My Journey to be mortgage free in 10 years.

Geek4Life

Ive been lurking on the forums for a while and after reading lots of other diaries ive finally decided it would be useful to start my own.

Im 26, DH and I bought our house 3 years ago, borrowing around £135,000. Having only brought this total down by about £7,000 in those 3 years we recently decided to start overpaying. The plan is to overpay by £500 a month and also to pay off a lump sum when our fixed rate ends in 4 years time. If we can keep this up we could be mortgage free in 10 years.

However just after making a first small OP DH has been informed that he is being made redundant at the end of March. The race is now on for him to get a new job before then. The dream to be mortgage free remains and we will continue to OP as much as we can. Let the saving begin!

mazajo

Sounds great. I'm overpaying each installment, that I have. First I take small installments and increase them. Works fine for me, it is a kind of psychological tool

Geek4Life

I just made a £131 overpayment. This is how much our council tax is and its a council tax free month so its sort of spare money.

Geek4Life

Time to be brave and do my SOA

Mortgage remaining £129,142 - 3.29 % fixed until July 2018 - End date July 2041.

Savings
ISA £5,787
123 account £11,149
Savings acccount £4,900
Joint 123 acoount £16,385

Monthly Outgoings
Mortgage £595
Energy £67
SSPP Commitment shares £38
Sharesave £75
Home Ins £42
Virgin TV & Internet £66
Council Tax £131
Pension £82
TV License £12.12
Mobiles £42
Water Rates £7
Petrol £30
Food £250
Spending money Holidays/xmas etc.. £300


TOTAL £1737

Income
Wages - £2297
Interest - £40

June holiday spending money £40 / £250
2014 Conventions fund £10 / £200
2014 Car money £20 / £200

Danny5

HI Geek4LIfe, I've just started my diary too, I'm finding it quite nice to be able to write down thoughts and plans so far and I'm hoping its going to keep me motivated!


Good luck and hope your OH gets his job sorted quickly


Dan

Geek4Life

Thanks Dan, the job situation is our main worry at the moment. He leaves at the end of March and gets paid till the end of April so things could be worse.

I think my new aim for now will be to get the food bill down as until i worked it out for the SOA i didnt realise we spend that much. Theres only 2 of us and i really want to get it under £200.

Danny5

The food shop sounds like a good place to start, I don't have very high standards when it comes to food so i'll eat any old smart price rubbish - but my other half has just moved in and she's a lot more picky so I can see the food shop going up quite a bit!


Hopefully your OH will find something quickly, if the news is to believed there's jobs popping up everywhere!

Geek4Life

Well DH got paid today meaning we could put another £100 in the overpayment pot (dont want to take too much off him this month incase he does end up out of work.) This brings our total overpayments for February to £681 to be paid in on Monday.

On an slightly possitive note DH has his first interview and assessment next week for a new job so finges crossed.

Also recieved a cheque from my Mum for £2700 which i'll be putting into my savings for now untill things are a bit more settled.
Off to work now : (

cookson

Thanks for writing the diary and I hope that he does get the job sorted.

Well done for your dedication on trying to pay it off. It will all be worth it in the long run

Geek4Life

Changed my mind and decided to use £700 of the money from my Mum to add to my overpayment. Bringing my February total to £1381. :T

Geek4Life

First food shop of the month and it came in at £20, much less than the usual £50-£60! Gonna use some stuff from the freezer etc,. and hopefully keep the total under £30 for the week.