Mortgage Free in Three Yrs

Miss_Pink_3

My mortgage finally went down today. Got the letter through the post. My mortgage interest rate is now 7.0%. Saving me ten pounds a month. Think I'll stick to the same payments ; )

do_it_today!

Hi all :hello:
glad to hear everybody hard at work chipping away at the old ball.... I must investigate all this quidco stuff,

Incase I miss the next update I just wanted to post my balance for the 16th April £124,927 - I hope to knock off at least another 3k by the end of the year :j :j :j the end still feels along way a way (another 15 or so!) but on the other hand I cant believe how quickly this year is going!!!....

Kaz2904

It's amazing how we are all doing. I think I'm going to fall far short of my initial year end point but as I still have 2 years to go I'm confident that I can make up the shortfall. I'm around 6k down at the moment and it's a combination of buying the new car and doing the work in the house.
Once we have sold the other car we will hopefully owe £1.5k less and can look forward to cheaper running costs with our new motor.
This year the money saved on fuel will go towards overhauling her, getting a good service and cambelt change and maybe some mild cosmetics. Then the savings will start to build and can go towards the mortgage.
I will fill my ISAs in April and still be able to overpay but next year I think I will have to reconsider whether I want to overpay or shove it in ISA with a little overpayment. My mortgage won't be gone until 2012 even paying at this rate and I'll have 2 years to repay at the end of this challenge. I will still have another year of my Mums loan so will be free 2013.
I want the overall best strategy for clearing this thing and the ISA money is earmarked as mortgage money anyway. It may be that a lot more providers will have ISA offset mortgages come 2010 but I doubt it really. It's taken years for the "Australian mortgages" (as they were first known) to be more commonplace and I think the combined ISA is a pretty new thing.
It may well be that I get to a certain point in 2010/12 where I am fully offset and feel that I can sit tight and gradually transfer out my ISAs. It ought to take me a further 31 months to transfer it all in/out again.
We would stand to have £42000 in ISAs come 2012 but would have to sit there at 0 for a year until we had enough saved to pay my mum her money back as I think it would be a bit cheeky to do it the other way round. As it is we will have had her money for 8 years by the time we repay her (a thought I'm not particularly comfortable with!).
I would like to point out that should my Mum ever need her money back then she would get it straight away but she's quite wealthy really and has no need of it at this particular time. I kind of view the interest free loan as my inheritance as I know that we'll get nothing because she's leaving it all to charity.
Anyhoo just another long rambling post from Kaz again! TTFN peeps!

cupid_s

Miss_Pink wrote: »

My mortgage finally went down today. Got the letter through the post. My mortgage interest rate is now 7.0%. Saving me ten pounds a month. Think I'll stick to the same payments ; )

How is your rate so high? I am paying the variable rate and mine is 6.19%. Can you change providers?

TallGirl

Nice to see this thread getting back to what it is all about strategies, ideas, tips, views etc on paying off your mortgage. I am also amazed at how quickly the time has gone since we started this. I had a £45.5k mortage and at the end of year 1 it will be £23k something I would not have done without MSE.

I think MSE becomes as way of life, like I would usually have been to shy to ask for a discount or money off but now if I don't I think Martin would be upset with me. When I got £200 off our bathrooms stuff just by asking it was so cool. Like winning money in the lottery.

Really getting into my Match betting but it is not that great for MFi3 as you need such a big float to get the best offers. My profit is about £500 currently but I have had to put in £1000 of my own money which is currently not being offset against my mortgage. (I can take the £1000 out at anytime the £500 is on top pure profit).

I have several football bets on tonight and I find it slightly more interesting to watch it on telly if I have a bet on. Saying that if it is our Pompey Boys playing it is a different story - I am hooked.

Right enough waffle just wanted to say well done all, it doesn't matter if you haven't paid much off the fact that you are thinking about being mortgage free is a vital step.

Don't forget next update is mid April for the 1st years results. Please PM me now if you think you might struggle to get back to me before next month.

Miss_Pink_3

cupid_s wrote: »

How is your rate so high? I am paying the variable rate and mine is 6.19%. Can you change providers?

We were on a variable rate from the start. We we're paying 4.25% for a very long time. We are actually going to ring them up this week as we have only had one mortgage rate drop since the interest rates went down!!!! Is this right? Should they put it down everytime the rate goes down or......? We're with Intelligent Finance.

