Only 14 more bricks to colour in

jellyspots

When we took out our mortgage I drew a house outline and divided it up into 210 bricks. Hubby thought I was crazy and laughed but it made me feel good to colour in a brick each month. It's such a great feeling to think all we have to pay for is our chimney pot!

What ways spurred you on in your quest to be mortgage free....

kameleon

I did out my own spreadsheet when I figured out the quarterly interest and I had every month listed right to the very end, I then had a number of separate columns for if the interest rate dropped/rose by 0.25%, 0.5% etc.

Seeing the mortgage balance drop every month was an incentive in itself, but also when I had money to make an overpayment seeing it in black and white on the screen helped to spur me on.

Because I had done out a detailed spreadsheet I could play with it and see the knock on effect of how many month sooner the mortgage would be paid off if I overpaid by X amount. It made me more determined to save that much and overpay.

I'm 2 months away from being mortgage free and I'm 35. It's a bit of a weird feeling that come September that the portion of my wage that goes towards the mortgage every month will be mine instead of the bank's.

jellyspots

kameleon wrote: »

I did out my own spreadsheet when I figured out the quarterly interest and I had every month listed right to the very end, I then had a number of separate columns for if the interest rate dropped/rose by 0.25%, 0.5% etc.

Seeing the mortgage balance drop every month was an incentive in itself, but also when I had money to make an overpayment seeing it in black and white on the screen helped to spur me on.

Because I had done out a detailed spreadsheet I could play with it and see the knock on effect of how many month sooner the mortgage would be paid off if I overpaid by X amount. It made me more determined to save that much and overpay.

I'm 2 months away from being mortgage free and I'm 35. It's a bit of a weird feeling that come September that the portion of my wage that goes towards the mortgage every month will be mine instead of the bank's.

Well done that's fab and so rewarding that you have so nearly done it. Good luck on your next venture....

inigma

I also have a spreadsheet, and it very kindly calculates how many months each overpayment knocks off. My motivation is to take the number of months knocked off by overpayments and deduct that from when I bought my property (so if you purchased December 2013 and have knocked 6 months off then your new purchase date is June 2013), it's nice casting your mind back when you start knocking years off and thinking "I effectively purchased this place in Feb 2007 rather than Sept 2011". I then think how in Feb 2007 when I thought I would never get on the ladder and it makes me smile, the aim is to pay it off before August 2023 (25 years since my GCSE's).