Viola's MFW Adventure

viola_brandywine

Hi everyone. DH and I are considering paying all our cash savings off the mortgage. This would take the actual balance down to £5499 and with some serious frugality we could pay it all off by the end of the year. The downside it would just leave us with approximately £3,500 in our stocks and shares ISAs which isn't easy to get at. We could always borrow back from the mortgage penalty free in an emergency....

What do you think?

viola_brandywine

Well, we almost went for it but when I logged on to online banking to withdraw money from my ISA, it turned out it can't be done online! Now I'm wavering again but leaning towards not doing it as this is the first time I have ever had any significant amount in savings. I will think about it again in the new year I think.

Very much ready for the weekend. DH is working from home so I think there is a real possibility of a no spend weekend. I am also doing well at my diet so will probably avoid wine I really also must go to my allotment and dig up the potatoes (exercise!).

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

Not sure about the saving vs pay off mortgage dilemma - I guess I would go for whatever made more sense financially.

viola_brandywine

I'm so glad it's the weekend! I have been doing very well with my diet the past two weeks - 4lb lost in the first week which is great. Unfortunately I seem to have picked up some sort of bug and have just had to eat what I can stomach since yesterday

Exciting news on the mortgage front - DH has been given £400 from a great aunt that passed away recently. This means we might have all the mortgage covered by savings on payday provided our shares don't drop any more. Does this make us mortgage free??!

Sepa74

I think it pretty much does! Congratulations!!

[Deleted User]

well done thats fantastic!!!

viola_brandywine

Thanks :-) It's nice to think that we could pay it off if we needed to. I'm not going to consider us mortgage free until it is actually paid off though so I have at least a few months yet.

I have been to my new allotment today and a neighbour has kindly offered to rotavate it. I'm hoping to start an asparagus bed this autumn and plant a plum tree.

RosieTiger

That would indeed make you technically MF - well done!

viola_brandywine

Ok, I'm considering it done. Payday is today and although there is the last £461 I haven't put in savings in the end, it will sit in our joint account and could be paid onto the mortgage if we needed to

Next target is to pay off the 0% credit card (£3500 in 6 months) and then the remaining mortgage (£12000) as we won't be paying the savings on to it. We are also trying for a baby so I'm going to stick a 9 month time limit on clearing the mortgage too We will probably need to make some home improvements then so I'll be around here for a while yet!

viola_brandywine

It's been a while since my last post. Since then I have turned 30, paid off the 0% card from savings and then got a bonus from work. I have paid the bonus off the remaining mortgage and the remaining balance is now £4913 Savings have now taken a hit so I would like to both pay off the remaining mortgage and build savings up to £20,000 next year.