FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

financialbliss wrote: »

... thus I’ve just made an overpayment by 1.09 which should drop the mortgage to a round 59,500.00 by 31st December.

Just reading / surfing and noticed that it's just gone midnight, so I've just checked the mortgage. It's... wait for it... 59,501.09.

So, I got the interest correct, but the 1.09 overpayment hasn't cleared yet.

Hopefully, this will clear in the next 23 hours and 55 minutes to give a round 59,500.00 as my closing balance for 2008/starting balance for 2009.

On that sad note, I'm turning in for the evening!

FB.

financialbliss

Good stuff - the 1.09 overpayment has now cleared. :j

Mortgage today shows this - direct copy from on-line banking:

31 December 2008 Balance Outstanding £59500.00

I'll update the year end payments and interest when I can today - blisslings to feed and keep happy!

Financial Bliss.

financialbliss

Ok, as it's 31st December, I'm posting the final year end payment and interest figures:

Year starting balance: 69,653.22

Month / Payment / Interest (per day) / Net reduction / Balance.

January: 900.00 / 279.86 (9.03) / 620.14 / 69,033.08
February: 1,250.00 / 249.23 (8.90) / 1,000.77 / 68,032.31
March: 1,250.00 / 271.85 (8.77) / 978.15 / 67,054.16
April: 1,250.00 / 259.23 (8.64) / 990.77 / 66,063.39
May: 1,250.00 / 263.84 (8.51) / 986.16 / 65,077.23
June: 1,000.00 / 252.53 (8.42) / 747.47 / 64,329.76
July: 1,000.00 / 257.78 (8.32) / 742.22 / 63,587.54
August: 1,125.00 / 254.75 (8.22) / 870.25 / 62,717.29
September: 1,025.00 / 243.06 (8.10) / 781.94 / 61,935.35
October: 1,050.00 / 247.84 (7.99) / 802.15 / 61,133.19
November: 1,055.00 / 236.68 (7.89) / 818.32 / 60,314.87
December: 1,056.09 / 241.22 (7.78) / 814.87 / 59,500.00

Totals (Payment / Interest / Net reduction):

Minimum: 900.00 / 236.68 / 620.14
Maximum: 1,250.00 / 279.86 / 1,000.77
Average: 1,100.92 / 254.82 / 846.10
Total: 13,211.09 / 3,057.87 / 10,153.22

Despite the tough year, I'm pretty pleased with that. Nice round 59,500.00 to start 2009 with (not sure if I've mentioned that before... )

Averaging out, managed to pay 1,100.92 per month to the mortgage, ie 13,211.09 which gave a net reduction of 10,153.22 this year - our biggest reduction to date. Mortgage interest for the year was 3,057.87 for the year, averaging out at 254.82 per month or an average daily interest of 8.38 (not shown in the figures above).

Thanks to everyone who posted here in 2008 - your support has been a great driving force. Looking forward to 2009 now...

Financial Bliss.

StuartGMC

FB
Thanks for the summary and well done on hitting that £59.5k :T:T

Best wishes for the target achievement in 2009 and enjoy the time off with family now before we all hit the trail again next week!

JonnyBravo

Mumto5 wrote: »

As a mother of many I would put you over my knee and wash your mind out!;)

Happy new year everyone!

Thats a big job, it's a mind of above average size and it is most definitely filthy. :cool:


To FB....

Well done on your years achievements. Both on the overpaying and on the diary. Good to read all about it. As I've stated before I can't be ar-$ed with a diary of my own but reading yours is good stuff. I'll just post on yours that I've overpaid £4k this year and we're now on course to have paid the mortgage off in Aug '11. (Sorry for the hijack but it gets it down in black and white somewhere)
S'pose the challenge is to reduce that date further but it is getting tantalizingly close now.
:j




I know you had a poll a few months ago about whether you'd make your goal or not and I was the original naysayer (or fly in the ointment if you will) til you joined me in agreeing that you wouldn't make it.
There's been another big change since then though..... the crash in interest rates..... is this making a difference? (I can't remember, I think you're fixed interest, but til when? I can remember you're Nationwide, cos we were til Oct when we finally moved to FD)
Seems to me that the goal might now be realistically achieveable again depending on your mortgage (sorry can't be bothered to look thru your posts to find out what deal you're on)


Looking forward to that "goal setting" post.

