The Mortgage Free Roll Of Honour

hippychicknos1

Thank you to all the inspirational stories that everyone has shared.....I thought that with an £85K mortgage still outstanding and both myself and my hubby being self-employed with our own businesses that I would just leave the mortgage thing alone, but after reading all the useful tips, I'm going to give it a go and try to reduce it as much as poss. We have 2 loans finishing soon (Jan and March) and will just let this go straight towards our mortgage (we already have an offset. I'll keep reading this thread for more help when we are lagging a bit.

ailuro2

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

Welcome to the Mortgage-Free Roll of Honour.

This is for Mortgage-Free Wannabees who are no longer Wannabees.

Please report

a. The date you decided to become a MFW around 2004, persuaded hubby to overpay a bit every month.
b. Mortgage Debt at its highest £58000
c. Mortgage-Free Date December 2009 but notionally mortgage free a bit before that. Actually paid it all off in November 09
d. Your one pearl of wisdom. Do it gradually, start off overpaying a little every month. Every time you switch fuels or get a better deal on something and save a tenner or even £5 a month, add that to the overpayment, it is money you're not used to having so can go straight to the mortgage. don't overpay and not live, you need to find a balance too.
e. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it. None, used the original mortgage free in three thread. Paid off the mortgage 6 months before the challenge ended.:D

And huge congratulations

(I thought that we MFW's deserved a roll of honour too )

PS Please no one else post - let's keep this a pure record of successes :)

Finally, can I add that Dithering Dad was a huge inspiration in getting the rest of us motivated over on the first MFi3 thread, it's a shame it all got so political and he has more usernames than we've had mortgage overpayments.:p

d-seven

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

Welcome to the Mortgage-Free Roll of Honour.

This is for Mortgage-Free Wannabees who are no longer Wannabees.

Please report

a. The date you decided to become a MFW I always wanted to pay it off earlier since I took it out, but watching the 'Pay off your mortgage in 2 years' series on telly made me really crank up the saving.
b. Mortgage Debt at its highest Probably about £45,000
c. Mortgage-Free Date Today! At approx 11.00 am
d. Your one perl of wisdom. Not sure really.. Keep focussed on your goal. I set up a spreadsheet and input every payment and overpayment. The spreadsheet subtracted this from the total left given in the previous statement. I also made it add up the payments and overpayments so I could see how much I was paying in and how much is left. It's great so see the amount you have left to pay going down each month :T

e. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it. Didn't keep a diary!

And huge congratulations Thanks

(I thought that we MFW's deserved a roll of honour too )

PS Please no one else post - let's keep this a pure record of successes


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It still hasn't really sunk in, but I now have NO debts what so ever! It wasn't really the earth shattering moment I thought it would be. I walked into the building society where I have the mortgage, and also my savings account. The money from the savings acct was transferred to the mortgage and that was it! I walked back outside after about 45 minutes with a big smile on my face.

I always remortgaged regularly, making bigger payments each time, but it wasn't until I say the Rene Carayol program about paying your mortgage in 2 years that I decided to do it properly. I did loads of overtime at work over the last 3 years, put money into savings and an isa and for the last 13 months, overpaid the mortgage by £500.00 a month.
I lost 3 grand on the isa during the credit crunch, but left it going and regained it back. But when I cancelled the isa, it was about £400 more than I had put into it over 6 years!

Good luck everyone who is an MFW. Just keep going and don't let it bog you down too much. You will get there!!

gizmocoe

Hey peeps!!

Great idea, it's had not to appear to be gloating when other family / friends are struggling with mortgages. I WANT TO SHOUT IT OUT - NO MORE MORTGAGE!!

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
When we swapped from endowments to repayment!! about 1998ish...

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
£135,000 while living in new house for 5 months, waiting for old house to sell - EEEK! Actual average amount of mortgage £40,000.

c. Mortgage-Free Date
1st Dec 2009 :j

d. Your one perl of wisdom.
1) Do what's right for you. We both wanted to be 'safe and secure' in our own castle! Our kids moan about the amount of 'wombling' we do, as well as charity shops / freecycle but as my hubby suffers from depression on and off it is more than worth it for his peace of mind..
2) Keep coming back to this forum, it's very inspirational and you'll be around like minded people; such helpful ideas too!

e. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it. No.

