Mortgage Free For A Happier Me

Happier_Me · 20 December 2017 at 11:04PM

I have just spent some time reading through my diary and I'm ashamed to say that this post doubles the number of posts I have made in this thread during 2017. But reading through some of my ramblings has been interesting, recapping on some of the thought processes we had to reach our decisions over the last few years.

So what have we been up to in the latter half of 2017?

The Good:

Mortgage balance now stands at £40,707 with our December payment of £1,700 taking us close to the £39k mark
Total savings are in the region of £63,100
Our mortgage free date is November 2019
We are all healthy and well. Still enjoying our holidays and odd weekends away as a family.
I've developed a slight obsession with the theatre, which is good because the theatre is, well ... good!
We have avoided replacing the car or the house (or the kids!) This usually gets expensive
We are both still employed
We are around £3k away from being completely mortgage and debt neutral.
We have enough equity in our property to downsize to a suitable home mortgage free and release around £150k
We have taken steps to sort DH's pension shortfall
We are still committed to FIRE

The Bad:

We still battle with finding the right balance between overspending and overpaying . We have a decent joint income made up of two salaries and solar money, with one of our salaries dedicated to paying off the mortgage and debt. We have had a spending splurge recently so we'll be tightening our belts yet again after Christmas.
We have credit card debt of £27k, all on 0% for two years.
We still have work to do in the house, so we'll be sacrificing some holiday spending to help pay for some of the work
The job I moved to last year is proving to be impossible and it's only a matter of time before this starts to impact my health long term.

Job wise, the people I work with are nice but the environment is unhealthy with people either leaving or falling over. It has occured to me that it's the type of job I go for that really is the problem and although I have moved jobs several times in the last seven years, mainly because I've been unhappy or the job hasn't been secure, utlimately I am trying to balance too many things for the jobs I do to ever be viable for me long term. I put alot of pressure on myself to contribute the same (or more) than my husband financially but I also have to secure good holidays, pension and the flexibility to create the pretence to my children that mum only works three days a week! This is because we made a commitment to restrict use of paid for childcare when we initially had children. 12 years on I'm burnt out trying to be superwoman. Husband on the other hand still works for the same company since he was a teenager, loves it, he hasn't got a care in the world, nor any child related responsibilities impacting his job! So he doesn't really get any of this! I have said it throughout this diary that something has to give and at the moment it's my health and happiness.

The plan was to hold out until my youngest starts secondary school in 2019 when the mortgage is gone and I have more flexibility. There may well be a redundancy at some point and I have good weeks and bad weeks (just to clarify, this week is a bad week:D). And this is still the plan but I am taking it one week/month at a time. I need an exit plan so that's my focus for 2018.

Another biggish change for us is a refocus on pensions. We have our eye on retirement at 55 and we have a 'number' in our minds for a retirement income. I have reworked the pension targets to make things fairer (I had kindly given myself the responsibility of generating the bulk of our retirement income, for some reason) DH is now paying more into his pension, it's had an impact on our mortgage free date but it's worth it. There are still some gaps in our retirement plans but at least we actually have a plan as opposed to a bunch of ideas that don't make a great deal of sense.

Anyway enough of my rambling for a bit. I'm not going to say I will post more often because I probably won't. Happy Christmas to anyone who reads this far!

Happier_Me · 19 November 2018 at 4:15PM

Thought it was time I updated this thread...

We are actually mortgage free!

We made the decision to use some savings to pay off the mortgage a few weeks ago. This was really driven by the fact I just didn't know where to keep all our savings after a fixed rate bond matured. We still have some 0% debt that we need to clear next year but we now have a more sensible amount in savings (around £29k). Although this is only earning 1.5% I'm classing this as our emergency/replacement car fund. I thought about opening an ISA but the volatility in the stock market is making me feel very nervous at the moment, so we've taken the sensible and safe option.

I honest didn't think I would feel different, after all we're not entirely debt free, but I do. I've found myself wondering around the house, thinking 'it's ours' and my husband has actually started painting.. which is a miracle. This should be our last mortgage, our next move will be a financial downsize but this is unlikely to happen in the next 10 years because of school commitments.

Next steps are to clear the remaining credit card debt whilst doing some home improvements. Oh and plan for Christmas.

I still lurk regulalry and I've found this site absolutely invaluable over the years, it's a credit to those people that contribute.