Getting rid of the mortgage in 2016

expatting · 11 May 2016 at 5:21AM

So this thread is an effort to make sure that I stay on track with my target of paying off our mortgage by ideally the end of the year (at the moment it’s looking more like it might be February 2017, but still aspiring for 2016!)

We are in a very lucky situation that both myself and DH have good jobs, and I am currently living in a very low tax country, which is also helping to accelerate our savings. Currently we have a mortgage of 130k, and have current savings of 75k.

This means in theory we need to save 55k to pay off mortgage, but this would mean totally draining our savings including all our share portfolio, so in reality I’m planning to keep half of our shares, meaning our target savings needs to be 68k – eek. We are very good with saving, but also have a great lifestyle – we need to see each other due to living on different continents, so travel etc is a must do. I think that realistically we can probably save 50k but need to be a lot stricter with saving if we are to pay off the whole balance of the mortgage this year! About 3k of this savings are also contingent on a promotion I have been promised coming through… fingers crossed!!