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

Kaz2904 wrote: »

It's amazing how we are all doing. I think I'm going to fall far short of my initial year end point but as I still have 2 years to go I'm confident that I can make up the shortfall. I'm around 6k down at the moment and it's a combination of buying the new car and doing the work in the house.
Once we have sold the other car we will hopefully owe £1.5k less and can look forward to cheaper running costs with our new motor.
This year the money saved on fuel will go towards overhauling her, getting a good service and cambelt change and maybe some mild cosmetics. Then the savings will start to build and can go towards the mortgage.
I will fill my ISAs in April and still be able to overpay but next year I think I will have to reconsider whether I want to overpay or shove it in ISA with a little overpayment. My mortgage won't be gone until 2012 even paying at this rate and I'll have 2 years to repay at the end of this challenge. I will still have another year of my Mums loan so will be free 2013.
I want the overall best strategy for clearing this thing and the ISA money is earmarked as mortgage money anyway. It may be that a lot more providers will have ISA offset mortgages come 2010 but I doubt it really. It's taken years for the "Australian mortgages" (as they were first known) to be more commonplace and I think the combined ISA is a pretty new thing.
It may well be that I get to a certain point in 2010/12 where I am fully offset and feel that I can sit tight and gradually transfer out my ISAs. It ought to take me a further 31 months to transfer it all in/out again.
We would stand to have £42000 in ISAs come 2012 but would have to sit there at 0 for a year until we had enough saved to pay my mum her money back as I think it would be a bit cheeky to do it the other way round. As it is we will have had her money for 8 years by the time we repay her (a thought I'm not particularly comfortable with!).
I would like to point out that should my Mum ever need her money back then she would get it straight away but she's quite wealthy really and has no need of it at this particular time. I kind of view the interest free loan as my inheritance as I know that we'll get nothing because she's leaving it all to charity.
Anyhoo just another long rambling post from Kaz again! TTFN peeps!

---

Hi Kaz,

I feel the same as you, I wonder if I am missing out on tax free cash isas when I'm paying off the mortgage but I just don't have enough cash to do both!

The latest I've come up with on this front which might help you, is this:

-open up a A&L current account via quidco (£50 for doing this and while you are at it open one of their esaver accounts as you get £20 for doing this too)

- Set up an electronic transfer of £500 per month (min requirement), then out of this money set up a transfer to their 12% savings account for 12 months (I know this is taxed but even so works out better than a cash isa)

- set up a dd or standing order for the remaining £250 to be sent back to your current account a few days later.

- After a year withdraw the £3k + interest saved and put on your mortgage!

I hope my maths is right on this one but I have done it and happy with it. I am at the point where I only have a few hundred quid on the mortgage due to stoozepot and savings but its not my money as the savings are earmarked for things and stoozepot money has to repaid eventually but at least I'm not paying interest on this.

When the balance starts to hover around it being in credit I'll think about cash isas but until then I don't think its worth it for me.

BTW I think the A&L account is only for 1 year at 12% but I suppose you could open one again.

I know its a bit of a faff but I can fit this in now I've got my head round it. If people haven't got time or can't keep on top of this plan it would be a disaster. It also might only seem like peanuts to some people but my philosophy is that every single penny counts and it all adds up.

Good luck!

chickadee

Hi everyone, I thought I would give the team an insight into where the MFiT challenge is taking me.

I started the challenge with a £65k mortgage in my Virgin One account. I also have a car loan wrapped up in the V1 account, but I have separate e-accounts so I know where I am on each of them.

I intended, at the start, to be able to pay off about £11k of the balance during the three year period of the challenge. I know this isn't a great deal in comparison to some of the other challengers, but it felt stretching but achievable to me this time last year.

What a difference a year makes! My son was in a private primary school, costing me a large chunk of my monthly salary, but in July he left and is now in a state high school. Coupled with this, I had a pay increase at work. Now I know what the value of each of these is, but the main change for me was a mindset change, due wholly to staying focused on the MFi3 challenge.

My mortgage at the start was £65,000. By the end of March it will be £56,300-ish. That is a difference of £8,700. I had only planned to pay off £11k over 3 years initially.

I haven't really been paying off the mortgage to the exclusion of all else either. For example, this year we have bought a new TV, a new sofa, fire and fireplace and completely redecorated the lounge. I estimate that these costs came to about £5k in total. We also had a summer holiday and a few weekend breaks too.

This has all made me wonder if I really could participate in this challenge for real, i.e. could I pay off the balance in the remaining two years of the challenge? This would take a lot of doing on my part, but the feeling of being mortgage free is very attractive!

I'll send an update after the end of the month when I have the correct figures, but I am really going to go for it from now on!

Thanks everyone for all your support, ideas and discussion. It has really made a difference to the way I think.

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

well done chickadee! that's fantastic and even better because it sounds like you are balancing it all with enjoyment and a good quality of life.

I agree that your mindset changes, I too have a v1 account and despite it getting a slating in some parts of the forums, its been great for us, partly because it has changed the way we view the mortgage. I can see the interest going out and to me its dead money, I could be investing that in a cash isa instead of giving it away to a bank!

Have you looked at stoozing? Its paid off for me but look into it carefully before you decide as it takes some commitment. Its not hard but you have to be organised. Also the grocery challenge on the old style board has been useful.

Good luck!

cupid_s

Miss_Pink wrote: »

We were on a variable rate from the start. We we're paying 4.25% for a very long time. We are actually going to ring them up this week as we have only had one mortgage rate drop since the interest rates went down!!!! Is this right? Should they put it down everytime the rate goes down or......? We're with Intelligent Finance.

Ours goes down everytime the BofE rate goes down.

Maybe IF just take slightly longer to pass the savings on to you