The Mortgage Free Roll Of Honour

RosieTiger

webdesigncomapny wrote: »

An unsecured personal loan paid off over 3 years has the end in sight at the time of taking it out but who knows what life may bring over a 25 year period!
Homeowners will be paying off their mortgage for about 1/3 of their life and over half their working lives.
People who borrower over longer periods of time such as 30 or 35 years may even find themselves putting off retirement in the final years of their mortgage just to get it paid off.

Good so don't buy a house then! Now leave this post for people who have done but want to pay off their mortgage.

misselvis

Love love love reading these inspirational tales especially from those in their 30s and 40s was starting to lose hope all some entries were for much smaller mortgages than mine 180k but hey debt is debt and can't wait for 2011 to come. have been starting my overpayments and even the bank called to ensure I wanted the overpayments to continue. I am working on cutting my cloth accordingly and it is not that much of a hardship especially when I read your entries to maintain my momentum. many thanks

Moniker

Well, we finally made it after 31 years and 4 months we owe the Building Society just £1! We first took out a repayment mortgage in August 1979 for £19500 (which seemed a fortune!) but in 1981 we moved house and a friend encouraged us to go for an endowment mortgage which in those days promised amazing returns. We moved again in 1988 and in 1992 increasing the mortgage each time and borrowing more to do home improvements. By the 1990s our mortgage was at a maximum of £92500 and we soon realised that the insurance policies weren’t going to cover the debt and so set about trying to pay off some of the mortgage early.

We started by gradually increasing the proportion of mortgage which was repayment and reducing the proportion which was interest only. Early in the Millennium I saw a TV programme which was called “Pay off your mortgage in two years” or something similar and I had my light bulb moment. I decided to make the whole mortgage a repayment one and then from 2002 I started making overpayments.

From 2001 -2008 we were also paying for our two daughters at university – the eldest did a four year course so although there was a three year age gap we did have year when they overlapped. This made savings and overpayments even more difficult, but we stuck at it. Eventually I was able to make the maximum overpayments allowed by our lender of £500 per month.

In the last two years the debt has reduced at an amazing rate, and with no children to support we were able to save more. I had hoped that by July 2010 when my husband was 60 we would be able to clear it all, but we had some unexpected expenses with the car and the roof on our conservatory which set us back about £4000! However, today my savings exactly matched the outstanding debt and we have been to pay off all but £1.

I wanted to clear the whole thing but my husband wanted to retain the £1 just in case we wanted to borrow again. I am determined never to have a mortgage ever again but you never know what might be round the corner! We have kept the endowments going (we tried to claim for miss-selling but were unsuccessful) so by the time my husband is 65 we will have a nest egg to help in our retirement – not as much as we were hoping for but as they say every little helps!

My pearl of wisdom: start overpaying as soon as you can - I wish I had started sooner – and don’t worry if it is only a small amount to start with. It soon mounts up and in the last few years it gathers momentum. I managed my account online and checked it every week – it was a real incentive to see the money going in and the balance reducing.

Good luck all you MFWs – and thanks for all the encouragement.

Moniker

Spiggle

Well done Moniker! :T:T:T

Fantastic achievement! Stories like yours are inspirational to those of us on the MFW journey. :beer::A:T

Enjoy being mortagage free.:dance::whistle:_party_

All the very best,
Spigs

Queen-Bee_2

Finally made it to the Roll of Honour! A few details in accordance with DD's reporting format:

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
I’ve always been keen to get rid of my mortgage and had been paying chunks off on an ah-hoc basis for several years. Only in January 2009 with the arrival of my mortgage statement however, did I start to twig how much interest I was going to have to pay over the term of my mortgage. This was the point at which my journey began in earnest!

