Our Mortgage Free Journey

MissWillow

Hello everyone, i'm a long term lurker of this forum and all your diaries have inspired me to create my own. My OH and I took out a mortgage 2 years ago (Oct' 2011) for £155k. We have been overpaying every spare penny and today Oct' 2013 have a mortgage of £119k. We can overpay 10% per year for the term of our mortgage (5 years fixed) without a penalty.

We both have decent salaries and try to overpay about £1k on average a month between us. OH also has a You Tube channel that earns about £50/month and we are both regular eBay and amazon users for selling stuff we no longer need/use.

My aim is to have the mortgage paid off in 6 years (end 2019), my OH doesn't think this is possible as we will have 2 relatively big expenditures during this time. One being a wedding and the other upgrading the car. Neither of these will be extravagant but our overpayments will take a hit.

We have just changed energey suppliers and are going with a 2 year fixed term with EDP which 'should' lower our energy bills by about £5/month. We have also adjusted our hot water and central heating controls to lessen the time they are on for and in
turn the gas bill.

My OH gets a lift to work most days with a neighbour who has a company car and a fuel card while I lift share with 2 others so we are pretty economical in terms of fuel.

We spend about £200 in a grocery shop and an additional £35/month in takeaways.We are trying to reduce this by buying own branded goods and reducing our takeaways to twice a month which should take it to £24/month.

If anyone as any other ideas about ways to save money/earn more please feel free to share.

We had a relative live with us for a year on reduced rent and we couldn't go back to sharing our home regardless of the extra income!

I hope that this diary will help to keep me motivated along the way.

Thanks:)

sweetdaisy

Just wanted to wish you well on your MFW journey . It sounds like you have a good plan.

yukkibear

Good luck on your journey

SpottyKnickers

Good Luck

RunningGirl

Good luck on your journey. You're doing fantastic already!

slowlyfading

Good luck on your journey

emmita

Good luck MissWillow on your journey. You're doing really well. You could try batch cooking. Make your own pack lunches etc. have a go at some challenges on here. Keeping a diary is a good start and it'll keep you do focused. I'm a mfw too having just moved to my dream house 3 months ago. Keep up the good work

JimLad

Morning everyone! OH of MissWillow here!

The reduction in time of the hot water being on seems to have been a success! We both had a hot shower with no issues. Im pretty sure we had left over hot water in the tank too. If this continues for a few days im going to reduce it even more!

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

Hi and welcome. Very interested in following your thread *subscribed* already I got married earlier this year and if your up for making things yourself you can have the personal touch and save a fortune. Cannot wait to have my very own diary on here as I've been lurking for a while and we are waiting to exchange on our very first home. I must say £1k overpayment a month is a fab way to start.

tootoo

best of luck on your journey

MissWillow

Thanks to everyone for the comments. It really helps to stay on track and motivated.