Its days are numbered ...

DawnW

I have posted and lurked on these boards for years, but have never started my own thread before, so I am very excited about this one :j

I have decided that this year, the mortgage is to go. OH will get a lump sum from his pension in September which would make a big dent in it (not a huge pension, just a smallish mortgage balance I hasten to add), but I would like to see how much of it I can get rid of before then.

So, I will need to get a proper balance, which I can do today. I know it is between 20 and 25k.

So, first a little bit about me. OH and I are in our late 50s, and he is now semi retired / self employed on a small scale, doing rural crafts. I work FT at a job which is a bit of a stressful nightmare at times :eek:.

We married as teenagers, have 3 kids who are now grown up , and have spent most of our lives skint and in debt .

When my youngest started school, I stopped being a stay at home mum and went back to study, and ended up with qualifications which have enabled me to have decent jobs since then. OH worked very hard but in the sort of job that was never going to pay very much, and we lived for years in houses tied to his work.

Once I started working again, we slowly got the debt paid off, about 15k. This might not sound like that much now, but was a HUGE amount then (my youngest DD is 29 now) :eek:. There were no DMPs way back then, so we just had to grin and bear it and pay it off, with interest accumulating all the time. It hadn't been spent on luxuries, but just on getting by on a very low wage, and bringing up the kids, food, clothes, school things, heating, all the usual. There were no tax credits or other benefits for low paid families with children, only child benefit, which was also pretty low in those days. Holidays, when we could afford them, were camping for a few days with the kids, which they still talk fondly about now

We were into self sufficiency, growing vegetables and fruit, cooking, making wine and beer :beer:, keeping animals for meat, eggs and milk etc, or we would have been considerably worse off :eek: We still do some of those things, only on a miniature scale now

It all seems sooo long ago!

After becoming debt free we started to save, and four years ago, we had enough to put down a large deposit on our first house

We borrowed 70k to buy a house that cost 142k , and immediately had to rent it out as we still had to live in the crumbling accommodation tied to my OH's job as he was obliged to under the terms of his contract. I cried when I handed over the keys

We also had to get a btl mortgage at a high interest rate :mad:, but we overpaid as much as we were allowed and continued to save.

We made the decision last year that OH would give up his job (the wages were rubbish, long hours and the working conditions had got so that he hated it). So, we got the house back and did it up completely, borrowing no more money. We have lovely antique / shabby chic style furniture all of which cost a fraction of what new things would cost, bought from auctions, junk shops and car boot sales, which suits our Edwardian house perfectly.

It is a modest terraced house on the edge of a small town, and we love it !

There are still a few small bits to do inside, and a big bit, the roof :eek: will need doing this year.


So, now to pay it off and make it completely ours

icontinuetodream

good luck with your journey!!

Spiggle

Welcome and good luck with your plans. I look forward to reading your progress.

Take care,
Spigs

Peonie

Hi Dawn and welcome to being a mortgage free wanna-be-er. I am looking forward to reading more.

Emsky123

Good luck and enjoy the journey

DawnW

Ooh, I didn't expect anyone else to post on here :j thanks so much for your encouragement!

Today I got a balance on my remaining mortgage - it is - £22,738.04 :eek:

I have to phone or go in to the branch to get a balance as unfortunately C&G do not do internet banking type stuff

Probably just as well, or I would be obsessed with looking at it

kate1979

I loved your story! I'll be following your diary with interest, good luck on your MF journey!

DawnW

OK, today we spent £8, on a new sage plant, as mine has been eaten by something, and a couple of books from a junk stall. Plants and books are a bit of a weakness

On the plus side, I have had a bit of a cooking fest. I made red cabbage with onion apple etc, and will have some in a minute with pheasant casserole which I have also made. There will be enough of this to freeze for another meal, and I also made pheasant korma (sounds weird, but smells nice!) for tomorrow. We will see how that works out!

The red cabbage recipe made enough for 8 portions :eek:, 2 of which we will have tonight, I gave another 2 to DD2 and her OH for their dinner, and the rest is now in the freezer.

