Mortgage Free in 10 Years - My MFW Diary

MFW_10YRS_4

My Aim is to completely pay off my mortgage in 10 years. We bought the house in May 2010 and have lived there 1 year already, so we have 9 years left to go!

The first year in our house was spent repairing, renovating and decorating and doing some overpaying. The remaining 10 years will be spent doing all three but with more of an emphasis on overpaying!

10 years is a long time (but then we have a very large mortgage) so I will have smaller milestone challenges along the way. The first milestone started when I bought the house in May 2010 and it was started initially to help lower my mortgage Loan To Value (LTV) so that I could get a decent mortgage rate when my current mortgage period was up in 3 years. I decided that a 50% APR would be a good target to aim for because even if I missed a little bit, I would still have pretty much all mortgage products available to me to choose from.

MFW_10YRS_4

Mortgage Free in 10 Years Mini Milestone Challenges:

Mini Milestone #1 - My 3Yr 50% Equity Challenge!
This mini challenge was to overpay the mortgage to the point where we had a 50% LTV, i.e. we owned as much of the house as the mortgage lender! In order to be able to calculate the percentages we used the purchase price of the house as the valuation figure. I know it is unlikely to stay fixed over the 3 years as house prices fluctuate, but it's the valuation figure the mortgage company has and the challenge takes place during the mortgage period.

My 3Yr 50% Equity Challenge (May 2010 - May 2013)
Date.........Valuation....Mortgage....Equity.......Equity %
May 2010...£450,000......£300,000......£150,000.....33.33%
May 2011...£450,000......£270,000......£180,000.....40.00%
May 2012...£450,000......£----,

---

......£----,

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....---.--%
May 2013...£450,000......£----,

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......£----,

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....---.--%


Mini Milestone #2 - ??????????????????????






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summerday

Wow, it sounds like a big project with all the renovating. Best wishes to you and hope you meet your target.

MFW_10YRS_4

summerday wrote: »

Wow, it sounds like a big project with all the renovating. Best wishes to you and hope you meet your target.

Thanks! We are hoping to do a lot of the work ourselves and anything specialised we will try to pay for without having to dip into our overpayment money. Our current mortgage allows a maximum of 10% overpayments per annum, each January and we are trying our best to max out these overpayments. Trying and struggling this year because our renovations costs overran.

fishfins

Sounds like a plan! Good luck and I'm looking forward to reading your diary

Ginger_Beard

Welcome MFW 10 yrs. I wish you all the best in your quest!:j

I too am new to this venture, and the reason I joined was to stay motivated on route to my goal. I've never joined one of these forums before, but the advice and support from everyone seemed so appealing and I believe beneficial.

I don't think you even have to explain yourself to be honest. You're here to be MF and we're here to read your story, support your goals and help in whatever way we can.

Well said from Lois and Hurdler!:beer:
I look forward to following your story.

Hurdler

Interesting point about family & friends, that. My old ma could not be more supportive, and I know if my dear dad was still with us, he would so approve of this. Which kinda makes me wish I'd gotten my behind in gear sooner. But I am here now....

Lois_E

Hurdler wrote: »

Interesting point about family & friends, that. My old ma could not be more supportive, and I know if my dear dad was still with us, he would so approve of this. Which kinda makes me wish I'd gotten my behind in gear sooner. But I am here now....

My parents know and approve of my plans. I haven't discussed the whole MFW thing with my brothers, though. If they were single they'd probably be the same as me about it - we were all brought up to be careful with money - but I think my SILs are rather fonder of spending, and I doubt any of my brothers get the chance to OP. So I find it better not to discuss it, for fear of opening any cans of worms.

MFW_10YRS_4

Hurdler wrote: »

Interesting point about family & friends, that. My old ma could not be more supportive, and I know if my dear dad was still with us, he would so approve of this. Which kinda makes me wish I'd gotten my behind in gear sooner. But I am here now....

Lois_E wrote: »

My parents know and approve of my plans. I haven't discussed the whole MFW thing with my brothers, though. If they were single they'd probably be the same as me about it - we were all brought up to be careful with money - but I think my SILs are rather fonder of spending, and I doubt any of my brothers get the chance to OP. So I find it better not to discuss it, for fear of opening any cans of worms.

My mum and dad live in a single bed apartment attached to our farm house, so they approve of us overpaying the mortgage. To be fair, a lot of my friends have been converted to MFW by me going on about it pre-credit crunch. They wewre so chuffed during those tough times to have reduced their debt liabilities.

A couple of mates have also joined me in jumping up a couple of rungs of the housing ladder while we have these historically low rates. It's great when ordinary people take a bit of a chance and really get on and do well for themselves.

gallygirl

:hello: Good to have you on board over here I remember some of the lovely pictures you posted of the renovation work - is the majority of the big stuff done now?

If someone is winding you up just hit the 'ignore' button then you won't see their posts anymore :cool:

MFW_10YRS_4

gallygirl wrote: »

:hello: Good to have you on board over here I remember some of the lovely pictures you posted of the renovation work - is the majority of the big stuff done now?

If someone is winding you up just hit the 'ignore' button then you won't see their posts anymore :cool:

Thanks gallygirl. In some respects I quite like that some people over on the economy board want me to fail, it makes me even more determined to succeed!

I had to delete those pics because the stalking was getting really bad and I was worried that the pics might be giving too much away. I live in a listed building which narrows the search down significantly and the majority of listed building have photos on the English Heritage site. I decided it wasn't worth the risk with my family. You can only look at what happened with Norway to see how crazy some of these internet guys can be :eek:

The renovations are complete for phase 1, which was to put some insulation into the roof (we have vaulted bedroom ceiling straight into the roof and there was NO insulation at all! brrrr!) and to sort out the central heating system, plus to totally renovate the apartment where my folks live.

This is done now, so while interest rates are low we thought we woudl have a period of OPing. We still want to rip out the fireplaces (these aren't original and look awful) and put insulation into the floors and walls, but this can wait until we are back into our comfort zone with our mortgage.

When I hit the 50% challenge I will spend some money on the renovations again, and then I'll create the next 2 or 3 year challenge