FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

setmefree2

FB wait until they get to High School - school dinners run at 2.50 to £3 each per day per child ( I have 2) I spend about £100 a month:eek: on school food. That said,they do love their school food and that does include a snack at break and maybe the odd drink too...:D

financialbliss

Oops – been a bit busy of late. Time for an update.

Weblog. Well, according to the BBC technology article I read on Monday, the term weblog is now 10 years old, being coined on 17/12/1997. It was coined by Jorn Barger:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorn_Barger

Two years later the “we” was dropped from the front, leaving the term blog. I hadn’t actually realised it was that old a term!

I think it’s great that there’s a forum on MSE. This focusses the viewer into common subject areas of interest. You’re not likely to post a reply here unless you’ve got a vested interest in mortgages and being mortgage free.

Thanks everyone for supporting me in my quest, reading my ramblings and posting replies.

Pay. Get paid tomorrow, but got my payslip today. Includes an additional 500 pounds, which was nice. This is the cumulative effect of 9 months of pay rise – backdated from April 2007, plus a small amount of backdated overtime.

Mortgage. A few posts ago I queries if I should overpay or save and apply to the mortgage at some future point. The consensus was overpay, plus that was my preferred option anyway. I’ve since requested a change of term form from Nationwide and requested a reduction in term from the current term of approximately 13 years 10 months, down to 7 years and 8 months – an immediate reduction of 6 years and 10 months off the term.

Remember – I’m looking to clear my mortgage in about 5 years, so I’m hoping further overpayments will remove the remaining 2 years and 8 months from the term before this 5 year quest is up.

The bad news? This means I’m committing myself to a minimum mortgage payment of 900 per month. Well it's not that bad, as I’m hoping to budget around 1,250 a month towards the mortgage from 1st January. In reality, this means I can pay between 900 and 900 + 500 overpayment, ie 1,400 a month to my mortgage.

I’m awaiting a formal confirmation of this from Nationwide.

I'm sure I had another point or two that I wanted to say, but that escapes me at present, so I'll leave it there for now...

Thanks,
FB.

helensmoney

Hello! I'm realtively new here and have just been reading through lots of MFW posts as am about to take on my first mortgage. So exciting but depressing at the same time! We're taking out £112,250 over 32 years (eek! - they wouldn't let us do a shorter term for some reason) but I do hope to be mortgage free by the time I'm 40, hopefully by the end of 2022, which I think is acheivable based on future earnings potential but without me spending the next 15 years with no life!

Kaz 2904: Isn't 22/12/2012 the date that the Myan people predicted that the world would end!? What a date to finish your mortgage!

setmefree2

Eeeeeks the world's gonna end :eek::eek: Why did nobody tell meeee - why am I paying of my mortgage ahhhhhhhh:D:rotfl:

helensmoney

Bit strange, I know. I remember reading that date when I was about 15 years old and it's just stuck in my head for some reason!! x

Kaz2904

Fan blinking tastic! At least I've managed to get it down to 22/11/2012.
So at present I will be mortgage free for 30 days before the end of the world.
I read it aloud as DH is home for lunch and he knew the date too.
I'm hoping to knock one month off my debt free date in the next couple of months but don't think I'll manage many more months reduction over the rest of the term.

financialbliss

Well in my defence, just in case you’re thinking it’s all been PS3 since I purchased it, firstly I had my Christmas do on Thursday 20th. Starting just after 12pm for a “few” drinks before a 13.30 meal, this wiped out the remainder of Thursday, and indeed, Friday morning as far as any diary entries went.

Next was a Christmas do on Saturday. As I had totally maxed out on the alcohol on Thursday, I opted to drive. Met up with 8 friends and went for a Spanish tapas meal followed by a few drinks before heading home.

Then there’s been Christmas present deliveries. Done a few of those today and by the time you’ve popped in, had a chat and stayed a while, it can eat up a considerable amount of time.