OH cleaned out the chickens run this morning and I put the litter on one of the raised beds as mulch. This one is planted with flowers, herbs and a lovely loganberry plant which is growing like mad - hoping for lots of loganberries this year They are like raspberries but bigger, and a bit sour if not really ripe. They make great jam though

Line dried 2 loads of washing :T and took the dog out along the canal path, looking at the lovely houses with gardens that go right down to the waters edge.

OH has been busy making something that someone has ordered, and has been asked to take some items to another posh shop next week (he already supplies one). He hasn't actually sold much yet, but his things are quite expensive, so when he does sell one it is pretty good :T

Back to work tomorrow for me Once the mortgage is paid I will hopefully be able to spend more time with my chickens, dog, house and little garden, and less on trains and in meetings

macgirl

Hi Dawn :hello:

I too, loved your story and wish you all the best with your MF journey.

*subscribes*

DawnW

Manic day at work today, but it did mean that I didn't have a chance to spend anything - though see below.

Washing dried on line as it has been quite a nice dry windy day Much better than hanging around on the airer, which is the other option. Confession to make - I have never owned or used a tumble drier

Pheasant korma (made yesterday) for supper. DD2 and son in law decided to invite themselves, so I did rice, naan bread, and little dishes of chopped coriander and spring onions, flaked almonds and creme fraiche to make it stretch further.

Then applecake or leftover Xmas pud (so alcoholic it would keep for years :eek:) with the rest of the cream for afters.

Paid CC off from savings. It consisted of season tickets for the train and car park, just to get to work - nearly £3k :eek:

OH earned £25 for a small job today, and sold an item for another £40. I am dreading having to sort out his income tax after April :eek: I had to do it for both of us when our house was rented out, but this is a whole other layer of complexity :eek::eek: I am making him write everything down though and keep all invoices and receipts. It will be a lot of work, for really very little earned.

Popped in to the bank to complain again about the fact that I STILL haven't received the cheque I requested before Xmas on maturity of a bond. They can't for some reason just pay it by BACS to my current account as it is not with that bank (I wonder why?? :mad:). I have had to have then stop the cheque that they insist they have sent - not sure where to - and now await a new one :mad: The branch manager was helpful though, although I did get the feeling she was pretty powerless to actually do anything!

If I don't get it by Friday I will do a proper complaint :mad:

Anyway, when B*clays eventually manage to bring themselves to part with MY money, I will be able to make a decent overpayment

Anyway, enough moaning - at least Monday is over

Dentists before work tomorrow, so definitely not a NSD

DawnW

Haven't managed to post for a few days because work has been manic. I was out of the office today though, and unusually, got home early :j

Mixed sort of day -

B*rclays have now sent a cheque, but I don't know if it is the cheque that was stopped due to non-arrival at the weekend, or a new one. According to what I was told on the phone last weekend and today, a cheque was issued and stopped, and another cheque was being sent. They told me today that this cheque is not the stopped one. The letter I received with the cheque implied that an earlier one had not been issued due to a system issue. Confused? I am! I will pay it in and see what happens, I guess. I do know that I won't be troubling B*rclays with my savings again

Also in the post was a letter from a debt collector for a parking ticket from before Christmas, that I never got :mad: I always park in the same place, and there is just no way I wouldn't pay. I usually have a season ticket, but didn't renew just before Xmas and paid daily instead. I think they must have seen the expired season ticket in the window and not seen the ticket from the machine on the other side of the dashboard. That doesn't explain why I never received a notice though! If it had been there, I could have sorted it out then and simply showed them the ticket. As it is, I cleared the car out just after Xmas as it had to go in for its MOT - that doesn't happen very often :rotfl:

Anyway, I have written to dispute it,but I bet I will end up having to pay it. Why is there always somebody trying to rip you off, their normal charges are extortionate, so no way would I give them the opportunity to do this :mad::mad: It made me doubly cross to get a letter from scummy debt collectors :mad::mad::mad::mad:

Oh and I almost forgot, I paid £300 off the mortgage :j:j:j

And tomorrow is Friday :T:T:T