When I grow up - my mortgage free journey

Yorkielass

Thanks tootoo, I think that we've taken the attitude that we managed when we first bought a house 7 years ago and our combined gross salary has nearly double since then (I was temping and OH was on a PhD grant then) and although we can afford nicer things now and obviously things have got more expensive we don't need to spend every penny we earn each month on 'stuff/nights out etc' we can buy some things/have some nights out and save the rest.

One of our things that saves us a lot is we only have 1 car. When we first got together my OH couldn't drive. I got a car about 6 months after we started going out and OH learnt the following year, but he couldn't comfortably drive my car (long legs and didn't adjust enough for him). At that point we both could walk to Uni then to work. We then bought a new to us car which he could drive.

When we moved about 15 miles away we still had one car and worked at the same place so with some compromise on both sides we shared lifts. Not ideal but saved us a lot.

Now we're back in the city, can walk/cycle to work and a combination of lifts, buses and the odd taxi in the evenings/weekends when both of us have things on we've coped fine.

I think so many couples are used to both having their own car when they start a relationship and neither wants to give 'theirs' up. We're obviously lucky we don't need to drive to work, but sometimes it would be really convenient and 'nice' to have our own cars (not having to keep changing the seat position would be lovely!) but we save a packet having only one car.

SillySod

Have you checked what limits there are to overpayments? I wouldn't want you to be hit with an unexpected early repayment charge!

Good luck!

applecrumble24

Wow, great start! Good luck with it all..
I'm about to start a new job which is close to home meaning we can go down to one car. The plan is to put those savings into the mortgage and hopefully get the repayment time down. I'll have to keep reminding myself of the mortgage free dream when I'm walking to work in the rain and snow though!

Yorkielass

SillySod wrote: »

Have you checked what limits there are to overpayments? I wouldn't want you to be hit with an unexpected early repayment charge!

Good luck!

Thanks for your post - we can overpay 10% a year so this year with our new direct debit we'll be overpay about 7% so will be safe. If we get any 'bonus' money from anywhere and can add a bit more we'll make sure we're not exceeding any limits.

As the mortgage goes down we'll probably get to the stage where we need to save some money ready to overpay as a lump sum when we come to remortgage.

Yorkielass

applecrumble24 wrote: »

Wow, great start! Good luck with it all..
I'm about to start a new job which is close to home meaning we can go down to one car. The plan is to put those savings into the mortgage and hopefully get the repayment time down. I'll have to keep reminding myself of the mortgage free dream when I'm walking to work in the rain and snow though!

Thanks - yes on the cold dark evenings being in a car would be nice, sometimes we do drive to work (OH works on a site that's part of the site I work on) but it's really lazy and not good for the car or our petrol spend so OHs back on walking every day and I'm back on my bike.

We've obviously never had that money to save but I know how much one car costs and if we did have two we wouldn't be overpaying so much.

MiffyMFW

From one Yorkie to another - Good Luck!! I look forward to following your progress :j

GemDoll

Good luck!

Yorkielass

Thanks MiffyMFW and GemDoll

Tomorrow is the 'big day' where our first overpayment dd should happen - I think that's when it'll seem real!

Yorkielass

Well we've done it, we're in the 150000s! :j:j

159278.07 after our overpayment laden direct debit

Then I saved up £9.39 in Tilly Tidies since late August so overpaid that - new balance is 159268.68 - paying that £9.39 off will save us £28 of interest and it's money we won't miss at all.

I've also joined the Make £10 a day challenge, used to do it a few years ago but although I've carried on doing some of the things I need a boost - money to go towards our next 'home improvement' project. This will include payouts from surveys/quidco etc, selling stuff, roadkill etc.

So October brings a 'living on a reduced amount of disposable income' from the start of the month, Tilly Tidying, trying to make £310 selling stuff/doing surveys etc etc and our energy provider switch going through. Also a week away on holiday.

Yorkielass

Back for another update. £2.64 in my Tilly Tidies this month so far, nothing went out for a few days so had none to do.

So far I'm up to £44.77 on the Make £10 a day, £32.28 selling clothes on Fbook, £12.43 selling craft items and a whole 6p roadkill (yes I pick up pennies).

I've also decluttered about 50 things from the house.

I joined Swag bucks last Wednesday and I'm now on nearly 800, haven't gone mad with it and on Saturday went to a wedding so only got a few while I was getting ready but that's certainly adding up for not a lot of effort.

So my decluttering and selling stuff seems to be going well, and at the moment we're not missing the money I squirreled into the mortgage either so I'm pleased, going in the right direction at least.