mortgage free 7years early should we save or spend?

corris3

T'was the friday before Christmas and whilst everyone shopped.... we paid off our mortgage a full 7 years early and treated ourselves to a coffee and mince pie in the italian coffee shop next door to the Cheltenham and Gloucester building society... this is not a Christmas story but exactly what we did after a year of very careful saving and earning extra cash. Inspired by the TV programme pay off your mortgage in 2 years...we did it in ONE ...The question now though is should we spend or should we save?

How did we do it... well we reviwed all our expenses and agreed to pay an extra £3k each to the mortgage over the year, we took language students all year and made another £4k, I sold on ebay and car booted all year for another £500, we sold a small piece of land we had ( yes I know we were fortunate having this), kept a spreadsheet with every single bit of expenditure on, logged onto this site every week for ideas and inspiration and then paid the rest out of savings.

The plan now is to continue saving for 12 months or so and replace our savings..the less exciting option I know but what would other moneysavers do?

For those of you out there striving to achieve this.. the feeling is great.. keep going it's worth it.

Tustastic

Wow, well done to you both.:beer:
As for your next move, how about the old adage 'Spend some, save some, give some'?
I'm a firm believer in having the equivalent of 3 months income stashed away for emergencies.
You could be doing some treat spending - a good holiday or whatever you enjoy. Perhaps spending on improving your mortgage-free home?
Plus give a bit to charities - local or national, whatever turns you on.
Well done again.:)

clarew

wow, what a lovely christmas you must have had! I am a long way off paying the mortgage off (22yrs,169k left) (from 25yrs at 175k), but it was the discovery of mse and that programme that motivated me to overpay little bits as and when possible, of our mortgage.

This forum is always inspiring, and reading threads like yours encourage me to carry on chipping away.

I would agree to your question with the above post, save "x" amount for emergency, perhaps then save a regular % of income for rainy days, and then enjoy the remainder, and have all the things you can now afford due to your hard work and achievement.....as long as in doesn't put you in debt!!!

katskorner

That is fantastic. This is something I am intending to do aswell. OH and I have two houses - one in my name both with mortgages and the one could pay off the other almost if we were to sell but I don't want to do that.

We had to increase our one mortgage last year and cut overpayments. We are now overpaying again on both (even though they just put interest rates up again today we will continue to do this).

We are also ebaying and carbooting as much as we can to earn more money. I do not go out to work as I have a baby and a toddler at the moment but they will be at school in a few years and then hopefully I can bring even more money in.

comping_cat

WELL DONE, thats great. I also want to get my mortgage paid of asap (still a long way to go at the moment) but if i had paid it off now, i would spend some, and save some - youve done so much hard work, it would be nice to reward yourself.

David_B_2

corris3 wrote:

For those of you out there striving to achieve this.. the feeling is great.. keep going it's worth it.

Congrats, I can't wait.

I'm a natual saver so I'd be saving again to replace what we had spend on the mortgage.

xtratime

Well done

We have about four years left (finishing about 4 years early even after 2 poorly performing endowments).
However I think you need to get the balance right about enjoying some hard-earned income now or suffering to reap the benefits a few years down the line.

din_dons

Wow how fab are you both.! I was just debating this fact with my loved one tonight-we have £31k left with 11 years but I feel that we could overpay loads and pay it off in approx 3, but would then have no savings. As I have a Woolwich open plan account I could do it as I have little pots of money in it also. If we need cash desperately we could always not overpay for a while or draw on the cash we have to spend from them-but of course that comes with interest. We are lucky to have no other debts.
What do you reckon?

corris3

Whatever you do "din dons" or however you decide to pay off your mortgage especially with using savings you have to be comfortable with it.

Like you we had no other debts and it was only after lots of debate and making a big dent in our mortgage by throwing all our spare cash at it during the year that we decided to pay it off as it felt right for us... since posting the original thread we have decided to save this year to replace our savings...what we were paying on the mortgage now goes direct to a notice account, after all we couldn't draw it off our mortgage so we shouldn't have access to it now, plus into this same account we are paying the extra amounts we committed to last year. By December 2007 we should just about have our savings back... and then in 2008 we intend to travel, first stop Sydney !

din_dons

Thanks for that very inspirational!
I think you are right I will try and do whats comfortable, but I don't know how you felt, but I just have this obsession to try and pay it off asap!

Brill idea regarding savings also making interest for you to enjoy.

Have a great trip, we are saving £2, 50p, 20p in order to do that £424 saved already!!!

amyandoli

well done you!
i cant wait to get in your position, though im a fair few years away. i am totally inspired by the programme too, and the great people on here too. i agree with an earlier poster, spend a bit and save a bit.