The long road to being mortgage free!

ammonite

Hello all,

I've recently joined the MFW board. Hope to reduce my mortgage by 10 years, which means 12 more years to go and pay it off by 40.

This is a realistic overpayment plan which is doable potentially even if the going gets tough (which it definitely will over the next year due to my contract at work ending soon). Ideally if we can do it sooner, we would love to.

Aiming for approximately £200 overpayment per month. I've started squirriling away money that I would have paid full price for things for and used a voucher or got it for free instead. So my Tesco shop should have been £50 but because I used a new customer code, got cashback and found other codes online, it only cost me £27.50 so I put the £22.50 away into a savings pot.

Little bits like that I've been putting away this week and the realisation has been scary....saved up almost £300 from using vouchers, borrowing items instead of hiring them, cancelling a weekend away etc.

My aim by December is to overpay £2100 which will knock an entire year off the mortgage. So far £277/£2100 saved for overpayment

Little baby steps :A Will try and update when I can.


May 2012 - 2 months knocked off mortgage.

sweetdaisy

Good luck on your quest to become mortage free . Knocking 10 years off your mortgage will save a massive amount of money.

I have started doing the same as you i.e. I saved £15 on my weekly food shop this week, so as I was within my budget, I put the £15 as an overpayment. It really does add up over time.

I look forward to reading your diary.

ammonite

Thanks Sweetdaisy Here's to being MF ! :beer:

My target for May is to be more pro-active with Chow and DooU. I did really well in Jan/Feb on there and redeemed £50 of Amazon vouchers. I might try and save the points up on DooU and get the cash...to go to the overpayment fund :money: Think that can be my little task for the month. I'm half way there now but so tempted to cash out for Amazon vouchers. *Must think of the mortgage*Must think of the mortgage*

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi Ammonite, December will be an extra celebration as knocking a year off the mortgage so quickly is amazing. Good luck, Tilly

ammonite

Thanks Tilly! I'm so addicted already! I think if we reduce our mortgage by one year every year, it will halve the time we pay it back (obviously! ).

I worked out if we just do the £200/month overpay, we save almost £30000 in the long run. Unreal how much interest gets paid!

ammonite

Just earned another £8.27 on Ciao which will go into my overpay fund. Going to try and take advantage of the bonus offer they have there at the moment, 50p per review for house and garden reviews. Hope to write another 3-4 reviews today and take the total to over £10. Bonus ends at midnight.

ammonite

Bonus on Ciao this month is 25p for all toy reviews. Haven't got many toys but have lots of board games

Up to £286/£2100 now so well past my £200 target this month already.

24435/50000 points earned on DooU. Decided to save up for the cash (£50 min pay) this time. Almost half way there.

Been checking Onepoll but keep getting screened out of surveys. Almost at £30 but thats been ongoing for years, once I get to £40 I'm bowing out of that one.

Tomorrow....eBaying begins!

dipashah

Hi,

Onepoll - i joined in nov and have already had my £40 payment. I think the key is to have it open and refresh it very frequently throughout the day as I find even if i see some and think I will return to it in 10 mins, they always disappear so have to be on the ball with regularly refreshing and doing. Although most the time when it starts with relationship status Q and i say in a relationship it doesnt like it very much! hey ho you win some you lose some! i like it more than the longer surveys so will probably stick to it. Although note when I got to £39.90 i stopped getting any polls for 2 wks when others i knew were getting loads everyday still. complained along with many others on facebook about it and started getting more again.

Look forward to reading your diary (tempted for awhile to start one of my own too!) and good luck on mortgage payments! I'm about to be in that position for the first time soon (trying to contain my excitement at potential new home but fear of being permanently poor! need to teach OH to be more frugal!!)

ammonite

Thanks for the tip! Not sure what made me think that they only got updated each day. I checked this morning, nothing. I checked just now...Bingo! 10p added! Come on £10 to go!!! You should start a diary dipa. Think it is helping keeping me motivated. Love my spreadsheets too :money:

shala_moo

Hi Ammonite... :wave:

Just thought i'd pop and say hi...

will be keeping up to date with your OP's.. £30K less to the banks is great news!

ammonite

Thanks Shala Moo, the diary and this board are keeping me motivated! It is amazing how it all adds up! 30k less to the bank is brilliant!

Worked at home today so another saving of £4.70.

That's £292 to overpay now this month Wonder if I can get to £400. Need to be good with my food budget, could potentially save £50 out of there this month to bump up overpayments. Rob Peter to pay Paul!

Must check the electric too, think the meter is due to be fed