Mortgage Free For A Happier Me

Happier_Me

Hi Everyone

Well, I've done it! I'm starting a mortgage free diary just a few minutes after becoming an MSE member.

I'm going to give myself a :T

We are a family of four and we want to be mortgage free for a happier, more relaxed, slower pace of life. I am 38 and DH is 37, we have two children, DD is 8 (going on 18) and our DS is 5. DH is along for the ride, although he has developed a very unhealthy relationship with my MF enemy Rightmove. So as long as I keep him away from the laptop we should be in this house until we downsize at retirement.

We're not new to this mortgage free business and have been actively overpaying our current mortgage for around 18 months. We have also been mortgage free in the past, paying off the mortgage on our first house at the grand old age of 32:D

It was at this point that DH discovered the joys of Rightmove. So we got to experience mortgage free living for just a few months before we took on another mortgage.

We purchased our forever family home in March 2009, borrowing £148k over 15 years and we currently owe £83,647. In the last 18 months we have managed to overpay by £28,741 which is brilliant but exhausting and we find ourselves falling off the MF wagon quite a lot (more on this later).

We have an offset mortgage with IF. Our current mortgage deal runs out in March 2014 so the main mortgage should revert to the SVR of 2.5%. If we stick to a strict budget we should be able to clear the mortgage by August 2016 :eek:

And herein lies the problem...sticking to a budget and avoiding the next fall from that d@mned wagon. So I am starting this diary in the hope that it will keep me focused when the going gets tough (or the sales get good).

Tips and advice on how to do this would be very welcome:D

black_taxi_2

main thing I found--not taking on more debt,if you hav extra unexpected bills just don't o/p mortgage

best of luck

Happier_Me

Thanks Black Taxi, .

When we bought the house we redecorated throughout, bought lots of new furniture etc. We did this all on 0% credit cards, the last of which was paid off in October 2012.

We spend very little on going out and holidays but we do have one luxury and that is a new car that we have on PCP. But we are a one car family and a reliable car is absolutely essential to avoid me feeling like this:mad:

Other than the car we have no other debt and there should be no need to take on any more debt in the future.

If we continue our phases of overspending however this will have to be met from the mortgage over payments which means our MF date of August 2016 will have to slip.:eek:

Happier_Me

My approach to overpaying is this. I set a strict budget (for us), commit to a monthly overpayment amount and then work hard at sticking to the budget. This works well for a couple of months and then I get bitten by the spending bug or we get an unexpected bill that forces us to overspend in that month. As soon as I overspend during a month I stop trying, the budget goes out of the window and we end up overspending far more than we should have done:(

DH tends to just go with the flow :cool: so if I stop counting the pennies so does he.

We have overspent significantly in 2013 but we have managed to overpay as planned because I am working full time at the moment (normally 4 days a week) and I received an unexpected bonus in April. We overspent by a small amount last year, but savings were used to keep up the over payments. I genuinely don't think our budget is too tight because we have lived on this comfortably for several months at a time.

We currently OP by £578.37 each month bringing our current mortgage payments to £1,750 (I do like to round to the nearest £).

I have some ideas about how I am going to do this and I will post my thoughts later. You never know, just writing them down may make me actually stick to them.

Does anyone else go wild as soon as they overspend or is it just me?:D

YoungBaker

Will be following your story with interest Very exciting the fact you can pay off your mortgage and get MF so soon!

I guess to try and help keep you on the wagon so to speak, you just need to think of the fact that in five years you could be totally free from it and putting that money to other things! So yeh, whilst the sales may be good just think of how much stuff you can buy later on.

I think the key will also be in remembering that you are trying to be MF not debt free - so you do need to enjoy your money a little to and give yourself a bit of lee way so you are less likely to "fall off" more seriously.

I think my point is, is that we are just beginning our MF journey here too... whilst we are putting a decent amount aside each month to pay off the mortgage we also give ourself a healthy budget for entertainment and spending and stuff on ourselves. Don't get me wrong, it obviously isn't an insane amount of we would never pay it off :rotfl: but it is enough that we can get a couple of luxuries and enjoy the things we do like in life too.

