I want to be mortgage free

doodle_bug

2 years ago I re-mortgaged to get new doors/windows, new boiler, new kitchen and other things. Had about £43,000 mortgage and took that upto £63,000, it is now £53,000 but I have managed to save about £26,000. I'm tied into a tracker with the Nationwide so can't make massive overpayments but recently I have been making overpayments of about £200pm. Aug 2008 will revert to the Nationwides BMR and I will have to make a big decision on what to do, go for another deal or use savings to reduce the mortgage and then pay every spare penny off the mortgage to get mortgage free asap.

It's odd that so many of us want to get rid of our mortgages, I was desperate to get a mortgage in 1995 to buy my first house( I used to be in the RAF and missed out on getting on the property ladder sooner) and would have payed any interest rate just to get my own home, different outlook now, and only thanks to the property doldrums of the 90's that I could afford a house then, could no way afford my own house now.

I think it must be something like that we are tied workers having mortgages and all our decisions are based on paying the mortgage, I don't like my job much but it is relatively well payed but I wouldn't mind doing a lower payed job and be happier, alot of people must have that outlook. I feel sorry for the young people starting out.

Martinslovechild

doodle_bug wrote: »

I think it must be something like that we are tied workers having mortgages and all our decisions are based on paying the mortgage, I don't like my job much but it is relatively well payed but I wouldn't mind doing a lower payed job and be happier, alot of people must have that outlook. I feel sorry for the young people starting out.

Totally agree, Doodle Bug.

I also like the idea of taking a lower paid job at some point in the future to allow me more personal time, i.e. less working away from home & not having to travel long distances.

When your mortgage is cleared, the most important thing is that you will have the choice; you could continue in your current job, saving money away either for something nice for you or your family, or to enable you to retire earlier, or as you say, to take a job working more locally or part-time hours. Most people don't have this choice - it was one of the biggest factors for me personally in deciding to clear my own mortgage.

Good Luck.

GreenNinja

I am with you both on this one. My primary reason for wanting to pay my mortgage off is so that I can take a part time job in something I enjoy and be able to have pets that I can actually spend time with!

doodle_bug

doodle_bug wrote: »

I think it must be something like that we are tied workers having mortgages and all our decisions are based on paying the mortgage, I don't like my job much but it is relatively well payed but I wouldn't mind doing a lower payed job and be happier, alot of people must have that outlook. I feel sorry for the young people starting out.

It can be strange this life, I wrote the above in July and at the end of this month will be made redundant after nearly 16 years at my present employer.

Still tied in until next August but with my pay off and savings I will pay the mortgage off then. They say you shouldn't wish for something because it might just happen. Just wish I get a nice job that I enjoy doing, may take a few months off, I hate these dark nights, I've done over 20,000 miles in my job in the last 6 months and driving home on these dark nights is a big downer for me, might hibernate until end of February.

I used to paint and draw many years ago, my daughter had a caricature of herself done at a work party a while ago, they must have paid the artist just to be there, you didn't have to pay for the drawing, don't know how much it would pay but I used to be brilliant at doing pen and ink caricatures, used to do the teachers and even though what I did of them wasn't very flattering they used to nick them from me, maybe some are still out there, that would be a nice job if it payed ok. Thought this might be an original idea but alas there are many on the WWW. some charge a fair wack but some seem to be computer generated, mine would be original drawings, I could say one day I'll be a famous artist and you will have an original of mine increasing in value, to sleep perchance to dream....

setmefree2

Good Luck DB - and keep posting and letting us know how it's all going. We are here to cheer you on in your quest to be "free"....:j

doodle_bug

Phew, got another job start in January, wages are a bit lower but not much.

This year I've payed off £2200 over and above my regular payments and at the end of the year the mortgage balance will be £50500. I will make over payments of £1500 every month until August 2008, I have 3 mortgage accounts from re-mortgaging. With the Nationwide you can make over payments of up to £500 per month per account without penalties if you are tied in as I am.

If this new job goes well(it's a big challenge) then I will be quids in. If I had carried on making my normal payments to the Nationwide I would have had to pay them £80,000 over the next 13 years, on an average £22,000 wage that is about 5 years work.

do_it_today!

Good Luck!

Wyndham

doodle_bug wrote: »

It can be strange this life, I wrote the above in July and at the end of this month will be made redundant after nearly 16 years at my present employer.

And if life gives you lemons..... sometimes these things can be helpful. I do wish you luck and do let us know how you get on.

I envy this in a way, my mortgage is still too big to do this, but I dream of making a living out of writing and photography and one day, when it's gone, I will. But only because without the mortgage I will be able to afford to fail.

Though it may be a huge success.

glastowinebar

Doodle

There must be a reason why you are not using your savings to pay off a lump of your mortgage but if that was me (as I've just done) I would bring the mortgage figure right down

Good luck

doodle_bug

glastowinebar wrote: »

Doodle

There must be a reason why you are not using your savings to pay off a lump of your mortgage but if that was me (as I've just done) I would bring the mortgage figure right down

Good luck

I'm tied in on a 3 year tracker with the Nationwide, if I pay more than £500 off each of my 3 accounts in a month there will be penalties, I'm losing out a maximum of 1% The penalties don't make it worth me paying more(it all) off until August 2008.

Also having some savings has been has been a big buffer with having this redundancy, it's given me options. 3 years ago I borrowed another £20,000 to get new windows/doors, central heating and kitchen. Over that time I cashed in an insurance policy, stoozed money from c/cards and wife got £7,000 redundancy earlier in the year and I've ended up with £25,000 savings from nothing in 3 years + £30,000 from this redundancy and no other debt apart from the mortgage.

Hopefully everything will go to plan and I will have my mortgage paid off before I'm 50 which isn't bad seeing as how I didn't get on the housing ladder until I was 36.

doodle_bug

Before I had internet banking I used to eagerly await the annual mortgage statement in January to see how much the debt had come down. This is mostly disappointing but you say to yourself it will start coming down faster eventually. Watching the capital come down on a mortgage is a million times worse than watching paint dry, maybe that's why people are doing this because of internet banking we can see just how much of our hard earned cash goes to the banks for them doing virtually nothing.

At the end of the year my mortgage debt will be £50600.

Monthly payments are around £500 and coming down due to lowering interest rates. On the first of each month I will make over payments of £1500 until August 2008 and should have around £36000 mortgage left by then. What happens then will be down to my employment status, I don't want to be in another job for a long time that I don't like just to pay the bills.

Happy New Year to everyone and Good Luck:beer: