i am!! It makes my life easier!!!!I will aim to post a mortgage free date when i work it out!!! Hopefully 2011 will be a cheaper year than 2009 and 2010!!! What with getting married in Sept 2009 and getting an conservatory and a new car in 2010!!! Definitely a year for consolidation!!! Our aim for 2011 is to pay off at least £5640 off the mortgage if not more!, Sort out clutter in the house and garage and try and make some money from it on Ebay!!!! Any tips and words of encoragement would be grateful!!!

CathT

hi, sounds like you are doing a lot of the right things already. A SOA is usually recommended to see where you can make savings and keep diary up to date to keep you on track.

Wishing you lots of luck with it.

hazelreed

Thanks for the reply CathT. Myself and my OH keep an excel spreadsheet of our finances and keep these up to date regularly. This includes incomings and outgoing each month so we know what we have left at the end of the month. Any extra we put off the mortgage. We are also going to put the two payment free months money we would have spend on the council tax off the mortgage too We find this works very well for us.

hazelreed

Had a good sleep today ready for my night shift tonight then off till new years day woo hoo! Only spent 88p on some milk this morning so pretty good spend wise!!! Very nearly a no spend day!! Looking forward to the champagne in the fridge tommorrow!!!

*Jellie*

I wish we were as organised as you guys! Don't think OH would cope if I tried to get him to do an outgoings spreadsheet even though he is keen to be MF.
Your plans for the next year sound great so I hope it all goes well.