Taking Control and Making It Happen

MissLemon

I've been a bit of a lurker on these forums but now I'm getting serious as my light bulb moment happened this week!

My household is me, my OH and our pooch. For the last 3 years we have been planning to move to Wales. The plan all depended on OH getting a transfer with his work and me finding work once we moved, so we have been saving up to cover my salary for the first 3 months, moving costs, solicitors costs etc.

At the beginning of the year OH put in for a transfer and since then we've been in a bit of limbo as there's just not any openings for him to transfer to at the moment.

And then this week it hit me. If we could move as cash buyers, without the need of a mortgage, we wouldn't need to wait for a transfer to happen!

So this is the start of our mortgage free journey. The transfer still might come through at any point but I now feel a bit more in control instead of having to wait for someone else's decision.

To start our MF journey today I am going to the bank to find out our exact balance and then I can work out our MF date.

It feels a bit wrong to be this excited about a bank visit....

A_Frayed_Knot

Exciting when you have your LBM.

Hope your visit to the bank goes well. If you can, I would consider online banking, that way you can watch the balance go down as you o/p. It's a great incentive.

Was wondering how being MF means you could move without the transfer. Are you both considering retiring there, and therefor not need to work once you moved?

Good luck and will watch out for updated info.

MissLemon

Oh what does LBM stand for?

I'm definitely going to set up online banking, I think it'll be so much easier and I'll be able to check the balance when I want instead of having to wait for the annual statement! Hopefully I can get that sorted today too.

We wouldn't be able to retire when we move but it would mean our outgoings would be less so we wouldn't need to earn as much! Which would mean getting a transfer wouldn't be as essential.

bexster1975

LBM Light bulb moment!

Sounds like a plan to me. Very best of luck

Bexster

MissLemon

Bank sorted after a long queue at the bank (you'd think they'd have more staff on a Saturday!).

I now know our balance is £96491.74 :eek:

We are on a fix term mortgage and so have a fee free over payment allowance each year. We already make regular monthly over payments which we set up when our last fix finished and the interest rate went down so we carried on paying a similar amount (what you never had you don't miss!).

So taking into account our regular payments up to November when the next allowance starts we could overpay by £7855 with no fee until November.

Up to now we have both been managing to save £300 per month which went into our moving fund. We've decided that as we now have a healthy fund we will start using this money to make over payments.

So at least £600 per month extra into over payments straight away.

According to the MSE Overpayment calculator this means we'd be MF in just under 7 years :j

I'm going to set myself a challenge to see if I can make additional payments over this by cutting down on our grocery spends and sorting out some of our bills (including an electricity swap as we are currently spending £173 per month as we went into debit over winter :eek:).

First stop the July Grocery Challenge!

beanielou

Great start
Keep going!

A_Frayed_Knot

Off to a good start.

2nd stop you may like to look at is

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5571367

A thread run by the lovely hiddenshadow. Always good to have a target - certainly keeps me motivated

MissLemon

Thank you! I didn't see that thread. That means I really do have to set a 6 month target and that will definitely help!

newgirly

Hi Miss lemon welcome and good luck

It may be worth thinking about joining the mortgage free in 2017 thread, you can set a target for the year and update monthly. Everyone here is so kind and helpful, if you stick with it, keep posting and read other diaries, you can't fail

Jessy103

Hi Miss Lemon! Wanting to move to a different part of the UK is definitely a good motivator to be mortgage free! Good luck and I have subscribed so looking forward to following your journey!

shangaijimmy

Shiny new diary...! What was your original MF date out of interest?