Our 'Mortgage Free By Forty' Dream - Truly Madly Hannah

lorriedriver1988

Hi Hannah,

I just wanted to say what an inspiration you are. I love your website.
I've come over from the DFW board to say hello. I'm a mum of three boys, all under three and a half. I currently work part-time in a school. Myself and DH are in the process of trying to clear debt, save up to pay off the Help to Buy Loan and clear our mortgage by the time we are 35 in just under 8 years.

Thank you for the inspiration and motivation. It has helped me realise even with a low income anything is possible with determination.

debtfreeoneday

Hope you had a nice weekend Hannah! I replied to your message, hopefully you will find me!

Have a lovely day! x

trulymadlyhannah

Thank You Penny Pauper, debtfreeoneday, EatingTheElephant

I think I shocked myself with the overpayment! My dad is doing much better thank you and the cake was okay, definitely not as good as the rainbow cake, but DD loved it which is all that mattered really! I will post a photo later :T:T

DD has had a fab day, we have spent the day with family, playing games, dancing and laughing, its been fab. DH isnt feeling very well know though so we are having some quiet time and he has gone to rest in bed.

We have decided to cancel our TV license today. We don't watch TV and haven't for a long time but we kept it 'just in case' Today I talked to DH and we have decided to cancel it and remove the unused BT vision box from our TV unit to prevent the children watching by accident.

We have a gift Netflix subscription which my MIL is paying for for a year, and will look at other options afterwards! Over £120 is a massive saving, hoping to overpay it...:rotfl:

Our grocery budget is looking fairly slim.... We spent over £30 over the last few days due to cake baking and having guests over. Part of this was a huge box of nappies, and washing powder and comfort which we had run out, so unavoidable really. We now have approx £71.00 left for exactly 4 weeks. My new aim is to try and run over by as little as possible!

Petal88

Oh wow removing TV licence would be a big step for me! Well done
Just bear in mind that you need to tell them that you don't need a TV licence:

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/telling-us-you-dont-need-a-tv-licence

trulymadlyhannah

mrsp1987 wrote: »

Just a quick one as we've just got into the hotel but I think I may have a friendly competition with you. My mortgage is at £98,284 which isn't far from your £96,554

Our mortgages are quite close, aren't they? It would be nice to have someone at a similar stage and see if we can encourage & support each other, as the goal does seem quite far away at the moment (or it does for me anyway!)

lorriedriver1988 wrote: »

Thank you for the inspiration and motivation. It has helped me realise even with a low income anything is possible with determination.

Awww, I am really pleased that I have inspired you (though most people think Im crazy:rotfl:, I like it here, I am in good company) It sounds like you have a lot to work on, but the financial freedom will definitely be worth it! Good luck with your journey, I will bookmark your diary to read when the little's are in bed

debtfreeoneday wrote: »

Hope you had a nice weekend Hannah! I replied to your message, hopefully you will find me!

I found you Ive sent a friend request xx

debtfreeoneday

We thought about removing our TV licence as we so very rarely watch live TV - I reckon they'll change the rules soon as I can't see the beeb being able to lose that much money.

You found me!

trulymadlyhannah

Petal88 wrote: »

Oh wow removing TV licence would be a big step for me! Well done
Just bear in mind that you need to tell them that you don't need a TV licence:

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/telling-us-you-dont-need-a-tv-licence

Ive submitted a form to cancel already, and hoping they will be in touch soon, but thank you very much for the info

We have never really watched much TV, we read the news stories online and we watch a few documentaries & series on Netflix, but that's about it!

trulymadlyhannah

debtfreeoneday wrote: »

We thought about removing our TV licence as we so very rarely watch live TV - I reckon they'll change the rules soon as I can't see the beeb being able to lose that much money.

You found me!

We considered it at least a year ago and didn't cancel it then, because even though we don't watch live TV, we DO have a TV, so it feels a bit like we are cheating not having a Licence:rotfl:.

I had to read all the terms and conditions 4 times over just to double check everything!:rotfl:

Glad I found you :T:T

trulymadlyhannah

Quick Update... She says :rotfl:

• We have been accepted for our mortgage fix, and we should swap to the new rate from 1st April :T
• Both myself and DH have signed up to Bount to earn cash for walking. :T
• I signed up to TCB, and earned cashback on my DD2's birthday gift from Argos :T
• Our switch to BT broadband and line failed, so have had to try again, hoping we still qualify for the reward card and vouchers.

This was DD's Cake Models, The cake wasnt as good as my last, but it was midnight and I had no time redo... DD was happy so thats all that mattered :T

Feeling a bit rubbish tonight, I was talking to some family about our mortgage journey, and one of the comments made was "If you are putting food on everyones plates thats all that matters" and I could be reading far too much into it, but a few comments after that one, I felt like it was implied we werent

We always eat 3 healthy meals per day, we have 1 dessert after dinner (and we have a small treat after lunch too) and we always have fruit in. The one thing we dont do is fill our cupboards with biscuits / snacks ect because thats the one thing that I dont think we really need, but we always have baking ingredients in so theres always the option of baking extras. (Although dont get me wrong, we always have some form of snacky food in, normally supplied by DH's grandma who likes to buy us biscuits!) Its not really needed, but I almost feel that I should maybe blog /photograph our food journey, just to prove a point! None of us look under fed, infact maybe the opposite :rotfl:

I have decided to post a "monthtly update" on my blog about our mortgage journey, which I am hoping to be a round up of all the things that we have done to help our journey. I wanted to include the amount we currently owe, but I am not 100% comfortable including the amount we overpay just yet...

I just wondered if anyone had any thoughs of what else I could include to maybe inspire others to join in with us, maybe interest per day?

debtfreeoneday

I used to blog about our financials amongst other things, why don't you do the percentages of loan left in you don't want to do specifics? My blog is long gone, but it did help as well as reading others on the same journey.

Ignore others, you know you are providing for your family, I think some people dislike that some people are in control of their lives and are actively doing things to make life better. Same as some people that criticise others for losing weight, it's only because they wish they could do it. We have very little in our cupboards, we buy what we need for the week and actually buy very few snacks, I make banana, carrot or cheese muffins most weeks to supplement lunches and snacks. I do packed lunches 4 our of 5 days as well even though they get free meals as it's a point of principle for me.

Ignore them..

Awesome cakes!