The Mortgage Free in Three - Take 5 challenge (MFiT-T5)

SuperSecretSquirrel

Congratulations to all of you that have paid off your mortgages and/or met your targets! 🍻

I'm one of the eager beavers trix-a-belle - final update has just been submitted, ended up at 153% of our target 😁

I'm sad to say I won't be taking part in MFiT6. It feels a bit weird, having been part of the challenge for the past 9 years, but I don't really feel like it makes sense for us anymore. Mortgage gone, automatic monthly payments into ISA and pensions (valuations entirely out of our control), and no cash savings target/intentions. It feels like this part of the journey is over for us.

This challenge has been a huge help along the way, and I'm so glad it existed! Thanks @trix-a-belle, and @financialbliss before you 🙂

Best of luck to all the MFiT6 challengers, you can do it!

stoplurking

Hi all 

just submitted my update - mortgage balance is NIL!  I did it, I cleared my mortgage on 17 December 21. It is thanks to this thread and to Trix-a-belle for running it that I’ve been able to do it.  I could see I was lagging behind a bit so made extra efforts to get caught up for the last quarter.  I’m delighted😃
Well done to everyone else who has met their target, and, if you missed it, there’s always time to have another go. Good luck Everyone and thanks again Trix x

DiscountDuck

Wow, well done to all who managed to clear their mortgages. It inspires me to keep plugging away so that hopefully that can be me in a couple more years! 

mummytummy

Just submitted my final update for this challenge, thanks again trix-a-belle for running this challenge 😊

pinknsparkly

I've smashed my target of reducing my mortgage balance to £190k. As of the end of the challenge tomorrow, it will stand at £174,256.50. We have decided to put our house on the market, so I made the maximum overpayment I could for 2021 on the 31st December  I had to ring my bank to get them to calculate how much more I could overpay within my 10% fee-free allowance. With all the small overpayments I've made here and there, it took the poor lady about 20 minutes to work it out manually We've still got two years in the fixed rate part of our mortgage, so I wanted to max out our overpayments to reduce the early repayment charge.

I'm very very happy with this, and will see you all on the MFiT-T6 challenge (even if my target will have to change massively once we've moved house!)

Thank you so much for running this challenge Trix, I've found it very motivating. I've also been on the Mortgage Free Wannabe annual challenges which I've found inspiring too. But I've enjoyed the way the two challenges measure the overpayments slightly differently (this one is based on outstanding mortgage balance and the annual challenges on total overpayments). It makes me feel like I'm achieving double as they aren't *quite* the same challenge!

AvidSaver

Although I didn’t quite meet my target to clear the £84,219 start balance at the beginning of the challenge, I was super happy to end with a balance of just £4,999 which should be cleared in the next couple of months.  

Clearing my own mortgage  will enable me to build savings to help my son and younger daughter with a larger deposit to get on the property ladder.  Both live away from home for employment and renting a room in a house is costing as much as a mortgage!   

trix-a-belle

& just like that...
Chart 12

Its amazing to see how far everyone has come over the duration of the T5 challenge
The starting stats originally were..

trix-a-belle said:

The collective aims are to reduce mortgages/increase savings by more than £2,125,000 from a starting figure of nearly £5,240,000

which became £2,572,675 with mid journey adjustments & the final figure over the line is that we have reduced mortgages/increase savings by £2,329,206 which is immense!

We've had 13 challengers become mortgage free during the 3 years.
Greent wins the super smasher % award for obliterating 274% of their target, & crv1963 & Lumiona get honorable mentions for also well and truly kicking their targets into touch.
SuperSecretSquirrel gets the wodgiest wallet award for increasing their savings by £125,113 and being a loooong way down the road to FIRE, which considering the rubbish we have all been through for the majority of the challenge and how much of wobble its given the markets has to be recognised & applauded *wheres the clap smilie when you need it*

Thank you to everyone who has continued updating and posting to encourage others.
Thank you to Financial Bliss and Dithering Dad for the previous challenges & setting it up originally, and Julicorn for taking it forward for T6.

Cheery_Daff

Oops, I forgot my update! Will do it tomorrow if not too late - I think I'mij the green at least!

trix-a-belle

Cheery_Daff said:

Oops, I forgot my update! Will do it tomorrow if not too late - I think I'mij the green at least!

you won't be the only one.
i'll input it when I see it

Radish72

Thank you so much Trix for running this, I only joined in challenges 4 and 5 and I'm one of the people that cleared my mortgage during this one.

So for any one lurking thinking their mortgage is just to big, please join the next one as it really helps spur you on.

Looking at the final chart, its looking good for a lot number of people to hit that magic number of zero very soon