The Mortgage Free Roll Of Honour

ladybird1106

A) we talked about becoming mortgage free way back in 2010,but had no real spare cash to start this off. I used to Tilly tidy once a month rounding down to the nearest £. It wasn’t much but it was a start. Once we had more money from being more frugal and pay rises we gradually increased this over the years.
mortgage debt at its highest was about £95,000
C) mortgage free date late October 2024. This was sooner than we expected. Our original mortgage free date was 2034 ( even with overpayments), but sadly my dad passed away and we used my inheritance to pay it off. Dad would of been pleased.
D) One pearl of wisdom - no matter how big or small your overpayment it all adds up towards mortgage freedom .
E) loved the overpayment calculator, it allowed us to see how much we were saving in interest by having those extra payments. Inspiration from reading other people’s diaries was a huge help. 

F) yes I did,link in signature 
love 🐞

Sugarplump

a. Years ago, been making tiny overpayments whenever I could, got really serious about 3yrs ago.
b. Mortgage Debt at its highest was £80,500
c. YESTERDAY!!!!
d. One pearl of wisdom - Its a marathon not a sprint.
e. Loved reading everyone's diaries.
f. I had my own diary but was rubbish at updating it.

Feel like there should be a huge fanfare and fireworks, might have to get a cake on the way home just because.

clarew

Wow-I still can’t believe I get to post on this thread finally!

A: I decided to become Mortgage free back in 2003 when we increased our mortgage when we moved from flat to a house, and extended term again back to 25 years to afford it.  I also watched mortgage free in 2 years tv programme which inspired me, I couldn’t do that but I could chip off little bits here and there (and I mean pennies and pounds not vast amounts initially ) and see the impact.

B: highest mortgage was £185,000 with 4 children to bring up  for alongside this.

C: March 4th 2025. Final payments all cleared! 

D  one pearl of wisdom-every extra penny paid off saves so much compound interest over 25 years.
I did a little overpayment initially every month once paid, sometimes £50, and increased it as I could afford it. We did fixed or tracked mortgages as we are low risk people  If interest went down I kept paying the original amount so reduction meant we were overpaying more.  And threw  odd amounts at it here and there, even just £3 etc…I would ‘Tilly transfer’ on 31st December to always start the new year with a nice round number.  Eventually in the latter stages we were paying £700 overpayment a month as the mortgage amount and rates lessened and we stuck to original payment amount we had always paid. 

E:  I used the overpayment calculator to inspire me when remortgaging and always when remortgaging tryed to reduce a few months off the balance.  

I used a mortgage free calculator someone on here shared decades ago to see my balance reducing to motivate me, and in the last couple of years, had a little house drawn with bricks for each month left, coloured it in when that month was paid, and gradually saw my house completed!   Any motivational tools help as it’s a marathon not a sprint!

F: no mortgage free diary but used to dip in and out of any others for inspiration from time to time.  

Good luck to you all it’s a great feeling this morning to see a zero balance, after just under 25 years since we got our first mortgage (have upped it since then with 2 property moves and had extended to 28years mortgage but with overpayments knocked it down and finished aged 48.  Now to direct that mortgage money elsewhere…house diy, holidays and to financial security 

MaidenDevon

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
About 3 years ago.  Went through a horrific divorce which went on for several years and decided I wanted the roof over mine and daughter's head to be something that no one could ever take from us.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
£160,000 - 2 house purchases and buying out 2 exes from failed relationships - will never, ever, ever buy with a partner again.  Blissfully happy in a 5 year relationship now where we have our own homes!

c. Mortgage-Free Date
Yesterday! In fact they owe me £16.00 as I paid it 2 days before the date on the redemption statement.  Aim was to be MF by 50.  I've slid over the deadline 5 months early!

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
Sorry more than 1...

Don't get used to spending what you earn.  Allocate some to yourself (you've earned it after all), but also over pay whenever you can. I've now got a £900 a month pay rise (old mortgage payment)

Become obsessive about checking your mortgage balance, be canny about moving to better rates as soon as you can when any fixed term ends. 

Be mindful that when the finish line is in sight you might not have many options regarding products - Nationwide said I'd have to go onto their SVR when I was within 18 months of finishing which prompted me to just pay off the last £12K with savings that I had (as I final hurrah I timed it to be shifted from my Premium Bonds after Monday's draw and won £150!).  My rainy day fund has been severely depleted temporarily, but will be back up again when the £900 mortgage money starts getting added to it from next month.

Life gets in the way. Sometimes unexpected events happen that will set you back. You may be put back a few months by a particularly horrific MOT bill, house repairs etc. but you'll get there eventually.  Even though I had sinking funds allocated to regular spends I was still blindsided a couple of times (like paying £600 a month solicitors fees for a divorce which I did not have a pot for!).  Keep on going.

e. The MSE Mortgage guides and others that helped you
Overpayment calculator - I used it a lot!

f. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it.
I didn't have one (I half heartedly joined the Debt Free in 3 forum but didn't contribute to my shame!), but a huge thanks to those that do make the time and effort to record their diaries, they really were an inspiration.

xepija8686

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
During COVID where I spent time watching Dave Ramsey YouTube videos.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
£192,500 mortgage + £53,000 HTB equity

So £245,500 in Sep-17. I really had only had 7% equity at the start, probably underwater as it was an overpriced new build capitalising on HTB people.

c. Mortgage-Free Date
I think yesterday. I made my last 1p payment to clear my balance, and the Halifax app doesn’t show the £0 balance it just gives an error message, so a bit of an anticlimax!

