Serious_saver's mortgage free dream

serious_saver

Hi all!

My fiancee and I bought our house in February of this year. Now we've been in for a little while I've started to think about paying off our mortgage.

I am also ridiculously excited about it!

When we were saving up our deposit I liked to think of it as a challenge and would give myself a big pat on the back every time I hit a new milestone.

It's going to be strange watching numbers go down instead of up but I can't wait.

Our mortgage is quite reasonable to start with. We began with £83,265 and we currently owe £81,506.22

To kick start my mission, yesterday I called up our lender and arranged to over pay by £45 per month, bringing our current mortgage free date forward by 3 years and 6 months. I would have liked to increase it further but we're also saving for our wedding next year.

I would love to get tips and advice from those who are already on (or have completed) their mortgage free journey to help me on my way.

linz

Hi SS,

One thing ive recently started doing is overpaying little things like and payments from Topcashback (do you use TCB?) any leftover from the monthly food budget, loose change etc. Plus if I get a £x off a £xx spend supermarket coupon ill overpay the saving if you see what I mean. We budget £120 a month for food (2 adults and a dog) and overpay whatevers in the tin at the end of the month.

Others will be along with other good ideas but its worth thinking about how the little things all add up too

Good luck !

sleepygirl126

Hi and welcome!!:beer:

try onepoll and yougov for paid surveys, nectarads for extra points...ebay and carboots are good money makers too.

I'm a big fan of Tilly tidies.....saving spare pennies from your bank account and I have a little change pot too!!

serious_saver

I'm afraid I haven't had much to update for the last couple of weeks.

Unfortunately I am going to be unemployed immediately after Christmas.

On the other hand, I spent four years working freelance and I am used to being out of work at quieter times of the year and I know what to expect. It does mean that paying extra off the mortgage is going to have wait in the short term.

Thank goodness we bought uor house though! My OH can afford to pay our mortgage on his own but we couldn't have afforded the rent on our old place!

115K

serious_saver wrote: »

Unfortunately I am going to be unemployed immediately after Christmas.

I'm sorry to read that.:(

serious_saver

115K wrote: »

I'm sorry to read that.:(

Thank you. I'm trying to think of this as an opportunity. I was very unhappy there but I wouldn't have left of my own accord. At least I have the chance to look for a job that will make me happier and hopefully allow me more time to spend with my fianc!e.

serious_saver

It's not quite an over payment but I'm feeling very pleased with myself this week.

Our bathroom has needed a lot of work for some time now and it just seemed far to expensive. Unfortunately it wasn't something that could just be put off any longer and desperately needed doing as the previous owner was a complete DIY cowboy. Even so we wanted to save as much as possible but some of the quotes we were given were just farcical.

We've spent a few months shopping round, looking up every thing we needed and we finally have a bathroom! I won't go into all the details but I sat down last night and looked through some of the quotes and we have saved ourselves just shy of £1,200 compared to the first quote we received! Mostly by asking everyone we knew for recommendations of affordable plumbers!

serious_saver

Alas, I'm cursed! Three Christmases in a row, three boiler breakdowns. Whereas in previous years we would have called out the landlord, this year it's our boiler to fix.

It looks like the overpayments are going to take a bit of a knock. The replacement part is £163 (inc VAT) and labour will be £50.

An unexpected bill for £213 wasn't how I wanted to end 2013. Here's hoping 2014 will be kinder!

nattypants

That's a real blow about your boiler S_S, although in boiler world it could have been even more catastrophically expensive.

You have such a positive attitude regarding your new job prospects, this I'm sure will go a long way in securing a happier environment for the next stage in your career.

All the very best for 2014:)

glitterjunkie

Sorry to hear about the boiler I live in fear of our boiler going kaput, its my worst nightmare. Do you think one of those monthly plans would be worthwhile where you get your yearly service and any breakdows paid for? Ive been looking into them but cant decide if its worth it.

Sorry to hear about the job too but agree you have a fab attitude! Im sure something else will be just around the corner with that sort of outlook xxx

serious_saver

Our boiler has now been fixed and I celebrated with a nice hot bath in our (very nearly) finished bathroom.

Thank you all for you lovely comments.

glitterjunkie wrote: »

Sorry to hear about the boiler I live in fear of our boiler going kaput, its my worst nightmare. Do you think one of those monthly plans would be worthwhile where you get your yearly service and any breakdows paid for? Ive been looking into them but cant decide if its worth it.

We thought about going for one of these policies but we decided against it. Our plumber/gas engineer mentioned that we have a very reliable boiler. It's older but there is very little to go wrong apart from the piece that we have just replaced. I think it is something we might consider when we eventually upgrade the central heating but that's a couple of years away.