Mortgage Free Journey

Gobosly

Dear MSE's,

Thought I'd share my mortgage journey for information and comment, be interested to hear any thoughts or opinions:

1. Bought first house £54,000 in 1997. Got a rubbish HSBC mortgage (by bank at the time), for 95% value (borrowed rest from Parents). Looking back, was young, naive, HSBC (am I allowed to mention companies?) saw me coming as a fresh faced graduate and insisted I took out a full "bells and whistle" mortage over 25 year term with expensive payment protection, etc, since I was slightly over the 3 times salary threshold. I did insist on repayment though. - Struggled like hell over the 1st year, and didn't do anything special except cancelled the payment protection (pretty useless policy in any case).

2. Sold up in 1999, luckily made 20K in equity, which went to next house. Bought new 95K house at same time as getting married. Went easy on the wedding and new sensible wife put her lifetime 10K into house resulting in a new 65K mortgage. Got rid of HSBC mortgage a took out 4 year fixed rate with cheaper mutual society, still repayment, but this time took it out over a 15 year term - as I was shocked by how little had been payed off of my previous mortage. I was also surprised that by increasing payements from £350 a month to £550 a month, a full 10 years could be taken off the term. That was the first aim, to get mortage free by 2014 (seemed a long way off then). - Still struggled a bit financially, but was hardly in poverty, just did without unnecessary take aways, a meals out, and had sandwiches for lunch!

3. By 2003 once 4 year rate was up interest rates had plumetted, and I couldn't wait to remortage. Stuck with same society (Nationwide, can I say this?), who gave very low 3 year fixed rate, (always liked fixed rates to allow budgeting). Should have taken it out for even longer, but its easy in hindsight.

4. It was at this time that I discovered MSE and started getting a little more astute financially (I thought I was pretty good until I read the website!). Still disappointed at how slow the mortgage was going down, and being a little bit better off with 2 salaries, etc, decided to overpay mortgage by £500 a month. Actually the mortage company only allowed £400 max monthly overpayments, so put the other £100 a month into an ISA.

AMAZING by how much the mortgage reduces if you can do this!! But don't get obsessed by it. Soon after a child came along, followed by another a couple of years later. After 2 years of overpaying by £500 a month, couldn't keep it up and had to stop overpayments completely for a while, then restarted them at a more modest £75 a month. At this time I totally raped any ideas I could from MSE site including a brief time of stoozing (made around £500 in 6 months, but had to give up as it is too time consuming when you need sleep with 2 babies).

5. Nearly gave up for a while, then eventually things started settling down again financially (fortunately) as I came off the low fixed rate in Aug 2006. This time it was different as Father in Law gave us 10K on the condition that it went towards the mortage (out of the blue, but take it where you can). This gave fresh impetus, and I started the £500 a month overpayments again, and deliberately stayed on the flexible (pay back as much as you want) variable rate to allow the whole thing to be payed off by Aug 2008.

6. Current Mortgage is around £15K, and will I probably miss the Aug 2008 target, but only by a few months.

7. Ended up getting into the habit of not having (many) take aways, and am fortunate that my wife is a thrifty shopper (makes a hell of a difference); but I don't earn a particularly large wage and my wife doesn't earn at all now. Still a little way to go to be mortgage free, but roughly on target. Can I therefore join the MFW's?

Sorry about the numbering, don't know why I did that!

Regards