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
£100k

c. Mortgage-Free Date
4th January 2011 (finally tied up some loose ends with the mortgage provider on 7th January 2011)

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
To start with, I thought I was restricted to paying off no more than 5% pa of the original loan value in accordance with the mortgage's T&C. However, I managed to get round this by shortening the mortgage term, which enabled me to increase my monthly payments. In March 2009, I reduced it from 19 years to 7½ years, upping the monthly payment from £650 to £1,100 and in July 2009 further reduced it to 20 months (to terminate at the same time as the expiry of the fixed term product). The July change upped my monthly payment to just under £4k pcm.

The second time I shortened my term, I was in two minds as to how many £4k payments I could commit to, but the building society said it’d re-extend the repayment timescale at any time without charge (nowadays I think it costs £20). Secure in the knowledge I wasn’t making an irrevocable decision, I decided to go for it…

… a couple of other ‘Pearls’
1. Calculating how much total interest I was gonna pay over the duration of the mortgage was a great incentive to reducing it. I worked out that over 20 years, my £100k loan would cost me over £50k in interest. Ouch!
2. Although my monthly repayments drew on some fairly substantial savings, in order to maintain them, I completely revamped my lifestyle, going from a high-income, high-spending professional to a [very] low-income student. I’ve described the journey, with all the ups, downs and changes involved in my diary.

e. And if you had a mortgage-free diary on MFW, a link to it.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1858305
QB

marc5180

Decided to become mortgage free before i bought our new house back in September last year, i owe 200k over 30 years which equals £1100 a month.. I also put down 20% deposit

I'm 31 and have worked out this can be done by the time i'm 40 :eek: which people say isn't possible which spurs me on even more.

At the minute i am overpaying by £500 a month and am currently on a 2year fixed deal.
My aim is to remortgage every 2 years until i get down to 60% equity which i recon should take 3/4 years and therefore get the best APR possible.
I haven't seen many (if any) deals under 60% LTV.

Each time my mortgage rates do down (hopefully) then the extra mothly savings will also go as overpayments.

It's going to be a challenge for sure but wish me luck and i'll report back in 10 years:D

greenface

MF way back in May 2007 aged 40 thanks alot to good advice from my F.I.L who said to me as a snotty nosed kid who was just engaged to his beautiful daughter "buy this one and in 10 years it would triple,buy the one your looking at and you will be lucky if its still standing" .house one First bought in 1984/5 aged 18 for the monster sum of 11,300 (borrowed 10K) sold for 35k in 1993/4 bought for 40Khouse two (21 k mortgage)sold for 90k(2002/3) Present house bought for 105khouse three (45k mortgage)Paid off in 5 years and improved all houses along the way as a family of builders.Now cleared house debt and dont need to work as much to make ends meet. Mrs face wants to look for a bungalow in the next ten years and should remain MF with savings and sale of this one (presently about £170k ish)



a. The date you decided to become a MFW

Pretty much from the off. But never knew it.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest

45k at its worst

c. Mortgage-Free Date

spring 2007 .


d. Your one pearl of wisdom.

If you THINK you can afford it now you wont be able to afford it in the future Dont go outside you very best comfort zone and ruin yourself doing it. Enjoy your life while your living and only impress yourself.
Listen to people who know what their on about .....

happilass

Hi greenface,
I think that the, "only impress yourself" advice is one of the most important things that can be stressed to people today. Too often its the impressing that does for people. Congratulations, delayed, on your achievements.
Happi

seven-day-weekend

I like your pearl of wisdom, greenface. I certainly agree that you don't go outside your comfort zone. We didn't and despite having only one asmall/average wage for much of the time, interrupted with a time on a student grant and NO wage, we still managed to pay for our terraced house in our forties. We still have this house, (in our 60s), although we don't live in it all the time - we have owned it for 35 years this year! It has been mortgage-free for fifteen years.

Well done to you and congratulations!

Spiggle

Congratulations Queen-Bee, :T

Fantastic achievement. I'm going to read through your thread and see what tips I can pick up.

All the best for enjoying your MF status,
Spigs