Putting plans in place

syntheticpulse

Hi everyone!

After what felt like a lifetime of scrimping and saving, my now husband and I purchased our first house two and a half years ago.

We purchased the best we could afford, up and coming area, pristine house overlooking a golf course with fab transport links for £115k, and a mortgage of £103.5k , on a fixed for 5 years deal at 4.79%.

2.5 years on, we're nearly done with a P2P car loan (helpfully,car died about 2 months after moving in to above house and had to be replaced when we were flat broke!! Talk about timing.) and then at the start of August just gone we got married! Now all the 'big' expenses are done, and a few months ago I argued myself a 30% pay rise. It finally feels like things are OK, and not a total uphill struggle.

The mortgage is currently just over £97k. I'd really really like it gone as soon as possible, because I'm 29 and my husband is 42 so there was always going to be a HUGE gap inbetween our retirement dates. I don't want life later on to be me working full time and him fully retired - I want to enjoy time with him.

I've been thinking that once the car loan is gone next August, that money can go into an overpayment until the end of the fixed rate, then we can really up the payments. Once we're into a good LTV bracket, I may see if we are eligible to move into an offset mortgage deal which should allow us to save and reduce the mortgage even more whilst still giving us access to funds if we need them.

I've had a play with the overpayment calculator, and it looks like if we really work hard, this just might be do-able around when I hit 40. Obviously this doesn't factor in any unseen life changes but touch wood, things will stay steady.

I know I've rambled a bit here but seeing it laid out helps. I'd love to be in a position to drop down to part time so we can spend more time doing what we love (working with dog rescues!) together.

Any tips greatly appreciated!

Jessy103

Good luck with your mortgage free journey!