FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

Double_Trouble wrote: »

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.

Hi DT,
Thanks for poping in and saying hi.

Double_Trouble wrote: »

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 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.

I occasionally drop into the DFW board. Good money saving tips can be found there - I'm sure I could implement a few more.

I was pondering making a post in the DFW forums in the Autumn to see if anyone may be towards the end of their loans / CC debts and perhaps wanted to take up a new mortgage challenge.

As for mortgage numbers - I'm on lunch at preset. I'll try and have look later today when I'm not in the cross fire as I'm still fielding calls - busy today.

Regards,
FB.

financialbliss

Double_Trouble wrote: »

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.

Hi again DT,

Here goes... If I’m reading the info you posted correctly, your situation is part repayment / part interest only mortgage plus credit card balances.

Mortgage IO: 190,000 @ 1.59%
Mortgage Repay: 17,702 @ Rate ?
Credit cards: 52,157 @ 0%
Total: 259,859

Depending on the no. of credit cards and terms of your various 0% deals – I’m presuming you have more than one 0% deal, I’d perhaps look to keep on top of the credit cards, ie pay the minimum on each, but if possible, don’t let them lapse onto higher rates, ie attempt to clear each one at the end of the 0% deal. Not sure how achievable that is without further info.

As for the mortgage – perhaps there’s two distinct strategies here?

Plan 1: Try to clear the repayment part first as a “quick win”, then attack the interest only part next.

Plan 2: However, as the IO part of the mortgage is the largest chunk of the overall debt, if you currently don’t have a repayment vehicle for this debt, I’d seriously consider attempting to make inroads into this first, while keeping on top of the credit cards.

Car: Really well spotted on the Lotus Elise front. One small sentence in 930 posts – you really did read and not just skim this diary. I’m seriously impressed. Sorry, I’m going to put a spanner in the works and ask if this could be put on hold in the short term?


Don’t know if any of the above is any use, but I hope you get sorted and we perhaps see you register for the mortgage free in three – take two later this year.

Finally, I’ve been racking my small brain to try and work out what LOB stood for, found this:

http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/LOB

and as I’m reviewing / spell checking this (I typically draft longer posts in Word first, spell check, then paste to MSE), I’ve realised that LOB is Life Of Balance. Doh. And they say that IT is full of TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms)… :rotfl:

Financial Bliss.

Double_Trouble

financialbliss wrote: »

Hi again DT,

Here goes... If I’m reading the info you posted correctly, your situation is part repayment / part interest only mortgage plus credit card balances.

Mortgage IO: 190,000 @ 1.59%
Mortgage Repay: 17,702 @ Rate ?
Credit cards: 52,157 @ 0%
Total: 259,859:eek: Thanks I have never totalled it!

Both mortgages are at the same rate 1.59%
£5815.76 of CC is on LOB (yes Life of Balance rate) 5.95%

Depending on the no. of credit cards and terms of your various 0% deals – I’m presuming you have more than one 0% deal, I’d perhaps look to keep on top of the credit cards, ie pay the minimum on each, but if possible, don’t let them lapse onto higher rates, ie attempt to clear each one at the end of the 0% deal. Not sure how achievable that is without further info.

6 cards at 0% 2 end in May 09, 1 in Oct 09, 1 in Dec 09, 1 in Jan 10 and 1 in Mar10. Being going through the figures and paying them off without taking new deals (although if I get offered a deal as I did from Mint of 0% no fee for 12 months I would bite their hand off but unlikely) I should if I keep a tight budget and no major catastrophes be able to manage it. At one point Jan 2010 I will be £3K short but this is not allowing for extra income that I can earn by then through mystery shopping, scratchcards, AQA etc so £3K should be manageable in 9 months.


As for the mortgage – perhaps there’s two distinct strategies here?

Plan 1: Try to clear the repayment part first as a “quick win”, then attack the interest only part next.

Plan 2: However, as the IO part of the mortgage is the largest chunk of the overall debt, if you currently don’t have a repayment vehicle for this debt, I’d seriously consider attempting to make inroads into this first, while keeping on top of the credit cards.

Car: Really well spotted on the Lotus Elise front. One small sentence in 930 posts – you really did read and not just skim this diary. I’m seriously impressed. Sorry, I’m going to put a spanner in the works and ask if this could be put on hold in the short term?
"spanner in the works":rotfl:Sorry this has been promised I know it does not make MSE sense but there has to be balance too eg PS3OK not in the same financial league but it is OH only hobby and I need to keep him on board with the DF and MFW.

