Mortgage free by 50 30 November 2011 at 9:27PM in Mortgage-free wannabe 512 replies 44.9K views

Mortgagefreeby50

I have started this thread as a motivator for myself more than anything!
We completed last week on our dream home, hopefully our forever house.
Starting mortgage debt: £203k, on a 30 year term with the first three years fixed at 3.99% with overpayments allowed up to 10% of the yearly balance.
We are both 30 years old and have been playing with the overpayment calculator to see what effect little overpayments will have on the term. I can see how it would quickly become addictive!
So the plan is to make regular standing order overpayments, and also work out the difference per month in order to land us at clearing it in 20 years. So each month/week we shall be aiming to mse the difference between our regular overpayments and the overpayments needed to clear this thing.
I like Financial Bliss's idea of small steps, like the sections on his house to be coloured in.


It will certainly be a long journey, but it will be so worth, it! I have tried not to get too embroiled in any striking debates today but I'm hopefully preparing for the worst by clearing our biggest debt as soon as possible.

So I have plugged all of the figures into Martin's budget calculator and the overpayment calculator. If we carry on as we are, and if by some miracle we manage to keep our interest rate, and we overpay by £255 a month, we can clear it in 20 years.

We have quite a few things to save for at the moment, but can afford to put by £150 a month for overpayments.


So that leaves £105 to find each month by mse activites, overtime and selling stuff.

We will start a mortgage pig to put all of the little bits in that we save from 'all the small things'.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Good luck to you. I have found having a diary a huge help in focussing the brain. It has surprised me that there are so many ways to save which I never considered before.

Good luck on your journey.

Best wishes
Tilly

Twiddy

All the best on your journey MFB50. So does the £150 you've allocated to overpayments result in you clearing the mortgage in 20 years, or 20 years is your overall plan regardless of overpayment? Have you entered the £150 into a calculator to see the effect?

Cheers
T

mortgage_girl

Good luck on your mortgage free journey - i'll be watching your thread with interest!

MGx

Mortgagefreeby50

Thanks for the support!
Twiddy, the £150 is what we can spare each month as a standing order. The amount needed to clear the mortgage in 20 years is £255 so we need to find another £105 per month to top up our £150.

So for December, I only have another £86.90 to find as Quidco have kindly just payed me £18.10! As a result of the house move, we should have some sweet cashback coming our way over the next few weeks from the dual fuel switch, new life insurance and carpets. The carpetright deal is pretty good, as long as you follow the proper scheme of things. We went into the shop, found the carpet we liked, then made the appointment for them to come and measure up. So for that we get £15 plus 5% cashback, which works out at £33 cashback. The offer in store was already 20% off, so we have done the stairs, hall and three bedrooms for £344 plus about £150 fitting.

I'll trot off to check the status of my Topcashback dealings, I had the lovely chocolate club offer for £2 and also joined Lovefilm for a month. You get about £7 cashback for doing the free trial. I stupidly forgot to cancel it in time for the first payment of £5.99 to come out, but imagine my surprise when they sent me a £20 Amazon e coupon! So now I have cancelled it and have ended up about £21 up! So once I spend that (maybe on some christmas pressies), then I can add that to the overpayment pile for December.
Update: Topcashback still not payable so I'll have to hold fire on that one.

Mortgagefreeby50

Right, I've just listed a load of stuff on Amazon marketplace. If it all sells then that should be £162, which will cover the rest of December's overpayment and also half way towards January's! It has a dual purpose of de-cluttering as well as we need to get rid of some stuff before we move house. It's funny how some books I bought on a whim are worth quite a bit since they have now gone out of print.
I have been left with a bigger pile of ones that are only selling for a penny, so it's not really worth listing them. I'll take them to the charity shop tomorrow I think.

Mortgagefreeby50

One of my books sold today for £6.50 so I'll wait for Amazon to pass that on and then it shall go towards this month's overpayment.

Other bargainous activities today include finding a v cheap bedroom set on ebay. It's not the best quality in the world but there is a 3 door wardrobe (with mirror), chest of drawers and two bedside tables for £209 with free delivery. I am well impressed with that as I had visited a discount furniture place today and they were offering a very similar wardrobe which was a 'second' due to broken mirror for about the same price. I have googled the same set and amazon and other websites are selling it for £270 so I think we are getting a good deal.

I have finalised my christmas shopping online this evening! Two personalised Christmas puddings from getting personal with 10% cashback from quidco and I searched for a voucher code which gave me free delivery. So I have saved £4.99 on an order which should have been £22.97. The recipients will be none the wiser! I will post £3 into the mortgage savings pot and get the other £2 from quidco in a few months (!).

We had a man come round the other night to look at restoring the hall floor for us, and seeing as we had no idea of a ballpark figure we were waiting for the quote to come through. It came tonight at £250 which is a real surprise! This kind of balances out the astronomical quote we had to get the whole place curtained- £1400!!!
We have declined, although I know they would have looked lovely. A friend of a friend might be able to do them for us so I have left her a voicemail to come and give us a quote. I just can't justify spending that much on curtains, it is way more than the carpets even! I know we would probably have them for years but I'm hoping we can find a cheaper way of doing it.

Other spending coming up is getting the loft hatch ladder fitted and the loft boards down. After that it will just be a few odds and sods like bathroom cupboards etc and then we can settle in with the knowledge of no more spending/DIY for the forseeable (we hope!).

Mortgagefreeby50

Testing to see if my signature has appeared...yep!

Mortgagefreeby50

Wow! After perusing through some diaries last night, I came across a link for Locoblade's spreadsheet- the holy grail! Thank god this exists as I wouldn't have a clue how to construct such a wonderous thing myself!
Here is the link for all of those who haven't seen it before:

I am not allowed to post links yet so just copy this number and paste it over the number at the end of the url at the top of this page after the = sign: 1157173

So I have put my trifling overpayments in so far of £168.10 and the sums are as follows:

Previous interest over the term of the loan: £215,769.68
Previous finish date: Nov 2041
After overpayments interest saved: £197.36
After overpayments finish date: Nov 2041

So effectively, I have just made myself £29.26! (Or I am now £29.26 better off).

inigma

Yeah careful the spreadsheets get addictive! I'm 3 months in to a mortgage and can't stop playing with my spreadsheet! And remember every over payment is a good overpayment regardless of size!

Sepa74

Hi MFb50, welcome to the board. I love your goal - it's very SMART, as the management jargon goes - specific, measurable, achievable yada yada yada!!

Good luck with it all, but don't get too disheartened if you find it's a challenge to get the £105 extra each month, at least for the first few months - moving into a new house is SO expensive!!

Also, have you built up an emergency fund yet? They are especially important when you own your own house as so many things can go wrong!

I'm looking forward to hearing more about your MF journey.