Challenge of a lifetime!

cotswoldaccountant

Thanks Tilly! I honestly think it will change my whole outlook on the mortgage once it starts with a 3! The jump from 5 to 4 was a bit less noticeable as it resulted from a house sale - we never intended to have such a big mortgage, just couldn't sell the previous property - so getting it down to the 400s was necessary and expected once the house sold. The rest of it though has been sheer hard work!

The weekend away really was lovely - lots of nice meals, necessary clothes / shoe shopping for OH and I (not a favourite pastime, but we were scraping the bottom of the barrel for clothes each morning!), and general relaxation. I have some extra help with the children this week as well which is lovely, and unusual, so I will attempt to get on top of my work / general admin / messy house knowing that they are having fun!

CA

YoungBusinessman

Just seen this, by god it is challenge of a lifetime!!! I know you can do it though, you are definitly of the right mindset!!

Will maybe be in touch via PM in near future....

MrsP1983

That's a massive over/payment for one month-am v impressed! (And slightly jealous!)

PrincessLou

Wow - great overpayment this month. Can't wait to see it go under 400K!

You mentioned a previous house sale contributed to the mortgage in a previous post - can i ask how much you last house sold for and how much equity you had in it?

Really inspiring stuff as always - you are the reason i signed up to the Mortgage free in three challenge starting in January!

greent

Well done CA - look forward to hearing you break through the 400K mark!

gallygirl

Nearly below 400k :j, well done :T.

pixelwife

Wow, just wanted to say "Congratulations". You are really making inroads into that mortgage and I cannot begin to imagine how great it will feel to get out of the £400s!!! Can't wait for my house to get there!

Have to say it was jolly exciting to get under out of the £800s for total mortgage debt - can't believe I was ever up there... and higher!

Keep it going CA, you're an inspiration.

Heffi1

Great results CA it must be nice to get closer to the 3s now

cotswoldaccountant

Thanks so much all for the positive feedback. I only just realised there were some replies when I went into my diary - I normally get notified of replies but this didn't happen for some reason!

Princess Lou - we had to sell our last house for a bit of a loss unfortunately, as we bought at the height of the market and sold at the bottom of it We sold it for £275k and I think we had about £50k equity in that property though once it had sold which we OPd of course - there would have been more, but we had made loads of overpayments which we effectively took back out of the mortgage to use as a deposit our current house. Complicated! You can see why I was pleased to be rid of that one... We rented the house out for a couple of years before we sold it, which I didn't really enjoy. We were only just covering the mortgage payments with the rental income, and it was a bit stressful when things in the house went wrong and we had to go and fix them. The tenants were great though and kept the house looking really nice for us - and we had the same tenants throughout the whole two years so it was nice not to have any empty periods. As soon as they finally moved out, we put the house up for sale.

It's funny, because although I have never really enjoyed being a landlord - have done the "accidental landlord" thing a couple of times now - but I adore having our holiday rental property, as I love making it nice for people coming on holiday and doing everything I can to make sure they have a wonderful time.

I've had a stressful week work-wise, although have had some help with the children this week which was well-timed, allowing me to concentrate on the work stress knowing that they were happy. The stressful situation did make me consider my options though - I find it hard to say no to work (it's hard to say no when you're self employed!) but, given the small amount of time I have each week to work and the madness of my life in general, I need to say no. This particular project became stressful because I took it on without really having the capacity to fit it in easily, so I have told the client in question that I won't be able to work for them any more once this project is finished, and they were so understanding and lovely, and even apologetic, about it that it quite took me by surprise!

The week has ended with a lovely family outing yesterday to Legoland using supermarket vouchers and a nice lunchtime picnic, meaning we only had to spend £2 on car parking. If we had paid for entrance and food, we could well have spent over £200 for the day. And then when we left it was irritating to see that the barriers were all up so we needn't have spent the £2! All in all a very good value day out that the children loved. I always save theme park visits to the end of October (not half term week of course) - as it's so much easier to get around without the queues. The most we queued for any ride was 10 minutes! It was great fun but my oldest is 7, so I feel he will be outgrowing the rides at Legoland soon - he loved the big rollercoaster so much that I'd like him to be able to try out some other exciting rides. Any recommendations for any other family theme parks which would suit 3-8 year olds (as they will be next October!)?! I've thought from time to time about doing Disneyland Paris, but just not sure if it's really "us", or if we can justify the expense. I think I need to wait until the children have grown a bit too - at Legoland we had three under 130cm so we had to make much use of the parent-swapping facility, where one child waits at the ride entrance while the others go on the ride accompanied. DS2 didn't really like it much as at 5 he was the only child old enough to wait by himself so he always had to wait for his go on the ride!

I have finally been paid for an outstanding invoice and have had a couple of deposits paid for the holiday let, which I was going to overpay but we have instead booked a weekend away next weekend for half term. Sometimes, and especially this week, the hard work needs to be rewarded by something more tangible than a mortgage overpayment so I am not feeling remotely guilty about this minor diversion from the mortgage-free journey!

Hope everyone has a lovely Sunday - we have friends for lunch and my older boys have a rugby match this morning, so I am off to peel potatoes while the little ones play lego (I think they've been inspired by our outing yesterday!!)

CA

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi CA, good deal on Legoland, ours loved it there when they were smaller. We took them to Gullivers land a few times, so that may be an option, not sure whether it will be too young for your oldest though.

Enjoy your weekend away, it's a long journey so we need some fun along the way

Best wishes Tilly x