Good luck, although I don't think you will need it.... as long as you keep your husband off rightmove :P

Happier_Me

Thanks for your advice Young Baker, I do sometimes forget that we have to enjoy life whilst on this journey and I shouldn't feel bad about the odd splurge. It's just the ones that last months I need to avoid as much as possible:rotfl:

Good luck on your mortgage free journey also, I read your diary and will be checking in regularly to see how you're doing. Although I am quite a bit older than you now I think I had a similar attitude to money in my 20's. We purchased our first house when we were 23 and had a 'live a little, save a little' approach to life. When we finally had our LBM we had saved enough to take a big lump sum off the mortgage and we cleared it very quickly after that, so it can be done. And it really is a great feeling when you make that final payment, it involves a lot of this
:beer::j:T

I am coming up with some ideas to help me keep focused and I will post them soon. Not sure how I am going to keep DH away from Rightmove, he's on it all the time but he seems to be happy to just window shop at the moment so that's good.

Happier_Me

So the aim is to protect the OP's I commit to making by sticking to a sensible budget. Easy right?

If I come into any money or make a saving on the monthly budget this will be used for extra treats with the family.

I plan to overpay as follows for the next 12 months:

Monthly OP - £1,078.37 (expect this to reduce to £578.37 in 12 months)
Annual Solar Panel OP - £2,500 est (paid quarterly)
Annual Bonus OP - £700 est (From DH pay)

So total OP's will be in the region of £16,140 during the next 12 months. Our current mortgage balance is £83,647.23 and this OP along with our usual payments should bring the mortgage balance to just below £50k by Sept 2014:j

Overpayments will reduce after this when my secondment ends and I revert back to 4 days a week.

To help me stick to my budget I plan to:
1. Have 4 NSD's out of 5 each week. In other words I need to stop spending while at work apart from the odd lunchtime treat.
2. Stick to a food budget and meal plan. Done this several times before and it works well until I get really busy. I find I am really good at meal planning but not very good at actually cooking the meals on the plan:D. I need to try harder.
3. Replace my occasional online shopping addiction with a MFW diary addiction. Reading these diaries has really helped me focus these last few weeks and long may it continue.
4. Make use of Quidco, Tesco and nectar points as much as possible.
5. Be a bit of a shop t@rt. I love Aldi but I need to be disciplined to shop this way. Now I've committed to working full time for a while I plan to shop online using whichever store gives me the best money off vouchers each week.

That's about it for now I think

Happier_Me

I have tried to update my signature today but I'm struggling to save this so will try again tomorrow.

I've banked two cheques today (£47.50 from Audi insurance to cover a cancellation fee and £158.33 for 4 months car tax refund on the car I've recently part exchanged). This money will go into savings.

I'm trying to stick to a food budget of £400 per month and have spent around £70 per week for the last two weeks. This weeks shopping bill was a little higher at £97 after using a £13 money off coupon. Lots of food in the house now though so next week should be a cheap food week.

I managed 3 NSD's day out of 5 this week so one day short of my target. I did spend just 20p on a coffee on one of these days so I'm going to forgive myself just this once.

Had an NSD day today - we had lunch at a friends house after the children's swimming lessons.

No takeaways this week and I have kept to my meal plan. Meal planning is a big weakness of mine so I am going to give myself a:T for this.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi HappierMe, I tend to work long hours in a bit of a mad role, so find menu planning and batch cooking a huge help. Years ago I'd come home from work too tired to cook and we'd grab a takeaway - I've saved a fortune changing my approach.

Good luck, Tilly

Happier_Me

Hi Tilly

I've been reading your diary for a few months now and you are absolutely right! A very busy year at work plus two young children at home has resulted in me spending enough in the shops to feed a small army, but then resorting to takeaways because I haven't got the energy to cook. I don't want to think about the amount of food I've thrown away in 2013, I've probably got my very own landfill somewhere in the Midlands.

But I am determined not to fall into these bad habits again.

Need to look into batch cooking because I have some time at the weekends to do this, my daughter would love to help too!

Happier_Me

Still can't save my signature, not sure what I'm doing wrong:(

We have started discussing next years summer holiday. We are planning to go to France with another family during the six weeks holiday. We did this in July this year and it was a great experience, our first holiday outside of the UK since the children were born.

10 days in France including the ferry and our share of the accommodation cost £550 this year. I wanted to get this below £400 by saving my Tesco vouchers to cover the cost of a Eurotunnel crossing in 2014. There will be further to drive but our new car is quite economical so it will be worth it.

But our firends want to incorporate a 3 day break elsewhere in France at an extra cost. We are happy to do this and we are all keen to stick to a sensible budget - initial thoughts are £250 per family and we could hire a caravan for this for us all to share (cosy I know).

Has anyone done anything like this before on such a small budget in the summer holidays?