What are your plans for your money after mortgage paid?

nrsql

As to the original question

Invest in a property and rent it out until dd is old enough to use it?
Buy a bigger house to allow downsizing when we are older?
Put the money into ISAs and leave it there?
Use it to reduce working hours and spend more time with family?
Go on lavish holidays every year and forget about the future?
Something else?

Most of the above.
Family time, holidays - if you don't take and enjoy them now your circumstances might change and you'll have missed the opportunity.

Bigger house - only if it would improve your lifestyle. If you are thinking about investment probably better to buy another one and rent it out so at least the money is accruing income while possibly house prices rise. Means more work though.
ISAs - minimal effort so why not - at least put some here.

Be carful how much you diminish your enjoyment to save money - relax a bit but not too much.
Balance is the key (which I've failed miserably to find)).

ailuro2

Well we only work 37.5 hours a week each, but DH does his hours in 12 hour shifts,which is tough going when 4 x 12 hours nightshifts land in a row. At the mo his job wouldn't allow him to change to dayshift hours, so he'd have to find something else that would very likely pay a lot less.

We are holidaying in Western Canada this year with short breaks to York,Stirling and London.We always have our holidays,but a big one like Canada is only every three years or so-a normal holiday would be visiting family in Kent or renting a cottage in Scotland.

Another thought occurred to me for the list- buy a holiday home here in the East Coast of Scotland- higher rental income even though it is sporadic,all we'd need to do was clean it every week?

pantsmachine

I put 1/2 my old mort payment into a high interest account and the rest i have so far blown on a diamond ring for my wife and a 10 day break in Barcelona last month for the 4 of us. After 14 years of wearing a yoke we decided it was time to party a bit more.

seven-day-weekend

We have been mortgage-free on our family home in the UK since the mid-90s, when we were in our forties, and mortgage-free totally (on an investment property which we sold) since 2005.

We felt a great sense of security once we had finished the mortgage on our main home. It was wonderful knowing no-one could take it away from us, or have any other claim on it (at least not until we are much older and hopefully not even then).

However, to answer your question. When we became mortgage-free on our family home in 1996, it co-incided with me going back to work full-time and so we bought the investment property on a mortgage! However, this felt totally different to having a mortgage on our family home, as we knew we could sell it at any time and would have equity in it. We would never be under the threat of losing our home. We eventually sold it in 2005 and made enough to pay off all our debts and have £23k left over:D.

The other thing we did when we became totally mortgage-free was bought a decent (albeit five-years old) car, we have still got this, a Seat Alhambra people carrier, for the two of us! There is loads of space if you take the seats out, we can camp in it, carry furniture across Europe in it - have a party in it if we want to! It has just taken Spanish citizenship and now has Spanish plates (it must feel it's come home, it was made in Barcelona!).

The other thing we did of course was paid cash (partly funded by an inheritance ) for our Spanish house which cost £35000 in 2003 and is now worth about £100,000.

Mortgage-free is liberation!

cats505cats

hi everyone!
I am about to be mortgage free at the end of june having sold my house and made some equity.This will be used to pay off debts,and allow myself to save the money used for mortgage repayments.
After 8 years of struggling to pay off escilating debt as a working proffessional single mum,this is the start of a new life for me and DD.We are moving in with my long term partner.
Counting the days!!!

ailuro2

Best of luck to you, Cats, I hope it all works very well for you!

Thanks for all the other replies too, the investment property is looking like a good idea, but it's scary when there are so many horror stories of bad tennants around:eek:

[Deleted User]

My mortgage has 2 payments left!

My immediate plans for the extra money is to spend some of it on a few home improvements that have been put off and to replenish my savings.

Longer terms plans I'm not sure about at the moment due to my mum's future with her health being uncertain.

But having no mortgage will definitely mean I will have more options.

do_it_today!

If I was mortgage free I would quit my job (in a second!) find a less stressful part time job garden and paint bake cakes - and travel more DH would continue working as he LOVES his job :hello:

thriftmonster

We became mortgage free in Feb - still have savings and a pension - but have so far spent the money on some big home improvements eg gas central heating etc. Once we've done that, we're saving up to go to Australia as a family holiday in 2009 and then to put the kids through uni without the dreaded student loans etc. We did consider saving up for an extension but decided we didn't really need one - we're just going to do the bathroom instead.

Alion

We're working on paying off half our morgage so that we can afford a bigger house when we have a family. Looking at 5 years or so to pay off £100k and it doesn't seem very realistic...but every penny will help in the future when things are tighter...