FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

jfox wrote: »

Can i ask a personal question..what does most OH think about paying the mortgage early? I only came accross the idea from reading through this thread and started to think very seriously about it. However whenever i mention it to my OH it seems to bore her she is supportive and thinks the idea of being mortgage free before we are 30 is a great idea but i just can't seem to motivate her in the same way.

I like your voucher ideas FB, thats a great idea and maybe something i could copy from you to get the missus motivated.

Well, from our point of view, while Mrs Bliss is clearly interested in being mortgage free, but less interested in the journey - just the result.

To take our own situation - we managed a 105k deposit on this home due to being nearly mortgage free on our previous property. If we had just let the mortgage take it's course, we'd probably have needed somewhere in the region of 150k mortgage.

I certainly would not have been able to afford that on a single wage, forcing Mrs Bliss back to work instead of taking a career break. So, we're benefiting already from reducing a previous mortgage.


Being mortgage free before you're 30 would be great - gives all sorts of opportunities, but you both have to be on board.

On the voucher front, I'll still have to convert the paper IOU's to the actual £5,000 once we're mortgage free - but hopefully that should set us on our way for a really good Orlando Florida holiday.

FB.

financialbliss

Just doing some late night surfing and spotted this:

http://www.unison.org.uk/news/news_view.asp?did=5194

Genuinely wasn't expecting any more after the stand off in the 2008-09 pay award, but looks like we're getting an extra 0.3% - already had 2.45% so that brings the total to 2.75%. Better than nothing! I've calculated that I should get around 6.50 per month more after tax.

Ironically, I doubt I'll see this in my March pay, suspect it will be April, ie the start of the 2009-10 pay "season". Exactly why it takes up to 12 months to agree and award a pay claim, I've no idea

I'd rather have a modest 1% or 2% and keep my job thanks - paid from April 2009 instead of up to 12 months of wrangling, bickering and stand offs. Pay claim was for 6% in 2008-09.

IMHO, any more than 3% in the current economic climate and they're going to look like fools.

FB.

financialbliss

The site I use to get the house price index was updated today for February, so I can now report our theoretical house value. Reported this last moth with a comment. can't remember if I post these occasionally or monthly, so I've decided to post monthly. Yet another set of stats for those of you who like the numbers...

2008 year end house value: 232,022.54

Month: Change / Value / LTV

January: 1,990.83 / 234,013.37 / 24.94%
February: 859.68 / 233,153.69 / 24.63%

Index dropped, therefore our value dropped in February. I average out the mortgage over the course of a month, which used with the house price can determine the loan to value (LTV).

FB.

financialbliss

Next set of stats. The March mortgage payment and overpayment finally cleared today.

Mortgage today is 56,385.60.

Since starting my own five year challenge / diary, 15 months have elapsed with 45 months remaining, meaning we're a quarter of the way there already :eek:

I've updated signature, plus I've updated the charts on post #1 - to date we've paid 3,600 to the mortgage this year and with 485.60 interest charged, that gives a net reduction of 3,114.40.

FB.

financialbliss

financialbliss wrote: »

So, I’d pencilled in a 2009 aim to report net income, spending and savings for the previous month by the 5th of the following month, but then discarded this as I didn’t want the diary to be too heavy numbers wise.

I’ve reflected on this and decided I’m going to add this in as an aim, mainly to encourage me to calculate spending against income, although these may not be pretty numbers. :eek:

So, with it being the 5th (just), I need to get organised and calculate the income / spending stats for February. Not at all pretty. Holiday and washing machine was paid for, plus some of en suite paid for. Look away now if you scare easily...

Month: Net Income / Spending / Savings

January: 2,428.79 / 2,581.74 / 28.24
February: 2,409.46 / 3,369.40 / -950.00

Just need to point out that these figures may differ slightly from what I reported in the previous month. Some of our monthly saver accounts don't have internet access - once I know the monthly interest, I adjust the income and savings accordingly.

March is going to be equally ugly - remainder of en suite costs.

FB.

StuartGMC

FB
As a snapshot it is not nice having to call upon savings to fund things, I don't like to do it, but of course it's why we saved the money originally :rotfl:

It's all budgeted/allowed for, so hope April will swing things round.

financialbliss

Oops - another late night update...

I tend to keep a scrap of A4 paper close by and whenever I get an idea to write about something, I jot it down. Think I had 9 items this week on the A4 sheet, but simply haven't had the time to spend discussing them.

