There but not there

buyhighselllow

Hi all

I've lurked around here for a while and decided I wanted to share my mortgage "storey".

I bought my house at the age of 26 after working and renting for a few yrs after uni. I was single at the time, house cost c£60K. For many years after I was not at all money savy. I changed my car too often, using loans to fund them etc.

After marriage and a few more years we decided we didn't really want to move, and elected to extend. I borrowed £50K and at that pont my mortgage went up to £90k. However, I decided NOt to increase the term. This effectively doubled our monthly payments, but it was reasonably within our comfort zone, and I had began to see the light in terms of being mortgage free.

I was also at this point regretting my career choice, and the thought process was to escape as early as possible and maybe do something else.

The best thing I did when I remortgaged was go with ING. I bagged a deal 0.5% above base, with flexible payments. However, this low interest rate has also deterred me from pushing harder to clear the morgage, as I have elected to save instead, with only occasional overpayments.

I know find myself with a mortgage of c£35 k, with 5 years left on the term. I have cash savings equivalent to the morgage in ISAS and additional savings in index trackers, which I started about 12 yrs ago, and still drip feed into.

At the end of each month, I probably have 'spare' cash equivalent to my mothly repayments at least.

With ING being taken by Barclays, it is likely my mortgage will be linked closely to my bank account, and the temptation to syphon money across every month into the mortgage may well increase.

So, where do I go from here?

Mentally, I feel like clearing the mortgage would be a boost, but this would deplete my rainy day money. I'm 50 in 5 yrs and want to be in position to either jack in my stressfull job or at least cut down to 3 days for a couple of yrs and then jack it in.

I feel, after a misguided few years, I have done OK to get where I am financially, I live within my means, have nice hollidays and drive a car I now only change every 9-10 yrs.