The Anticipated Glee of being Mortgage-Free....NoraBatty's Quest Begins!

norabatty_2

Another month, another post to myself!

Total savings as at 30 September 2013: £27,167.82

The reason the savings took a bit of a dent this month is because of the rates bill and I also had to attend a wedding (so needed to pay for petrol and accommodation) as well as a wedding present.

Grocery spends were slightly up at £130.09 - this is because I was away for a few days and DH decided to go shopping and managed to spend £43 to cover about 5 days of food! I am hoping to get it down to around £110 again this month.

Also made another £220 overpayment and estimate that the mortgage on the 1st October was around £41,873.05

sutwam

Hi Nora

I just wanted to pop out of the woodwork, what a great inroads you are making into your mortgage, I subscribe to your thread and take inspiration from the work you put in.

Keep it up, good luck!

norabatty_2

Thanks sutwam for the words of encouragement.

It's been a few months since I posted. I guess the return back to university kept me busier than I'd planned. I managed to stay off the road until mid December but ultimately, it became too much of a hassle and I got the car going again just before Christmas. If it was just me, I think I'd have got rid of the car. But LO took to screaming every time we got on the train because her buggy wasn't moving anywhere and she couldn't get out and walk around.

Anyway, my studies appear to have taken their toll on my health, I have been constantly run down with colds/flu and any other random viruses doing the rounds since early December and I need a break! I'm hoping to get away for a week in the sun with my sister very soon because at this stage, I'm thinking it's vital for my future mental health! I have been stuck at home all week because I can't walk for more than 5 minutes without feeling like I'm about to faint or get sick.

Anyway, because I've had nothing else to do all week but sit on the couch, I have conducted a thorough financial analysis and have come up with a MASTERPLAN!

Our current mortgage on the apartment that is rented out is £40,203.04 (interest rate of 3.99%) and the mortgage on our house is £134,250.36 (interest rate of 2.5%). When I finish my degree in June 2016, I hope to get a job closer to home so we can be nearer my family. We have therefore decided that we are going to aim to be mortgage free on our apartment by July 2016 so that we can then use the proceeds from the sale of the apartment as a deposit on our forever home. Because we are currently surviving on one wage of just under £40,000 and have tuition fees and creche fees to pay, this is quite a tall order. However, I start my placement year in September and will be earning for the best part of a year and I also still have around £24,000 of my redundancy money left over.

I have a 2 year bond of £10,800 maturing in just over 10 days time (part of the £24,000) Therefore, the plan is that once I receive this money, we will pay £12,000 off our mortgage immediately and then increase our monthly payments to £1000. (usually £335 with no overpayments and we have been paying £555 for the past few months).

I have stressed to DH that this is going to be hard work and we will have to be very careful with the cash. We have already booked our summer holiday (one week in France) but after that, it looks like we will have to rein in the finances. I have started meal planning again and vowed to resume another 10 months of no purchasing of clothes (after success with a 6 month stint last year).

I'm really excited that we may be rid of one mortgage in just two and a half years. By that time, the other mortgage will be down to about £122,000 with no overpayments if the interest rates stay the same. This means we could have equity in excess of £130,000 which would be a real help for getting our "final" mortgage.

norabatty_2

So here are my immediate plans to give my MF mission a good push in the right direction:

• Signed up for the February GC - set a limit of £180 but as I'm sick, we are into day 6 already and I still haven't spent a penny so hoping to do even better than this
• Never did the NSDs before but with 5 already achieved this month, I'm going to aim for 15
• Going to return 3 items I ordered online which should mean a refund of just under £60
• Have ordered a currency card that I can use when in the euro area to make atm withdrawals for free. I spend a lot of time in euro areas and the atm charges that Santander charge are just ridiculous. Also ordered the card through tcb so will get over £5 back as well.:T

Muser1

Sounds a fab plan Nora! Good luck and hope you feel better soon. x