Thanks guys, couldn't have done it without this site!
Gizmo.

markl66

I started by making sure I had a totally flexible mortgage that allowed large ad-hoc repayments with no penalties. I went with the Nationwide. I took advantage of a time in my life when I was earning a lot of money. The plan was to live as cheap as possible and put all savings into the mortgage. My best year, I paid 20K off, but mostly it was done in small amounts. We saved some money by moving to a cheaper area. The last bit was achieved when I bought a house with my new partner who had equal equity. I expect we will have a mortgage again when we move, but we still have the same goal. Paying money into your mortgage is a great way to save money!

TallGirl

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
2004

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
1994 bought house mortgage £80,500 1999 still £80,500 thanks to interest only mortgage and endownment

c. Mortgage-Free Date
26th January 2010 - 10 years early

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
Overpay when you can you never know when things are going to change. Having an offset mortgage worked really well for us.


e. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it. .
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=7640155#post7640155

Here is a summary on how did we did it:

I Bought our house in 1994 I was at Uni husband has had his own small family business since 1987 when his family returned from South Africa.

I was at University when we bought the house so only had my student grant from Denmark and DH was of course self employed. DH had bought a family house when they returned in 1991 but we needed a place of our own desperately. We bought a small new build for £86,500 and thanks to FIL we got an £80,500 mortgage as he gave us the deposit.

We got talked into taking out an endowment mortgage and to the honest I did not have a clue about finances then. We did not have a penny to our names and bought most of the furniture on credit. So that was us 21 & 28 years old with a £80k mortgage due to be paid off in 2019 - really scary then.

Anyway to cut a long story short we 1999 re-mortgaged to an Offset Mortgage with the Woolwich. We cashed in the endowment and paid off some credit cards. We still owed £80,500 but decided to overpay then by £250.

So fast forward to the start of the MFi3 Challenge in April 2007 I decided it was time to start really getting rid of the mortgage we owed £45,500 then. I did not even know I could make payments online by this time.

The offset mortgage has always worked really well for us as so I have not remortgage since 1999. It was a tracker at .85% above the base rates. As well as overpaying we have used the borrow back facility.

Here are some of the things we have paid out for over the years:
2004 Wedding and Honeymoon £6 +
2005 Extension to house increase from 2 to 3 1/2 bed house £30k
2006 New car for DH £5k
2008 New bathrooms cost £18k


Despite this we are now Mortgage Free 10 years early and this is how we did it..

• Increased my monthly payments to £1000 (an extra £500 a month)
• Paid off the monthly interest charged each month so I have a nice round figure
• Used cashback sites such as Quidco,
• Pigsback & Lightspeed panel for vouchers for treats
• Sell things on Ebay we no longer need & buy nearly new & new clothes
• All extra money earned from above to go into pot dedicated to holidays
• Cook from scratch use slowcooker to make big bathces to freeze
• Mystery Shopping get paid to go out for dinner
• Bulk shopping at Macro often going half’s with friend
• Be a total points tart with Tesco, Sainsburry and Boots
• Getting a better paid job with company car in 2005 did help a lot so I could pay more off..

On top if this DH inherited £5000 from an Uncle, my mum gave us £6000 and I have just brought over the inheritance my Gran left me. That helped clear the last £1000. Obviously low interest rates helped a lot.


So that is how we paid off £80,500 in just over 15 years incl the £45,500 in the last 3.

Just go for it feels great.

missk9

Thank you everyone for your wonderful and inspirational stories!
I dream of following in your footsteps but its only a dream for me not for the husband. All of the above can only work if you are both up for it!

misselvis

am in total awe reading the roll of honour. at the moment am a mere DFW but the goal is to be MF. you are all proof that with a hard work and commitment it can be achieved many thanks

george_jetson

d-seven wrote: »

It still hasn't really sunk in, but I now have NO debts what so ever! It wasn't really the earth shattering moment I thought it would be.

I'd second that - in fact I've been mf for just over a year, and still can't quite believe it…!

FreedomGirl

Hi everyone,

It's been a long old slog getting here, but it's time to sign off from the MFiT challenge. I'm a bit lost for words here, but just wanted to say to anyone considering going for MF (mortgage freedom) to just give it a go, and don't feel bad if it doesn't work out at first. When it comes to financial awareness and money management, practice makes perfect.


Freedom Girl

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
2001. When the first month's statement arrived and I thought, "We're paying THAT much interest??"

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
2001. £150,000

c. Mortgage-Free Date
16th February 2010 - 16 years early

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
It is not a sprint, but a long, slow walk, and life will get in the way. Don't let that get you down and hang on to the MF goal.


Financial awareness of what and how you spend is definitely the first step towards paying down any debt. Keeping a spending diary does help, but it can take years to make changes to your spending habits. It can work though - I never thought I would see the day, but my OH is now the thrifty one.

e. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it. No diary