The Mortgage Free Roll Of Honour

Nikfs

this is really inspiring! My reminder to myself is that even a little change makes a bigh difference!

megrim

We did it - mortgage free by the age of 40. Having worked out how much interest we would be paying over the life of the mortgage we were careful to choose a repayment mortgage that you could chip away at and threw every spare penny at the mortgage to pay off the capital. I still drive an 11 year old car though.

black_taxi_2

nice 1--hope i join u someday

[Deleted User]

a. The date you decided to become a MFW

23 May 2002. But I joined MSE and the "Mortgage Free in Three" challenge in October 2007.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest

£107,650 (in May 2002 and January 2003).

c. Mortgage-Free Date

6 August 2010 (£1 remaining in account) - though we're going to remortgage very soon in order to make repairs and upgrades, so I hope to be filling out another one of these at some point in the not too dim and distant!

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.

Set a budget and stick to it!

e. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/566790

black_taxi_2

excellent---enjoy your new financial freedom

Frazzled_2

a. The date you decided to become a MFW

January 2010 - when I joined MoneySavingExpert and read everything available and saw it was possible.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest

£70,000

c. Mortgage-Free Date

31 July 2010 aged 48

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.

Do a budget.
Set yourself and your partner some weekly personal money (if you can) and a weekly ammount for groceries.
Pay all bills by direct debit.
Put the debit and credit cards away in a drawer at home to prevent temptation when out.
Withdraw personal money and grocery money from a cashpoint on a Friday night.
Do a shopping list and go grocery shopping with cash and either save or spend your personal money as you see fit (I save mine for handbags!!)
Live like Kings at the weekends, Lords on a Monday, Dukes on a Tuesday and commoners on a Wednesday and paupers on a Thursday.
Tell the family once you have been shopping - when it is gone it is gone until you next go shopping.
It is amazing how the savings can then build up to help overpay the mortgage.
Son now left University so it is time now to lay down some money for retirement

e. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it.

No - but wish everyone luck

poppyoscar_3

Well done Frazzled! Hope to be joining you soon!
POxx

poppyoscar_3

a. The date you decided to become a MFW January 2008
b. Mortgage Debt at its highest only £15000
c. Mortgage-Free Date 27/08/10
d. Your one perl of wisdom. Keep playing with mortgage calculators - they kept me motivated!
e. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it. PoppyOscar, Le Cochon and the MF adventure https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/722039

ANGEL_EYES_2

a)The date you decided to become a MFW

2008 while lurking on this site and reading all the amazing stories of other MFW's.

b) Mortgage Debt at its Highest.

£42000

c) Mortgage Free Date.

10th Sept 2010 (11 years early):j

d) Your One Pearl of Wisdom.
Put everything you can towards the mortgage.I was so shocked to see the amount of interest the banks were making from our mortgage, and vowed that we would try to pay off the mortgage as quickly as possible. DH took some convincing to begin with,but soon came onboard when he saw how quickly the debt was disappearing.

e) Mortgage Free Diary?
No,but without this site and all the inspirational stories on it this would not have been possible. We got a £2500 refund of council tax due to rebanding which we put towards the mortgage overpayment.
All the various freebies especially the cinema tickets have saved us loads of money.All the advice has been so helpful.:T

I would like to say a big thank you to Martin and everyone else on here.
Well Done to everyone who has become mortgage free and Goodluck to all those still on the mortgage free journey.

mudshark

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
I moved to an offset mortgage in 2001 with the intention of getting rid of my debt as quickly as possible
b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
150k when I bought my current house in May 2007
c. Mortgage-Free Date
2005 in my previous house, 2009 in my current one
d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
I bought my 1st house when I started work in 1996 (aged 25) and realised that what I did with my income was more important than how much I earned as I couldn't see how I could own the sort of house I wanted based on the kind of salary I anticipated I could earn; I developed a spreadsheet that helped me see all sorts of useful information such as the impact of overpayments and the equivalent interest I'd need from a savings account to match overpayments given my income tax level. Until I got married in 2006 I always rented out a room which covered most of my mortgage. Moving to an offset mortgage after 5 years of a discounted variable mortgage was a good thing for me as I'm too lazy to manage my money by remortgaging every few years and to move money around between accounts every month, so by doing nothing I was reducing my mortgage nicely. I managed to get a +0.49% tracker which I still have now so I can borrow whenever I want at a low rate instantly if I ever choose to. To be fair though, at times I ended up earning far more than I needed in order to make my normal mortgage repayments so becoming mortgage free at 37 in a house I'm should be happy to stay in for the rest of my life (worth about 10x my current salary) wasn't really down to anything particularly clever. I did decide to forget about a pension until I hadn't got any debt so now I am contributing quite heavily to a SIPP to build it up - I did invest into ISAs though as more flexible than a pension whilst young. One thing though, waiting until my late 30s to start a family helped a lot but that wasn't really planned.

Attempt at a pearl of wisdom - debt isn't necessarily bad but if it's relatively expensive pay it off as much as possible and compromise in the short-term on luxuries (I've never had a really nice car) so if you do get any spare cash think whether the benefit you'd get from spending it on something nice really outweighs the benefit of reducing your debt.