Can i join your club???

LeighofMar

"Celebrations....hmmm not really thought about it really....i guess a nice meal out and a bottle of the bubbly stuff?"

For sure. Whatever works. I think we will have a mortgage-burning BBQ when it's time. Good music, good friends, and a good fire 

dano17439

Well big news here....a couple of weeks ago, my wife spotted her dream car for sale at a dealer only 20 minutes drive from us. 3 years old, 1 owner from new and only 20k on the clock. Had a quick look at the spec and a fag packet calculation found that it had depreciated about £40k from brand new. God bless the first owner!!!! Shes had her old car for nearly 5 years,, so it was probably time for a change, so we had a chat and went to view. We managed to get an unbelievable deal...£2k off screen price (which i thought was good in the first place), and £1.5k more for her car in part-ex than WBAC/AutoTrader had suggested, so we had a YOLO moment and gave a signature. What with me also buying a new car earlier this year, this means now that we won't need to change cars for years and years to come

However of course it means our savings have taken a massive hit!

To be honest, probably the first thing we would of done when we had paid our mortgage off was to buy Mrs Dano a new car anyway, so we thought lets use savings now that are getting barely any interest, and keep the mortgage debt at 0.99% APR, rather than pay that off and get new finance for a car at 3% this time next year or so

I've adjusted my figures and now our NET mortgage balance is back up to £28k owed and back up to 11 months to go so still not too bad. The way this years flown by hopefully the 11 months will be here quicker than we know

dano17439

Looking back on this thread, i see i started it 6 years ago last week. 

Back then i claimed that i would be looking to clear the mortgage in 6 years and 11 months!!!! Not sure if thats fate or not, but here i am on target!!!

dano17439

Had a nice few days down Sandbanks last week for half term. Weather wasn't great, but we managed to get out and about a bit. Took Mrs Dano's new car. managed to average 32mpg from Essex to Dorset....pretty decent for a 4.0V8 Twin Turbo!
Managed to save a little bit extra in addition to the usual amount on payday so NET balance is £24,742 owed!

dano17439

Hi Folks
Not much of an update, but need to keep it going for my records. had a good month, have started on the Xmas shopping. All very strange...going to be a lot different to last year! Managed to end November with a bit of spare cash so all saved towards this mortgage. NET balance owed today - £21,664 

dano17439

Happy new year to whoever's reading this! Lets hope 2021 is a lot better....lets face it probably cant be any worse *touches wood*

So weirdly we ended up with about £1,000 left in our account before payday today. Don't think that's happened in December ever! So today we've transferred 3k into our savings towards this mortgage. January should be a cheap month as we're in Tier 4 so nothing social going on whatsoever....might even try to do dry January.... however we do have my wife's tax bill to pay which will be approx. £1,100 at the end of the month. I am presuming we'll have to take this back out of savings, but you never know we might end up not spending all our monthly budget so we might not have to touch the savings!

So when the mortgage payment comes out of our account on Monday our NET balance will be pretty much bang on 18k owed 

yogavibes

what fab progress you have made on OPing Dano - not long to go now! I've only been at this OPing for the past year despite having a mortgage for almost 20 years across a number of properties - I can't imagine how good getting down to the last few months will feel

dano17439

Thank you Yogavibes! Yes we are getting close....We possibly would of done it this year if we hadn't bought 2 new cars, refurbed the garden and our daughters bedroom. However the cars have no finance attached to them and are worth more than what we owe on our mortgage...so are we mortgage neutral....hmm I don't know, I guess that's another discussion

Apart from the looming tax bill, we have no big ticket expenditure items planned for the foreseeable future, so we should be able to meet our savings target each month, and if lockdown continues we maybe can save more.

We are desperate for a holiday though. We had planned years back a family trip to LA in the summer of 2021...that's when our daughter leaves school, but we'll not be booking anything until the world is back to normal, so whether this will go ahead or not is anybody's guess. If the vaccines are rolled out quick my gut is that we will go, which will obviously delay clearing the mortgage, but i wont be trying to predict anything just yet!

dano17439

Well getting in early this month. My last post stated "we have no big ticket expenditure items planned for the foreseeable future"....well strap in and enjoy the ride.........

At the time of writing my last post I forgot my car insurance was due early February. So i got my renewal through early January. Shopped around a bit and managed to secure a better price with another provider, so ended up paying that. 

Then MrsDano was out in her car and the tyre pressure warning light came on. When she arrived home I had a look......a massive nail in one of the fronts. I had a look at the other tyres as well and found one of the back tyres had a slit in the side wall. Also the 2 back tyres were a different brand...not good in a 470bhp rear wheel drive car in the winter!. So we took the decision to change all 4 and booked it in. We also had booked the car in for its service, which we have a service plan for thank god. Car came back with a good bill of health apart from an advisory for new front brake pads were 75% warn and needs changing sooner rather that later

Then the following week MrsDano and our daughter both had eye tests and both needed new glasses. So an order was placed

And yesterday our hot water went off. We managed to get a boiler expert round at very short notice who diagnosed the problem, however as my boiler is so old, the part was unavailable. The supplier he spoke to said he had last sold the part in 2014 lol. We knew that the boiler is over 20 years old, so we currently have a new boiler being fitted as I type. So to conclude...

£1,200    Mrs Danos tax bill
£1,600    New Boiler
£770       4 new tyres
£360       2 pairs of new glasses
£220       Car Insurance
And a looming bill of £400 for new brake pads

On the plus side, payday tomorrow and we still have £1,100 in our current account. So we will use this towards paying for the above and then tomorrow we'll have to use the usual amount we save (circa £1,800), and a bit of savings to pay the rest

No mortgage overpayment for us in February then!!!  

dano17439

Thought i'd post again beings it'll be the 100th!

Boiler was paid for and £1,500 credit card bill cleared at the weekend. Had to take £500 out of savings to clear it all :-( 

Contracted mortgage payment out today meaning NET balance is £17,873