A long journey ahead...

debtfreeforlife

I am biting the bullet and creating my first journal on this site, dedicated to my goal of becoming mortgage free and retiring at 60 - hoping to record my progress and pick up some tips along the way!

Both my mortgage free status and retirement status are around 20-30 years away - I am 31, single, living in a mortgaged flat in a relatively expensive part of the country (although thankfully not London prices!). I earn a good salary but am in the civil service so no pay rises any time soon. I want to start overpaying into my pension and have just paid £5k onto my mortgage thanks to a generous family gift. I think I am now hooked on the MFW journey...

bexster1975

Best of luck. I'm about ten years further down the road than you!

Bexster

louloubelle79

All the best on your journey :money:

beanielou

Happy new diary

wishingthemortgaheaway

Best of luck with your journey. You have got plenty of time to do this so I hope you manage to balance mortgage freeness and retiring with a good, comfortable life now.
You are only a few years younger than me, your 20-30 year plan is my 15-25 year plan and you've helped me realise today that it's not the head long urgency it sometimes feels (hubby is pushing 40 which makes things seem more urgent somehow, but that's still another 20 years)

We're in a different position to you currently, I'm taking a career break to look after our little one, so pulling in the purse strings a bit now so as not to derail the long term plans later.

It's all a balance, but find your happy.

Wish.

enthusiasticsaver

Good luck on your journey. It is good to set goals at your age and getting rid of the mortgage is a great thing to aim for. I look forward to seeing your progress.

debtfreeforlife

Thanks all for the welcomes! I'm planning on making another overpayment on the mortgage tomorrow. I currently have two mortgage products. One of them, I used to purchase a house up in the Midlands a few years back, remortgaged in August 2016 and ported across to my flat which I bought this February. The flat's more expensive than the house was so I also purchased a top-up product which is currently at 4.89% interest. My priority is to pay as much as possible off of that top-up product and then either pay down the other product (2.34% interest) or put additional money onto my pension. If I make my planned payment tomorrow then I can reach the 10% limit for this year on that product, and pay more off in February when that limit renews.

Wish - I am slightly the same as you in that I feel like I should be putting everything I can towards this! But I don't want to run towards retirement and being mortgage free and then get to the end of it with a good pension and my own house but also a lot of memories of all the things I didn't do. So I'm looking for a balance of taking care of "tomorrow's me" whilst enjoying the things I love today. Since some of those things I love involve seeing friends and family (who live a way away, and so requires petrol), watching theatre shows, experimenting with cooking etc, they also require money. I want to appreciate the use of every penny, regardless of where it goes - I work flipping hard for those pennies Good luck with your own journey, sounds like you have a solid plan in place and I'm glad that my post helped! Will definitely be checking out your diary to help keep my own on track.

debtfreeforlife

Haven't paid my additional payment yet but that's because my first payment hasn't shown up in my online account yet. As I paid that on Saturday, that's making me a bit nervous. Will phone them tomorrow as have a day off, make sure all is good and make the additional payment.

Betterthanever

Welcome aboard - It's definitely good to start overpaying sooner rather than later. I was on interest-only for the majority of my mortgage life, and it was only when I got divorced and took over the house and the mortgage a few years ago that I suddenly realised the damage that paying off no capital had done. Now I am on catch up big time in order to get the mortgage cleared by a reasonable age. So I would definitely encourage even the smallest of overpayments early on - they will cumulatively make a huge difference!


But, yes, getting that balance right is so important. I look forward to following your journey!

Escapar2020

Good luck on your journey!

Wish I'd be as organised as you at your age, im catching up now though :-)

debtfreeforlife

Just made the final extra payment on the first product! So that's all I can pay on that one until February. I asked my building society to ensure that they were taking time off the term not the monthly payments, and they said that they review all accounts in December and decide amounts for the next year then. Not quite sure how to works. I might try and get an appointment with my local branch to discuss my plans for overpaying and see the best way to do it. I was thoroughly impressed with the customer service when I chose them as a mortgage provider so hoping that will be helpful. In the meantime, I will be putting overpayments into an envelope in clearcheckbook and making them against the other product.

Have also been advised that I will be getting a 1% pay rise at the end of this month (ah, civil service) so want to try and redirect that to my pension.