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
If you had debt as huge as me, with an income as low as mine was, then you need to make more money to avoid being stuck in debt for 35 years. If you think you can’t make more money, I think there is almost always a way.

e. The MSE Mortgage guides and others that helped you
The biggest thing for me was being on top of my numbers, in particular I logged every transaction (using accounting double entry) and managed to more than halve my spending, whilst increasing my income pre-tax 4x. I would regularly look at forecasts of overpayments and target repayment dates.

f. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it.
Did not have. Although my accounting records now read like a diary to me.

eat_that_frog

Very happy to be posting on here at last!

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
13 July 2020, during Covid times. My other half and I decided we wanted rid of the mortgage as quickly as possible. I remember it all really vividly as we had our first baby and I was coming to the end of my maternity leave.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
£250,000 when we took the mortgage out in 2019. £240,000 was the balance on it when we started the mortgage free challenge in July 2020.

c. Mortgage-Free Date
End of March.

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
I think what I've learned during my mortgage free journey can be summarised into 3 points:

1. Focus on bite size milestones rather than looking at the end goal. It would have been too overwhelming to think 'I want to pay off £250k' (or whatever the amount is). I focused on getting to the next £5k/£10k milestone.

2. Pace yourself. Unless you're struggling and need overnight change, I think frugality is effective long term if it's gradually built up by creating new habits, implementing those, then creating more new habits and implementing those as well, and so on. For the first couple of years of our journey we were sensible with money but not overly frugal - our frugality built up over time. With hindsight that was the right thing to do, otherwise we could have been overwhelmed before we'd even really begun.

3. This won't apply for everyone...but I realised how I had previously been using consumerism as a way of entertaining myself, providing a dopamine hit or making me feel better when I was having a bad day. Decluttering my house in 2022 was a real eye opener for me, I decluttered the best part of 2000 items and it wasn't a struggle to part with the majority of it. 

e. The MSE Mortgage guides and others that helped you.

I have been following so many diaries on the MFW board, even if I haven't been commenting on them. They have all been so inspiring! If I had to single out just one, I'd mention that @caeler's MFW diary from a few years ago is worth a look - I remember the day when they posted that they'd become mortgage free, I had a strong almost visceral feeling of 'I want to be in that position myself'. 

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

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6168574/quest-for-mortgage-freedom/p1

newgirly

Finally after 15 years on the MFW board I get to post here 😆
 

A). Date I decided to be MF: 

10th April 2010 


. Mortgage debt at its highest: 

£171, 403.00



C). Mortgage free date: 

31st March 2025 



D). One Pearl of wisdom: 

Start a diary on the mfw forums, post even if there’s nothing mortgage related to say, the habit or posting and reading others’ diaries keeps you going and keeps the end goal in the forefront of your mind. For some it will be a shorter journey and easier to make the bigger overpayments but often it’s the tiny changes you make spurred on by the advice (or telling off!) of others that keep you going. Ours has taken 15 years to clear, but we went backwards many times, with a loft extension, having to take money out to put in the business, kids weddings etc. even though sometimes the overpayments were almost laughable (10p at times!) keeping going was the key 🙂



E). Others that helped: 

Far too many to mention in 15 years! So many wonderful people who gave their time and energy reading and posting encouragement, people who I’ve followed over the years as well, prioritising living a good life along with often being frugal to enable the overpaying, so many who truly were an inspiration 😊

f0xh0les

Congratulations  @newgirly. You did it!!!

Fried_Eggs

Last mortgage payment in 2 weeks.

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
When we bought this house in 2012. My daughter was starting primary school and we decided we wanted to pay off our mortgage before she left full time education. She's now 16.

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
In 2012 our mortgage was &125,000.

c. Mortgage-Free Date
2nd June 2025

d. Your one perl of wisdom.
Buy a cheap house. We had a budget of up to £200,000 and everything was either too small or too expensive. We finally found an ex-council house that needed a lot of work. It's made some things hard: we only got double glazing last year because my father died and left us some money.

e. The MSE Mortgage guides and others that helped you.
The advice about putting your money into savings or the mortgage depending on which has the highest interest. Put your spare money into savings at a higher rate than the mortgage, then when you remortgage you pay off extra from savings. If you can't get a better savings rate, overpayment the mortgage by the max each year and put the rest into savings.

[Deleted User]

It's been a long time coming, but I finally get to post on here!

a. The date you decided to become a MFW
Around Jan 2010 which seems a long time ago

b. Mortgage Debt at its highest
£153800

c. Mortgage-Free Date
2/5/25 - about a month ago

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.
Setup an overpayment via direct debit and just assume that's the regular mortgage amount.
Buy a house within your means.

e. The MSE Mortgage guides and others that helped you
Having a general budgeting spreadsheet is vital so you know how much money you've got and where it goes.
I've also been inspired by this thread and would stop by every few months to read the stories of those who had already got to this point.

f. And if you had a mortgage freedom diary on MFW, a link to it.
Nope, I've never been one for diary's.

g. How did it make you feel.
Another poster said this should be included and I totally agree.
It's been a long road and a lot can happen over that amount of time, including divorce and remarriage. The former throwing financial plans into disarray and the latter (as my wife was totally onboard with getting rid of our mortgage asap) helping massively.
I've left it a month to post this so I've had the impact of no mortgage payment leaving my bank account after payday
The initial final payment (a lump sum as our fix had just ended) was a bit of a non-event, all that ended up happening was getting an error when I tried to sign into our account.
The best bit was when I received a notification from the land registry that there had been a change against my property (I highly recommend setting one of these alerts up, its free). On there I was able to see there was no longer a charge on the property which gave me a great feeling of relief.
We now have about £1110 each month that would have been going to the mortgage that we can now redirect to savings for holiday's, home improvements, increasing the size of our emergency fund incase of redundancy etc...
Also our fixed outgoings have dropped considerably so our existing emergency fund will now stretch further.

Good luck to all those still on the journey, its a long road but automate what you can and don't forget to have fun along the way!