I need to make 2014 a big one

eriphil

Hello all

I am on a mission to have rid of the dreaded mortgage shackle by the end of 2014. This is the state of play so far.

Mortgage taken out on 20 Dec 2007 for 118000, made regular overpayments of £500 for the last 3 years, this has left us with a current debt of £85000, we have £25000 of offset savings.

The plan which has involved a spreadsheet and various realistic calculations is to pummel everything we have left over in the Month into the offset savings aswell as keeping with the current overpayment system (which is now £580 due to my interest rate reducing last year).

I am very disciplined with money and I always have been however my wife has only just learnt that you don't have to spend all of your wages, we are going to sacrifice the number of times we eat out every month to just once, it has been once a week at least in the past. We are also going to use our allotment to full fruition this year to try and reduce our food bill between the months of June and November (we have reduced our bill already with this but we could do more). We don't really do hoilidays so there is no sacrifice there.

We are both lucky to have reasonably well paid jobs, and we are also lucky in that we decided last year not to jump on the getting a bigger house and therefore bigger mortgage bandwagon, therefore we have decided to make the most of the low interest rates and get rid asap. I will chart our progress on here and hopefully hit our target of December 2014.

Good luck to who is on a similar mission. Hopefully it will be fun.:)

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Good luck, you sound very focused and well organised.

sweetdaisy

All the best in your quest to pay off your mortgage early .

black_taxi_2

main thing is you hav a target an remain focused(without a target you will drift aimlessly--did it for years)

even if you miss---a high percentage will be acheived

im on target to be MF 2014 also

g/l

all the best

eriphil

Focus and not giving up when the going gets tough is absolutely critical as you say. Its amazing how quickly time goes by though so I know if I can show restraint it won't be long before I post on the wall of honour, then I can spend as I please with the sense that I'm not funding the banks in any way.

[Deleted User]

Well done on all your achievements so far and good luck on your journey!! Youve done fantasticly well so far!
Keeping a diary on here is a great way of keeping accountable and it does get a bit addictive!

eriphil

I love when you get a plan together and then things seem to go wrong. Boiler breaks down, then the oven etc etc. however having thought sod it we have sorted that and have managed to put an extra 1300 aside to take the net debt to 58700. Can't wait to hit the 50k milestone, should be happening around July hopefully. This will be worth it!!!!!!

getmore4less

£60,000 36month min required , £1667pm. (spare inc normal payment and overpayment)

depending on rate it will be a bit more 5% £1800pm.

Whats the rate?

eriphil

Debt now down to 55600, some essential unforeseen spending has been required so I'm pretty happy with the progress so far. We have not been too ridiculous with it either as we found that denying ourselves little treats was having a negative impact. The interest rate we are on still sits at 3.75% (floor level on a BOE+0.75% tracker) so we shouldn't have to worry about this for the next couple of years.
Must keep this going!!!!!!!

eriphil

Latest balance is at 52250. A bit higher than I wanted at this point but still moving in the right direction

eriphil

We have crossed the 50K left to pay milestone, so are over half way since we started on £118K in December 2007, £49424 left to be exact!!
I can't help thinking that I am going to look back on this in a few years when interest rates start to shoot up again and think to myself "thank god I made that decision". I think we all need to take advantage of the low rates at the moment as its one of the only positive things in the sea of negativity we are in.