Finally into mortgage overpay mode

SussexBoy

Hi been lurking around this forum for a while now and have found the advice I have managed to gleen from across the forum invaluable. Me and the wife 3 years ago got hit by job loss and was out of work for 10 months. This led to massive debt and neary losing our home, from that point on I decided that I never wanted us to be beholden to any financial institution ever again and our hard earned cash worked for our family rather than lining the pockets of the financial instititions. Anyway we finally cleared out 65K of unsecured debt last month and managed to overpay our 342K mortgage by a modest 12k and have saved a years living emergency fund. Now starting to feel an immense feeling of satisfaction the attention is now being directed at the outrageous mortgage we have and have devised a plan that fingers crossed we can stick to and will see our mortage spanked in 5 years . Pretty ambitious stuff and only allows a very modest lifestyle but to be 100% free of any debt and safeguard our family in the future no matter what happens is a pretty good incentive . Expensive cars have gone , no more visits to pub (well the odd one im not that saintly) adopted the mantra do we really need that and now constinstently review our overall financial health to ensure every last penny is sweating . So heres to the journey to being mortgage free :beer:
Sussex Boy

Calfuray

That's amazing progress, well done!

Best of luck to you and yours for the future, sounds like a good solid plan

RevolvingDoor

Wow, well done so far.:T

Good luck on your journey to overpay, sounds like you are on the right track.:)

SussexBoy

Started going through our budget to see if any further savings can be made and have amazed ourselves at how much can be clawed back for the MF fund .We have already done all the utilities water phone broadband gas/electric and saved loads.

1. Ditched the mobile contracts bought the phones outright £60 per month is now £20 pm for both of us
2. Servicing the cars myself and that saves hundreds !!
3. We have 2 poodles who need clipping every 2 months so we have utilised a pair of hair clippers we no longer use and do it ourselves and found a local agri college who runs dog grooming class and only charge half a salon price so will do half us and half them over the year £315 pa saved
4. Im no longer buying my lunch and making my own thats £80 a month saved.
5. Stopped buying cleaning products at supermarket and purchase industrial sizes when offers are on at Costco thats saving us about £15 per month on cleaning fluids washing powders dishwash tabs etc
6. Started proper meal planning to try and prevent food waste not sure how much we are saving but nothing is getting chucked now
7. Buying our eggs and veggies from a local farm half the price of supermarket and last 3 times longer and taste better plus no bloomin packaging thats saving us as veggies are not going off before we can eat them
8. Done a deal with local gamekeeper I get the surplus pheasant from the shoots for 50p a bird which goes into the beaters beer fund only downside I have to prep the birds once you have done a few a bird takes about 2/3 mins to oven ready

So all in a big help towards the mortgage debt just need to start on the wife see if I can downgrade her Clarins to Boots own brand but methinks cat in hells chance there but she has sorted out loads of stuff for Ebay , so I guess my weekend will be spent Ebaying to raise more towards the mortgage

SussexBoy

Forgot to add also for those of you wanting to cut down on the heating costs we started doing this some years ago and watched our heating bills halve

We have our thermostat down to 15 even now and utilise our open fire for which we gather the fuel in summer coal and wood. Coal is cheaper in the summer by about 20% and the logs we purchase some and supplement it with whatever I can scrounge . I also more recently have deals with local tree surgeons who will drop off large logs from jobs because they cannot be bothered with it and its easier for them than taking it to the dump (and cheaper) . Not all tree surgeons sell on the wood they fell as logs and are glad to be rid of it. So my winter solid fuel averages about £120 for coal and practically nothing for wood and my house is far from cold

newgirly

Hi congrats on what you have achieved so far, that's a massive amount to pay off. Have you looked on the oldstyle boards for lots of good ideas to cut back costs? Best of luck

elantan

I've often thought about getting a wooden stove type thing, but when we costed it up it would've cost over £2k to buy, so we decided against it, our gas consumption is horrendous and try though we have we just can't seem to get it down

We've been told to get a new boiler as outs is over 30 years old, but we've also had several gas fitters say to us not to change it as its a work horse we need, and should never break down

catshark88

Elantan, gas is "relatively" cheap. I think that it is when you have oil CH, that woodburners come into their own a bit more.

My fire isn't cheap to run, but it does mean that I can heat a much smaller area. Keeping the house warmish with oil, seems to cost a bomb, even with radiators turned off in some rooms.

Sussex Boy, what fab progress you have made. I look forward to hearing your mortgage continue to fall.

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Well done Sussex boy, I look forward to following your progress,

Squirrel x

SussexBoy

elantan wrote: »

I've often thought about getting a wooden stove type thing, but when we costed it up it would've cost over £2k to buy, so we decided against it, our gas consumption is horrendous and try though we have we just can't seem to get it down

We've been told to get a new boiler as outs is over 30 years old, but we've also had several gas fitters say to us not to change it as its a work horse we need, and should never break down

Hi Elantan we did infact buy a stove 3 years with the intention of installing it but never got round to it so re flogged it on Ebay for a £120 profit . But we did our research and got a branded stove that has hardly been used for £120. But theres the liner and install cost as well but cannot imagine all in it would cost 2k

Understand the fitters advice on not changing the boiler but we did in fact change our 70s HUGE boiler about 6 years ago and received similar advice cost about 2k ish i seem to remember but I have easily recovered that and more in what I have saved on gas as new one is easily 3 times more efficient . Its one of those speculate to accumlate arguments i think

elantan

thanks for the advice will have a wee chat with mr el about it