Mortgage-free by 33? (2023)

Trina90

Overpayment pot savings to date: £2139.45
Target: £20700 by May 2021

Retireinten

You are both doing really well and to be so focused on paying down your mortgage and savings at your age is fanastic.
We paid off our first mortgage at the age of 32 (a while back now ) but it wasn't entirely planned! We received a series of lumpsums in a short space of time (payout from a 10 year savings plan, sold the 'fun' car when baby no 1 arrived, compensation for a car accident and cashed in our endowments). We threw all that at the mortgage and realised we could pay the rest off within a few years. Never looked back after that. We moved house and have paid off a second mortgage since then. 

Now I'm 45 the only thing I'd do differently is find a better balance between mortgage payments and long term savings. Husband is now playing an expensive game of catch up with his pension and in hindsight our money may have worked harder for us had we taken a more leisurely approach to mortgage overpayment. At your age even a relatively small amount diverted towards you pensions will make a big difference long term.

It is worth thinking about if you haven't already... even if that is just to make sure you are taking advantage of the maximum pension contributions your employer will pay. 

Trina90

Retireinten said:

You are both doing really well and to be so focused on paying down your mortgage and savings at your age is fanastic.
We paid off our first mortgage at the age of 32 (a while back now ) but it wasn't entirely planned! We received a series of lumpsums in a short space of time (payout from a 10 year savings plan, sold the 'fun' car when baby no 1 arrived, compensation for a car accident and cashed in our endowments). We threw all that at the mortgage and realised we could pay the rest off within a few years. Never looked back after that. We moved house and have paid off a second mortgage since then. 

Now I'm 45 the only thing I'd do differently is find a better balance between mortgage payments and long term savings. Husband is now playing an expensive game of catch up with his pension and in hindsight our money may have worked harder for us had we taken a more leisurely approach to mortgage overpayment. At your age even a relatively small amount diverted towards you pensions will make a big difference long term.

It is worth thinking about if you haven't already... even if that is just to make sure you are taking advantage of the maximum pension contributions your employer will pay. 

That's amazing you've managed to pay off 2 mortgages already! Later down the line I think we may outgrow this home and upsize too.

We are contributing towards pensions in the form of salary sacrifice. My pension pots are just short of 10k total now. For a while I was contributing the minimum, until I realised this needed upping! 
Our pension contributions have recently changed for the better as well, since our company was bought out. We have gone from contributing, I think 7% and them matching a measly 3% to now paying in 6% and them 8%. It is definitely something that is on my mind to continue focusing on in addition to the mortgage. 

MerryHen

Will be following your progress with interest since we're on a very similar timeline! (We're both 31, 4.5 years into a five year fix, mortgage down from £142,500 to £73,000 and hoping to be mortgage free at 35 😄)

Looking forward to joining you on this journey ☺️

Trina90

Earnings since last update
my pay £1659
husband's £1655
prolific academic studies £53.23
Ebay £4

£1400 for joint regular outgoings/bills
£1700 to go to mortgage overpayment pot
£200ish to savings for home improvements/non-essentials

Trina90

Overpayment pot savings to date: £3784.56
Target: £20700 by May 2021

Trina90

Earnings since last update
my pay £1900
husband's £1720
prolific academic studies £42.88
Ebay £85.66

£1400 for joint regular outgoings/bills
£1700 to go to mortgage overpayment pot
£600ish to savings for home improvements/non-essentials

We are finally close to getting our refund from Virgin Holidays. We are on day 130 since requesting a refund for our cancelled holiday. I certainly learnt my lesson with paying for future holidays. I bought Virgin Instant vouchers through my employer's employee benefit scheme and paid for most of the holiday with these - the money I am not getting back (although our money is being kept for a future holiday). I may have saved money but I wish I'd paid by credit card, as I'd rather have the money than a holiday at this point. £550 deposit I paid by debit card, so this should be in my bank account this week.. or so I'm told (I was also told it would take no longer than 120 days to get the money back so who knows!). I'm just happy to at least be getting this smaller sum of money back!

Trina90

Earnings since last update
my pay £1864
husband's £1996
prolific academic studies £28.92

Another £1700 headed to the overpayment pot!

Trina90

haven't updated in 10 months. Mortgage now stands at... £51,195.08

Also, excited to announce our family is growing to a family of 3 in 2022. This will definitely make our target of 2023 a challenge. In fact, pretty certain it won't happen, unless we find a big sum of money from somewhere We will try and make another £15k overpayment in the next year, but then our overpayments will be becoming much smaller. Our main goal was to lower our mortgage payments, to enable us to be comfortable and have a family without the pressure of a big monthly mortgage looming over us, so I feel pleased we have achieved that

Jessy103

Congratulations! ❤