Don’t know if any of the above is any use, but I hope you get sorted and we perhaps see you register for the mortgage free in three – take two later this year.

The LOB card although it is the highest interest at least it is fixed will have to wait until the 0% are cleared for safety purposes so all CC will be cleared under my current plan by May 2010. Then I will consider the mortgage but I will need to review the interest rates then obviously the repayment one would be the one to clear first as it is the one without tax benefits. The interest only one I am less clear about because with the interest rate as it is now and the tax benefit I don't think it makes sense to pay it off yet.(however psychologically I would love to see the balance come down). So if I can join the challenge although not effectively start to any great degree until May 10 I may save instead and thereby create my own offset with the aim to offset/repay by 12/12/12 depending on interest rates. Although to offset/pay off completely I would need to overpay by over £6K a month so I think I will be around for MFiT(3). 40K a year should be doable so approx May 2015 so perhaps 15/05/15?

Bit fed up now that I have looked at the end date may have to rethink we do still have the option of selling one property or both as we do want to move to a smaller but because of change of area probably not cheaper house


Sorry for the long post but it has helped in some ways although in others raised more issues.


I will continue to watch your diary with interest and hopefully join the quest later.


DT

financialbliss

Double_Trouble wrote: »

40K a year should be doable so approx May 2015 so perhaps 15/05/15?

Double Trouble,

Based on your earlier post:

Double_Trouble wrote: »

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.

2015 would make your husband 66 or 67 depending on which side of May his birthday sits. Is he planning on working past 65 or have you not discussed that yet?

Perhaps a bigger upset than the "Put the Lotus Elise on hold" suggestion I made earlier.

FB.

Double_Trouble

financialbliss wrote: »

Double Trouble,

Based on your earlier post:

2015 would make your husband 66 or 67 depending on which side of May his birthday sits. Is he planning on working past 65 or have you not discussed that yet?

FB.

Our income will continue as is for the foreseeable future as it is dividends from a family business owned since 1870 so barring a woolworths style closure we should be OK and it is only when we decide to deal with passing assets on to our children that our income should change significantly. So working age is not applicable.

DT

mark5

Just spent a few hours reading this thread, i'm impressed financialbliss, well done on what you have achieved so far!

financialbliss

mark5 wrote: »

Just spent a few hours reading this thread, i'm impressed financialbliss, well done on what you have achieved so far!

Hi Mark5,
Thanks very much for popping and saying hi.
FB.

financialbliss

Quick house related. post.

Happy birthday dear house, happy birthday dear house... Exactly 5 years to the day since we got the keys for our current property. Oh how life has changed in 5 years.

Was just two of us them - as we're on a water meter, the water company wanted a count of occupants so they could estimate an inital water direct debit amount. My reply of 2 and eight nineths went over the call centre member's head. No#1's birthday is in two weeks time!

Home Insurance. Another 12 months of home insurance starts today. Stayed with Halifax as this is unlimited buildings and unlimited contents with the ability to pay monthly by direct debit at no extra cost.

Council tax. We got our bill for the 2009/10 tax year yesterday. We're in band 'D' and it's gone up from £137 to £141 per month - an increase of 2.9% - think I recall reading that the average increase was 3% (BBC news?), so we're just under the average.

Cavity wall insulation. Our council has got into partnership with a local insulating firm and as we have small blisslings (not their words in the letter mind you :rotfl:), we're eligible for free cavity wall insulation. Firm turned up this week, drilled a small hole in the wall to discover we're already insulated.

FB.

StuartGMC

financialbliss wrote: »

Cavity wall insulation. Our council has got into partnership with a local insulating firm and as we have small blisslings (not their words in the letter mind you :rotfl:), we're eligible for free cavity wall insulation. Firm turned up this week, drilled a small hole in the wall to discover we're already insulated. FB.

Well at least you now know!
I assume you already have improved loft insulation for which you can get grants too (irrespective of income and kids etc)? A good "incentive" to clear out all the c%!p in the loft and once insulated it is not available for storage again (which is why our garage is full )

SmlSave

Happy Birthday for yesterday House!

You going to have a party for No#1?