And finally, as I finished work for the year at Thursday lunchtime, I’ve been trying to spend a little more time with the family.

We’re hosting a Christmas lunch for 8 this year, first time ever! I think the hardest part will not be any actual part of the meal preparation, but getting the timings right and still finding time to make sure the kids enjoy Christmas day. That said, I’m sure it’s just pre-Christmas stress; there’s be 6 adults – more than enough to keep two kids occupied.

Edit. As I typically draft these before I post, mrs bliss has now gone to our local ASDA which opened on Christmas Eve at midnight, so that we can get the veg and any last minute provisions. Until about 40 minutes ago when #2 kicked off, we were going to do this later today.

End of the world? On to a reply of the date of the end of the world date of 22/12/2012 by Helensmoney. A very quick google didn’t reveal much. I’ll probably look into this again at some point. One plus point is that I’ll be able to have 10 days of high living, if I clear my mortgage by 12/12/12 :rotfl:

Mortgage. Since my last post on the subject, we’ve had an official reply from Nationwide regarding the change of term of the mortgage. Our monthly mortgage payment is now 898.03 from January 2008. I’m still allowed to make up to 500.00 per month via overpayments, so effectively I can now pay between 898.03 and 1,398.03 per month to the mortgage, which should be more than flexible enough for variations in payments.

Not sure if I’ll get much time before Christmas day, so just a short note to everyone who’s been following this diary to wish you all a Merry Christmas and MFW 2008.

:xmassign::xmassign::xmassign::xmassign::xmassign::xmassign::xmassign::xmassign::xmassign:

Thanks,

Financial Bliss.

setmefree2

Happy Christmas FB:xmassign:

taka

:xmassign: To you and your family FB! :xmastree:

financialbliss

Well, we made it through Christmas day without any mishap. In fact it was much easier than I expected. We were cooking for 8! We spent a bit more time in the kitchen than I would have liked, but everything appeared to have turned out ok.

Presents. We got an excellent range of presents ranging from a practical cocktails book, which mrs bliss informs me she sourced for a massive 29p to a digital tv recorder (personal video recorder or PVR) as our video recorder died earlier this month aged 11 years.

Post Christmas sales. We’ve had a bit of a spend. Bought #1 a new pair of shoes, a new every day dinner set as our existing one is either seriously chipped or we’ve now got items missing, a new set of rice / pasta storage jars and a carpet washer. If you’re not quick enough, #2 can throw her food around and you can end up wiping it off the walls / floor. We’re hoping to get a bit longer out of the existing carpets, so being able to wash them should help.

Cash flow. As most of our direct debits are either at the end of the month, or the first of the month, I was earlier this evening looking at our cash requirements for the week ahead. We’ve also got two monthly savers to feed.

I need a total of around 1,700 and unfortunately, I don’t have all of it. Our money is split into “pots”. Currently all of my salary goes into a joint pot, however when we were both working we paid into the joint pot, leaving us both a personal allowance. Fortunately, mrs bliss has enough personal savings to be able to loan the shortfall to the joint pot.

Credit card. This has taken a bit of a battering. We always pay our credit cards in full, but again I’m behind in putting receipt details into Microsoft Money, so I was quite alarmed when I logged onto the card and the statement was 1,525. This includes the PS3, “Christmas”, ie presents and food etc as well as the normal monthly spend. I’ll be paid before this is due, but clearly we need to start reducing our spending.

Mortgage. This starts at 898.03 on 1st January. I was going to round up to 1,000 this month and then start at around 1,250, but in light of the cash flow crisis and the credit card bill, I think I’ll just be rounding up by 1.97 to 900.

2007 / 2008. As the year comes to a close, I’ve decided I’ll do two posts, which are typical of this time of year. These are:

• Reflection on 2007
• Aims for 2008

As I’ll be running this diary for a number of years, I can then review my aims at the end of 2008 and then repeat. Should get these drafted in the next few days.

FB.