A Mortgage Free Day!

do_it_today!

Hello! :hello:
a nutty idea just popped into my head! basically I think once a year we should have a mortgage free day! this would be one day in a year where we can pretend we are mortgage free!

what would you do?

I hate driving in London so am quite taken with the idea of having a driver! (this probably wouldnt be a reality everyday when MF but now and again at least!)

so to celebrate this on Mortgage Free Day - I would hire a drive and car for a few hours or a (day if possible!)

So if I saved £1 a day for a year or a proportion of my mortgage overpayments the would cover it!

what do you think a goooer or a noooer :j

Martinslovechild

Nice idea, but personally I'd rather be actually mortgage-free than pretend mortgage-free.

Why not put the £365 you're saving towards your mortgage? In fact, I would even suggest saving £3 a day, or just over £1000 per year - you'll knock a fair few months off your mortgage.

Good Luck.

CostCutter

Mortgage Feb 2001 - £129,000
Mortgage July 2007 - £0
Original Mortgage Termination Date - Nov 2018
Mortgage Interest saved - £63790.60
Mortgage-Free Roll Of Honour Member #2

That's fantastic!! well done you!!
How on earth did you manage to clear that much that quickly??

Would love to be mortgage free too..

I have 21,500 to go and am looking to change my mortgage (single person) so any hints & tips on how you managed it would be great!!

Then I could have lots of MF days... ahhhhh bliss....

Martinslovechild

CostCutter wrote: »

That's fantastic!! well done you!!
How on earth did you manage to clear that much that quickly??

Would love to be mortgage free too..

I have 21,500 to go and am looking to change my mortgage (single person) so any hints & tips on how you managed it would be great!!

Thanks!!

Check out the thread here which goes through in detail as to how I achieved it.

CostCutter

No thank you!!!!
I will read it with great interest, it's a fantastic achievement and brilliant of you to share your ideas with everyone...

You must have jumped for joy :-)

I LOVE THIS SITE!!

gonna sit down & get me a plan!!!

Best Regards Denise

do_it_today!

Martinslovechild wrote: »

Thanks!!

Check out the thread here which goes through in detail as to how I achieved it.

Wow 6 Years!!!! :T I am impressed! that gives me hope!

do_it_today!

Martins Love Child
do you think worthwhile Stoozing is still doable? and do you have any other suggestions?

Martinslovechild

CostCutter wrote: »

You must have jumped for joy :-)

I LOVE THIS SITE!!

gonna sit down & get me a plan!!!

I certainly did!!
I had a chilled bottle of champagne at the ready :beer: .

The first thing to do is determine a realistic budget. It will certainly help you in working out how much you can afford to regularly overpay. Once you've determined a regular overpayment amount, see if you can increase this by reducing costs in other areas (i.e. if you can't or don't want to do the stoozing, then consider swapping your gas/electricity for a different provider, swap to a water meter if there are less people in your house than bedrooms, bin Sky for Freeview, sell some stuff on eBay etc etc).

Once you have your budget, stick to it like glue. I use a software package called 'Quicken' to monitor all my spending, but Microsoft Money's good too, and you can pick it up very cheaply.

If you get a payrise - add it straight into the mortgage overpayment fund. After all, you got by alright before the pay increase didn't you? Therefore, living without it won't hurt you.

If you have determined that you can regularly afford an overpayment of, say, £400 per month, if you wouldn't have to cough up redemption penalties for leaving your existing mortgage, then consider taking out a mortgage whereby the monthly payments automatically take account of the additional sum, i.e. if you currently pay £500 per month and could afford £900, then choose a mortgage term where the monthly payment is £900. You'll suddenly find that you'll be mortgage-free a whole lot sooner than currently is the case.

Finally - always be on the lookout for new ways of maximising your impact on clearing the mortgage. You'll get there very quickly if you try.

Martinslovechild

do_it_today! wrote: »

Martins Love Child
do you think worthwhile Stoozing is still doable? and do you have any other suggestions?

Yes - but the returns are obviously a lot less than they once were.

However - I still believe that it's worth doing if you have a flexible mortgage, i.e. one that allows overpayments.

The maths work out something like this:-

Using the following as an example
-- 0% Credit Card (12 Months 0%, 3% Fee). Credit Limit = £6000.
-- £80,000 Mortgage (Current Rate Assumed = 6%).

Based on £6000 being stoozed, the fee = £180.
The mortgage interest on £6000 @ 6% p.a. = £360.

Therefore after BT fees, you save £180 in interest charges.

Now, £180 wouldn't make me rush out into stoozing, but the returns multiply when you're stoozing on several cards at the same time.

Based on £50,000 being stoozed, fees (all at assumed 3%) = £1500
Mortgage Interest Saved on £50,000 at 6% p.a. = £1500

Don't forget - as the Base Rate increases, so does your mortgage interest, which means that the savings get bigger (in the above example, Mortgage Interest Saved on £50,000 at 6.5% p.a. = £1750).

Now - to effectively 'earn' £1750 net, you'd have to earn the gross version of this. If you're a higher-rate taxpayer, that would equate to £2966 gross.

So - in effect, you'd be awarding yourself just short of a £3000 p.a. payrise or clearing £1750 off your mortgage each year simply by stoozing.

But remember - stoozing isn't for the fainthearted; there could be ramifications in your credit history if it's used incorrectly (i.e. too many applications in too short a space of time), and you MUST MUST MUST remember to make every minimum payment on every card every time. A Spreadsheet tracking all of the cards is absolutely vital.

Full details of stoozing are available online at www.stoozing.com.