I've Done It!! I'm Finally Mortgage-free

lewt

out of interest what was your salarys for this period mate?

Martinslovechild

lewt wrote: »

out of interest what was your salarys for this period mate?

It's fair to say that we both earn more than the UK average, but we certainly don't earn massive amounts of money.

However, we don't have kids which has helped to minimise our outgoings (quite substantially if the conversations I've had with some of my friends are anything to go by, whose newly found status as parents has drastically reduced their disposable incomes!).

In addition, my new found status as a 'domestic god' in the kitchen has helped keep costs down. My wife loves me cooking several times a week, I've quite enjoyed doing it and best of all, I'm now pretty good at it to the point where I've cooked an entire dinner party - something that would have frightened the life out of me a couple of years ago! I'm sometimes even critical of others' cooking when we eat out, comparing it to my own.

My point is that our initial budget was tight, but we made sure that we included things such as eating out a couple of times a month, an annual holiday (we've stayed with friends in the States the past couple of years and used Air Miles to get there) and the odd weekend away somewhere. Nothing too extravagant, but enough to ensure that you stick to the budget and remain focused on clearing the mortgage, and not too much that you would always overshoot your monthly budget.

I designed a spreadsheet as one of the first things I did - initially because in 2001, there was a potential threat of redundancy in the company that I work for and I therefore wanted to keep a very close eye on where we would be financially if I were to be made redundant (it didn't happen). However, the spreadsheet had positive side-effects; I set up a column to show how much interest I would pay on the normal mortgage term and beside it, a second column showing the amount actually paid. When the stoozing really kicked in (and hence the overpayments), the reductions in interest started to add up BIG TIME!! This was one of those jaw dropping, life-affirming moments that cried out "It CAN be done - we CAN clear this mortgage before I'm 40".

Anyway, enough of my yacking...

seven-day-weekend

Congratulations!

GreenNinja

martinslovechild,

I wanted to ask you about stoozing if I may. Have checked the board to see exactly how and what you do but am unable to find anything.
Saw an ad on TV last night for a capital one card, 0% on balance transfers and non balance transfers until May 2008.
I wondered whether I could get one and do some stoozing but am not 100% sure what it is or what you do.

Any advice would be brilliant, many thanks.

:beer:

nellis10

Check out Stoozing.com for all stoozing advice!

Stooz is fabulous!!:T

GreenNinja

Hi nellis,

Thanks for that, just having a look now!

llydaw

Congratulations Martins love child. I have to admit I've been a lurker on this forum for a while and am encouraged by everyones efforts.

We regularly overpay approx £80pcm however as we have substantial building work going on in our house we won't be in a position to overpay any more until Feb 08. At that point I hope to overpay £850pcm, however we have to re-morgage in October (current deal runs out).

I was interested in the fact that you had an off set mortgage, as a few of you on here do, and that you stoozed into that account. I currently stooze into other savings accounts and looked at the Halifax offset account to re-mortgage to, but it didn't appear any better than continuing with overpayments on my mortgage as I do now. In other words it worked out I would be mortgage free in around 7-8 years. How does the stoozing work with the offset as it didn't seem to make much difference in the trial that I did on Intelligent Finance off set example. I would probably stooze max 10k per annum (being conservative as I'm new).

Your advice would be greatly appreciated and congratulations again. Keep up the good work everyone else you are inspiring.

tx

[Deleted User]

Congratulations, Ill hopefully (eventually) join you

Debt is for suckers.

pantsmachine

Well done,

Huge amount of interst saved. Now put a price on the feeling when you wake up in the morning and it hits you all over again that you are mortgage free?:beer:

Martinslovechild

llydaw wrote: »

We regularly overpay approx £80pcm however as we have substantial building work going on in our house we won't be in a position to overpay any more until Feb 08. At that point I hope to overpay £850pcm, however we have to re-morgage in October (current deal runs out).

I was interested in the fact that you had an off set mortgage, as a few of you on here do, and that you stoozed into that account. I currently stooze into other savings accounts and looked at the Halifax offset account to re-mortgage to, but it didn't appear any better than continuing with overpayments on my mortgage as I do now. In other words it worked out I would be mortgage free in around 7-8 years. How does the stoozing work with the offset as it didn't seem to make much difference in the trial that I did on Intelligent Finance off set example. I would probably stooze max 10k per annum (being conservative as I'm new).

I worked on clearing my mortgage through a combination of overpayments & stoozing. When my initial mortgage discount period in October 2003, restrictions on the maximum amount I could overpay were removed and I was free to overpay as much or as little as I wanted. At this point, I paid £51,500 into the account, all of which was funded by 0% credit cards. As my wife & I had set ourselves a monthly budget of what we were prepared to pay towards the mortgage, essentially the minimum payments on our credit cards were met from this monthly budget and the remainder went straight into the overpayment account.

If you're stoozing only £10,000, then although it will certainly have some impact on the amount of mortgage interest charged (£600 p.a. on a mortgage charging 6%), you may need to consider 'upping your game' in order to achieve maximum impact. Personally, I would not consider an offset or flexible mortgage unless I had at least 10-20% in savings plus a real focus & determination in paying it off.

I was lucky in benefitting from making the decision to clear my mortgage during a time of low interest rates and (very) flexible lending criteria from the banks. For instance, at the point where I already had £60,000 worth of credit cards maxed out with 0% cash stoozed into my mortgage, I applied for (and was successful in getting) a Capital One card, offering - you guessed it - 0% for 18 months. More surprisingly, they offered me a credit limit of more than £20,000!! I maxed out this card and transferred the entire amount into my mortgage. The initial monthly minimum payments alone were over £500!!

I would therefore like to say at this point that 'Stoozing is not for the fainthearted!'. If you believe for a moment that you wouldn't be able to juggle lots of credit cards, rotate credit, move money around and ensure that minimum monthly payments are made on-time every time, then it's not for you. If however, you're savvy with money, have a good credit rating, haven't made mistakes with credit in the past and most of all - have a deep, strong desire to clear your mortgage, then it is possible to use this technique.

The savings can be amazing. The fact that I can now look at my house and know that every single brick belongs to me is extremely satisfying.

Good Luck.