En suite. The plumber returned yesterday and connected everything up. Almost complete now, still a few odds 'n' ends to do, but I'll discuss in a separate post. Haven't fully costed everything yet, but I suspect it's going to be more than I expected.

Home insurance. Spend this evening doing this. Current renewal quote is £196 - nearly all of the cash back insurers are quoting £300 plus. I've discovered Churchill are slightly less at £182, but Halifax will spread the insurance over 12 months at no additional cost.

Finally, there's a couple of insurers I've never heard of offering insurance at the £156 mark. Need to check to make sure I'm comparing like with like - perhaps get a few more quotes too. Far to late this evening to do this. One for tomorrow.

FB.

Kaz2904

Please name names because I just realised that we've not actually had any insurance (buildings or conents) since last year. That's the problem when only one person is on top of these things! I must get this sorted ASAP!

ETA: DH want's to know what kind of discount we're all getting for going on holiday together!!!

financialbliss

Kaz2904 wrote: »

Please name names because I just realised that we've not actually had any insurance (buildings or conents) since last year. That's the problem when only one person is on top of these things! I must get this sorted ASAP!

ETA: DH want's to know what kind of discount we're all getting for going on holiday together!!!

Hi Kaz,
Sorry - the £196 was Halifax. Can pay this as a one-off amount, or spread over 12 months via direct debit at no extra cost. Churchill managed to beat this @ £182.70, but this is a one-off payment. A few others have came in at £156 and a bit pounds, but to be honest, I'd never heard of them.

In weird financial times such as these, I'd be more inclined to take up insurance with a bigger name, eg Churchill, Halifax, Direct Line etc, rather than someone I've never even heard of before!

Need to study details this evening. That said, I've got a cooling off period with Halifax, as if I do nothing, the policy continues rather than lapses and I'd need to instruct them to cancel.


As for a Floria holiday, not at the forefront of my mind at the mo, but it made me smile none the less.

FB.

Double_Trouble

Wow Financial Bliss just finished reading your diary. I love your attention to detail it really appeals to my nerdy number side I am constantly adding up various scenarios in my head or on bits of paper.

As you will see from my sig I am a DFW but can't resist lurking on the MFW board but this is my first post here. I have made real practical changes since my lightbulb moment and although the CC debt is still huge all of it is now on 0% except for one LOB card so my monthly interest has reduced from £830:eek: a month to £30:D.

The one non MSE factor is the car fund I remember in your diary you saying that you had a Lotus Elise picture on your computer this is what my husband wants. Not a mid life crisis as we are significantly older than you I have just turned 50 and OH 60 last year so have come to MSE late in life but fully on board now. So as his write off insurance cheque was what enabled us to start our debt free journey I have decided that this car will be his.

I would like to think we could join your MF journey MFiT(2) but will have to assess this over the next few months before the Dec 09 start point. Will have to get details of the end dates of the 0% deals and work out a plan. 12/12/12 would be great as we are not getting any younger and have twins aged 18 about to go to Uni and twins aged 3 about to start school in Sept.

Our mtg is about (must get it online) £207K with £180K190K interest only. It is a tracker started last Aug running for 2 years collar is unenforcable so payment has fallen by £660 a month already and due to fall again next month. I know I am on the MFW board so what I am about to say is heresy but I have let the DD go down each time to release funds to pay the CCs but as these are now under control I will have to reassess that decision. Further complication is that the interest on the 180K190K mortgage is a taxable expense against the letting of our property in Lanzarote. (For one day we were mortgage free :rolleyes:to enable us to class the mortgage on our home as a business expense). Can pay off 10% of mtg each year need to check whether that 10% can be fully applied to the repayment part of the mtg? Update mtg as at today is £207,702.15 with 190K interest free rate at the moment 2.09% but will go down to 1.59% on 1st April all repayments would go off repayment part first. Surely with the rate so low I can even with low interest rates get a better savings rate than this?

Further complication (why in debt in the first place) only get paid every 3 months 1/3 end of April & Oct and 1/6 Jan & July.

So present plan is min payment on mtg min payment on CC (because of 0%) save everything for car should be bought in May 09 and then save everything to pay off CC as 0% rates end (need to check that this plan will work.). Need to see if any payments to mtg are manageable and cost effective.

I would appreciate your thoughts. I will try to get the figures sorted so that I have more info to give.

Thanks for reading my ramble and hope you don't mind me posting this on your thread.

DT