The Mortgage Free Roll Of Honour

Emmacw

Just posted a thread and someone kindly pointed me towards the roll of honour thread so have repeated myself - cos it feels sooo good!

Today I paid the final payment on our mortgage after slowly reducing it during the past 7 years.

Haven't even told my husband! We were aiming for Aug 09, then decided to use some of our savings given the low interest rates and pay it off in April. Its hubby's 44th birthday next week so thought I would move the savings now and pay the mortgage off and put the receipt/final letter in his birthday card as a surprise.

The date you decided to become a MFW
lightbulb moment was sometime in 2003

Mortgage Debt at its highest
around £70,000

Mortgage-Free Date
19.02.2009

Your one pearl of wisdom.
Not one pearl but quite a few grains of sand. Over the past 7 years we have:
reduced the mortgage term
kept our payments at the same level when interest rates dropped
paid any bonuses into the mortgage pot
down sized from 3/4 bed detached to 3/4 bed semi.
any monies previously paidout on bills that are no longer required went into the mortgage pot - this included childcare costs (DD now 12) & interest free credit on furniture paid off
£4pm saved on switching house insurance
used coupons to reduce shopping bill with savings put into mortgage pot

The list goes on but you get the picture!

This last year we have paid off £14k by stretching ourselves as the total had become reachable. Not bad when you consider thats 44% of our take home pay annually!

A big thank you you to everyone on this board and I wish everyone the best of luck for the future.

Emma

Mortgage free and proud of it!:j :j

FZwanab

Well done Emma, thats a lovely surprise for your husband to get for his birthday. Are you planning anything to treat yourselves now?

Emmacw

Hi thanks for your thoughts

Treat for a couple of months maybe then think of something big to save towards - don't want to start frittering the money away now after working so hard to get to this point!

I will enjoy it though!

Emma

Martinslovechild

Emmacw wrote: »

Haven't even told my husband! We were aiming for Aug 09, then decided to use some of our savings given the low interest rates and pay it off in April. Its hubby's 44th birthday next week so thought I would move the savings now and pay the mortgage off and put the receipt/final letter in his birthday card as a surprise.

Emma, that really is a great story - Very Well Done!!

Your hubby's going to be a HAPPY hubby!! Now - make sure that you have a bottle of chilled champagne in the house when you tell him - clearing the mortgage is something which has to be celebrated with a little bit of style

Emmacw wrote: »

Mortgage free and proud of it!:j :j

Quite right too!!

NPowerUser

I wanted to be mortgage free at 43 as it had a nice ring to it and I managed to do it with 4 months to spare before my 44th birthday.

It was never a massive mortgage, £36,500 was the most ever owed but by making regular overpayments, sometimes 2-3 times a month, I knocked 12 years off the 25 year deal with HSBC.

I have been pretty frugal, eat out about 3 times a year, never buy takeaways, stick to my weekly shopping list etc, etc and that has helped along the way.

Its been almost 2 and a half years since we cleared the mortgage and I must thank HSBC for allowing me to make countless mortgage overpayments and no charge for early redemption and prompt sending of the deeds.

For all those aiming to be mortgage free, keep going, forget ISA savings, clear your credit cards every month, get the mortgage paid off by making those overpayments and before you know it, your home will be yours and you can feel very proud of yourself.

Aaagh

NPowerUser wrote: »

mortgage free at 43

Well done.

I like your quote, might just steal that one for myself if you don't mind. I would have liked to be MF by 40 but didn't want to give up everything - still want to have at least one frugal holiday a year and like to go to places with DS and my niece. 43 should be manageable thought (I'm 38 now and the mortgage has just gone under £30,000).

StuartGMC

NPowerUser wrote: »

I wanted to be mortgage free at 43 as it had a nice ring to it and I managed to do it with 4 months to spare before my 44th birthday.

Well done. For us then it'll have to be "it's all yours at 44" if we hit the target of 100%offset in June and pay off the £19250 we presently owe in October. Hopefully then I can post the link back here to my diary thread!

For all those aiming to be mortgage free, keep going, forget ISA savings, clear your credit cards every month, get the mortgage paid off by making those overpayments and before you know it, your home will be yours and you can feel very proud of yourself.

We've forgone Cash ISAs but started S&S ISAs in 2006 to get in for the long term, plus the OP from the start of the mortgage, usual savings, and holidays (usually Med/North Africa but Mexico this year) which daughter has really benefited from in terms of awareness of different cultures etc. You can't get those years back so I don't begrudge clearing the mortgage 10years early rather than some 13 or so we could have done. Balance portfolio in my mind, but once MF the cash savings will rocket up which I think is what you implied above?

Hope you are enjoying being a little less frugal these days and enjoying the peace of mind of being MF?

StanfordYell

Just paid of the last chunk of the mortgage! Mortgage free exactly half way through the term (12y 6m) and only 41 :-D

Simon

littlemissbossy

We paid our mortgage off in Nov 08. I am 37, hubby 42. we borrowed £75k in 1998 and have paid it off 15 years early.

We started overpaying by £100 per month in 2005 and increased it gradually to £500 in April 2008 (that was the maximum as in a fixed deal). Anything else we could manage just went in a savings account.

Pearls of Wisdom
I think you have to both be fully focused, if one of you is more into a new car/holiday it would be really difficult and cause dissagreements.

We don't have any kids - I don't think we could have done it if we had.

We have both been lucky and kept in jobs, nothing high flying, office work for me and technical manager for hubby.

Stick with it, its a great feeling especially the way things are at the moment, I have just been put on a four day week, its a worry but would be worse with a mortgage.

isplumm

Please report

a. The date you decided to become a MFW

The day we bought the house - back in March 1997.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest

Originally £61,000, borrowed another £30,000 in 2003 for extension - so about £91,000.

c. Mortgage-Free Date

November 2008

d. Your one perl of wisdom.

Overpay - even £10 a month will reduce your mortgage term .... & the amount you eventually end up paying - but make sure your mortgage company allows this - or that they take the amount straight away off your mortgage balance & don't leave it sitting in an account earning no interest.

Feels great, not having a mortgage!!!

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

fraid not ....


Mark