Had a mortgage too long - it's going, going, gone!

shangaijimmy

Found you and subscribed Ali! Great read so far, an so pleased to be referenced!! My new tilly tidy technique is to round down to nearest £1 everyday, with a whole £1 if the balance is a round number. Then do a £5 round down on a Sunday. For my 8 yr dream target i currently have a £100 per month shortfall and im hoping to get approx £30 from tidies then hope to play catch up with pay rises.

Ali-OK

Thanks SJ - I love figures and the spreadsheets (locoblades, someone elses's OP sheet and a home-made one) plus my 'brick' house that I colour in, keep it fun and interesting

Thanks for TT run-down too, might have to adopt a more frequent round up now

In Locoblades's sheet, I've upped each payment by £10 a month to wrap the interest reduction (because of I/o) and a bit, so my plan works more towards continuous increases in monthly payments up to a max of £1,400 capital for the last couple of years - that takes me to a 9 year total, of which I'm 18 months into...so could be just another 7 and a bit years to go :j

Hurdles are going to be:

- maintenance for DS from ex stopping at some unknown point
- DS becoming expensive for driving lessons and Uni costs
- my business continuing to go as well as it is, which is in part subject to health probs too.

Oh and house extension...depending on what the architect comes back with and the advice of the pre-planning meeting and officer, it'll be decision time whether to go to next stage for detailed drawings for full planning permission submission.

I save £100 a month for DS in a H@lifax 6% reg saver which ends in January and will move to a Junior ISA I think.

Have just fiddled with spreadsheet putting in £1250 capital and ooh daily interest comes down by 13p a day. Liking that alot

sarahevie1

Our local vue cinema is doing kids screenings every day of the school hols, may be a little young for ds, but at £1.99 a pop good for a rainy day.

Ali-OK

That's great value, sadly not got a Vue around here or I'd jump at that - We're Cineworld so on the hunt for vouchers or discounts. There's a new cinema going to be built, must find out if that will be a Vue.

10% discount buying tickets online and sneaking in own drinks/snacks is my usual tactic Be good to find a better deal on tickets

It's a really confusing era with him being 14, nearly 15 - classed as adult for some things, which is outrageous really. Bad enough he's in adult shoes and clothes (as 5ft 10 already :eek:) with the added VAT. Don't get me started! :mad:

shangaijimmy

Them pesky kids ruining our financial plans... In all seriousness our kids will be the major hurdle to us paying off in 10yrs. A 10yr target would take DS1 to 16 and DS2 to 13, so im hoping we can nudge an extra 2 yrs off and be done at 14 and 11, before both start becoming really really costly in food and clothes!

Ali-OK

DS eats bigger portions than me and most frequently asked question is 'when are you going food shopping?' :rotfl:

Been a long day today but office move out done and just a few bits to finish off tomorrow, before we have hair appointments. Both for dry trims keeping the spends as low as possible.

Financials:
- bank account checked - another 7p interest added to the new Saver for the TT pot
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Inbox Pounds - at £19.10
- Qmee - 11p added, up to 45p

Another P!necone prelim survey in to do and rewards from yesterday converted to pay out £3.

I need to play around with my budget spreadsheet next and fit in these TTs that are moving around or I'll end up not being balanced with current account.

And upgrade my mortgage spreadsheets - I like the having several outcomes idea, just need to find a spare few hours to do it. After a very long run with Springy and Doodle dogs so they sleep...but then so will I probably :rotfl:

sarahevie1

I know my kids will seriously hamper my mortgage free dreams too. Largely why I started 5 years ago when the eldest two were two and under. Five years takes mine to almost 12, 10 and 7.

I love different mortgage spreadsheets. Don't get me started on the mortgage calculator, I've literally spent hours playing with different figures. Interest saved, months saved, etc. It's great for the inner geek in me

Ali-OK

I wish I knew then what I know now...when DS was 3 weeks shy of his 2nd birthday we moved into this house. Huge mortgage, increased from 15 years left to another 25 year term and he was in full time nursery too with the associated costs. What was I thinking?!?!

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - you certainly made a great decision to OP so much early on. Well done!

shangaijimmy

Hindsight!! We were mad to stretch ourselves as far we did, not far off missing 2 rungs of the housing ladder. The only way could afford at the time was an interest only mortgage and i'm not sure i fully appreciated what that really meant. Mrs SJ definitely didn't. From moving in the first 18 months were tough but then things started to ease, the financial world fell apart and with it the 0.5% interest rates. Its there that we started to make real inroads with some payrises helping out! In todays affordability checks (been through it for remortgage in January) there's no way we'd have got a mortgage, and we can now see how people have ended up in real trouble.

Ali-OK

Similar story here SJ, and add in endowment mortgage for the first 10 years into the mix it wasn't a pretty sight when the mis-selling and likely values became known :eek:

But when we moved here (jumped 2 bed semi to 4 bed detached) I was earning really well and borrowed less than 3x my income so all went swimmingly for a while, before it all went pear shaped when Dad had cancer, Mum was (and still is) terminally ill and I just totally struggled with everything..their health, stress of job, commuting to London, childcare, DS's issues and single parenting. My health hit the rocks and I jumped ship. I needed time more than money at that point to sort it all.

So it's been a case of clawing myself back to an even keel. SE has worked really well in many ways, especially for DS who hated breakfast and afterschool clubs (but loved school itself thankfully) and he was then diagnosed an Aspie, plus hypermobile joints. Appointments galore - paediatrician, podiatrist, physio.

Having said all that, I'm proud of what I've achieved on my own with home and business. And we're coming out the other side like you now. I should be ok when I come to re-mortgage, fingers crossed!