Mortgage Free in Three Yrs

ailuro2

Bees- at the start of the month after all the bills have been paid, look at what you have left to live on and try to put a bit extra away. If it's still there at the end of the month then put it in the mortgage pig/ overpayment account / weherever you keep it.

If you tell yourselves you have £400 instead of £500 left to live on, you may find you spend nearer to £400 than £500. If you have £500 left to spend then we would tend to find something to spend the leftover money on.

Hope this makes sense - it's a long winded way of saying we spend what we've got!!

TallGirl

I agree you tend to spend what you have. I have regular payments going to a savings account and I up that when ever I get a pay increase or find I am not spending my wages each month.

I also find it helps if I put all the money I earn from Ebay, Amazon, Matchbetting, Cashback sites etc etc into a seperate account for holidays. I am much more sensible when spending that as I know what hard work it was to earn it.

We are doing OK at the moment but I feel things are tough. DH is talking about having to cut the hours of some of his staff as they are not going to make a profit this month. He owns his own company. Hopefully things will pick up soon.

Bargain_Rzl

Well I finally did it... I have dumped the £7k which was in my savings account (fixed rate regular saver which expired 16th Jan) onto my mortgage... and as soon as it clears I will be sub-£40k :j :j :j

After this, there won't be any more overpayments for a while - nearly £2k of what I've overpaid is what you might call "redundant cashflow" rather than designated savings, so I need to play catch-up for a couple of months. I need to close down my other savings account (Barclays) which currently contains about £700, or I'll end up with a cashflow problem at the end of Feb when I'll have a large credit card bill and my wages will be short due to being taxed on some free shares I'm receiving on a workplace share plan. If I'm honest it would probably have been less hassle to overpay a little less - but I'm certain that the psychological boost of taking the mortgage down below £40k will be worth it!

Being on SVR at the moment my mortgage is my main vulnerable point when it comes to the effect of future economic decisions - and there's certainly no better place for my savings, rate-wise.

setmefree2

Desperate_Housewife wrote: »

Hi Guys!

Just got paid (early) and through thrifty, cunning planning over last year saving for xmas and January have managed not to get overbudget and can put £1K towards mortgage balance making us now £13k !!!!! yippee!!!! I get a buzz as its not been easy these last few weeks due to less work around.

Keep up the good work everyone, good luck, we are nearly there.....

Wow brilliant. £13k - fantastic

setmefree2

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

Well I finally did it... I have dumped the £7k which was in my savings account (fixed rate regular saver which expired 16th Jan) onto my mortgage... and as soon as it clears I will be sub-£40k :j :j :j

Lucky you Well Done

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

Bargain Rzl well done! I agree that in terms of interest rates, overpaying the mortgage seems to be the best bet at the mo. I feel like I have an itch I can't scratch and every time I pay off a lump sum towards the mortgage I get an instant high then this itch that I want to pay more off, a bit like a junkie really!

I think this time of the year doesn't help either but at least we are nearing spring rather than moving away from it. I am hoping to meet my goal by the end of the year, just hoping work picks up a bit. I have some work booked for this week and next which should rake in £1k so I hope to pay off some more by the end of the month.

Is anyone looking at what to do when this challenge ends?

My goal is to...

-pay of the mortgage (obviously!)

- save up enough to live on for a year, bills etc.. then OH to drop his hours and/or take up more flexible working arrangements.

- have a holiday where I can be pampered and looked after, good food and comfy beds. I haven't any parents or older family members so I really miss being 'mothered'. All this budgetting and cutting back is making me feel a bit old at present and I am looking forward to having a break.

On a positive note... I'm keeping my eye fixed on the goal, hopefully with steely determination will be welcoming in the new year with no mortgage. Also happy that we decided to do this, it seemed impossible at the time but we change our lives around to accommodate the goal, its been a challenge and no mistake!

Keep it up everyone, I think this time of the year is the toughest.

ecoelle

wow, some really inspriring tales!

I have so far managed to save an extra £20 this month to add onto the existing overpayment so a total of an extra £60 this month i thnk. Asmall amount in comparison o some on here but i'm proud of our achievemnts based on the fact that we are still wuite young and don't earn a lot in comparison to some people. So to anyone out there looking at the numbers and thinking they can't match them, try, do a little every so often and it has to help, any small amount reduces the loan and the term so keep going all and lets show those pesky banks who's boss!!!

gallygirl

setmefree2 wrote: »

Wow brilliant. £13k - fantastic

Well done from me too :j.


:o:o I just stuck 30k into mortgage spreadsheet to see what a sub 13k balance would look like :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

setmefree2

ecoelle wrote: »

wow, some really inspriring tales!

I have so far managed to save an extra £20 this month to add onto the existing overpayment so a total of an extra £60 this month i thnk. Asmall amount in comparison o some on here but i'm proud of our achievemnts based on the fact that we are still wuite young and don't earn a lot in comparison to some people. So to anyone out there looking at the numbers and thinking they can't match them, try, do a little every so often and it has to help, any small amount reduces the loan and the term so keep going all and lets show those pesky banks who's boss!!!

Well done on that.

Bargain_Rzl

I have been thinking what my next milestone should be.

Ideally I'd be trying to ensure that my LTV is low enough to qualify for a decent - OK, make that any - fixed rate as and when they start reappearing (being a shared ownership mortgage my current lender, Nationwide, would now require a min of 25% equity/deposit even to let me come off SVR). Now, my overpayment at the weekend has had the desired effect in relation to the original purchase price, but as to what the place is deemed to be worth now... well who knows. It's a moving target. According to the Nationwide generic house price calculator my flat has only lost a fraction of a % of its purchase value, but that doesn't take into account the fact that it's a newbuild.

So I think the next tangible target for me will be to get my loan down to below 1x my gross annual salary. It's not that far off - if my job remains safe and the cost of living doesn't go into a massive inflationary skyrocket, there's a reasonable chance I could get there by the end of the Mfi3 challenge :j