Happy New Year all.

abouttimetoo

:rotfl:

Mumto5 wrote: »

As a mother of many I would put you over my knee and wash your mind out!;)

Happy new year everyone!

Big lol's mumto5, me too, I thought it was a rather errm bold statement to make when kaz2904 said it...

FB, great stuff and well done you, not only for your mortgage achievements but for an inspiring diary that has also provided lots of advice and some laughs along the way. Yours was the first diary I read from start to finish when I began this in April. I bet you never thought when you came up with the user name Financial Bliss that it would lend itself to your family so well, Mrs Bliss and the blisslings sounds so lovely and the latter conjures up images of well behaved little cherubs although I'm sure it doesn't always feel that way to you and Mrs FB :rotfl:

Keep up the good work and very best wishes for you in 2009

financialbliss

JonnyBravo wrote: »

I know you had a poll a few months ago about whether you'd make your goal or not and I was the original naysayer (or fly in the ointment if you will) till you joined me in agreeing that you wouldn't make it.

There's been another big change since then though..... the crash in interest rates..... is this making a difference? (I can't remember, I think you're fixed interest, but til when? I can remember you're Nationwide, cos we were til Oct when we finally moved to FD)

We're fixed at 4.79% until March 2011 - so another ~2 years. Isn't too high a fix, and you've also got to bear in mind we've had good times too when the rates were going up. I know some on this mortgage forum have reported being fixed at 6%+.

I've not checked out getting out of the fix in any great detail. I know there is a charge, based on the outstanding mortgage balance I think. Had anyone considered paying to get out of a fixed rate mortgage?

I've just transferred 2,500 to cover mortgage, bills and regular savers coming out on 1st January onwards. I know 1st is a bank holiday and direct debits probably won't come out until 2nd, but I'd rather not incur a bank charge for a bounced direct debit / standing order :eek:

More later... including review of aims for 2008 and aims for 2009

Financial Bliss.

JonnyBravo

financialbliss wrote: »

We're fixed at 4.79% until March 2011 - so another ~2 years. Isn't too high a fix, and you've also got to bear in mind we've had good times too when the rates were going up. I know some on this mortgage forum have reported being fixed at 6%+.

I've not checked out getting out of the fix in any great detail. I know there is a charge, based on the outstanding mortgage balance I think. Had anyone considered paying to get out of a fixed rate mortgage?

Ah right. It's a risk to leave a good rate like that.... think I'd be staying put.... it always is swings and roundabouts with fixed rate jobs anyhow.
I considered it earlier in the year and tried to get Nationwide to waive their charges and to put me on another of their products. It was a no go and led to me leaving them.

financialbliss wrote: »

More later... including review of aims for 2008 and aims for 2009

Financial Bliss.

Look forward to it. :beer:

financialbliss

Just a quick topical post, albeit completely not related to the mortgage...

The earth is slowing, therefore a leap second is being added to the end of the last minute of 2008 - I guess when we're all vino blotto, so we won't notice :rotfl:

I first heard about this 6 or so weeks and I see BBC news has added an article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7797818.stm

When you're all counting down to midnight this evening don't forget its:

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 0

Financial Bliss.

clarew

Another frequent reader here.....love the fb diary, not to mention, setmefree,tallgirl,poppyoscar,stuartgmc,evab,essexhebriean(sp)...to name but a few of my definite reads!

I too cannot commit to doing my own diary, but love reading all the above, it is indeed inspiring to see it is possible. My circumstances have changed this year, we are on 1 salary with a family of 6 of us, living in the money draining capital city, in a modest 3bed house. We currently overpay £40/month regularly and this month i have added £164 to the pot (quidco/surveys/sold bits) :j . I love using the spreadsheet stuart i think sent me, and although with 22yr to go, on a fix of 5.18%currently and a minimal overpayment, it is a great incentive to see the months dropping off. BUT to see/read all your achievements remind me that in 10 years time etc when little ones are bigger and i can work again etc our overpayments will increase and we will be looking at smaller balances hopefully. So keep on diarying and keep on inspiring us for another year.

ps-well done on the 59k balance....mine is only 100k more, ha ha, we finish the year at 159k!:eek: umm, note to self, get cracking on the move out of london plan in the next 2-3yrs!