Mortgage Free - What Will You Do Next?

Mortgagefreegonnabe

Well done Lomcevak. Your diary might be next on my list to read! 
To answer your question:
Travel/ downsize/ option to change jobs or reduce hours in the future if my body starts to protest on my physically hard work job.
In that order. Although the travel will hopefully be happening alongside the MFW 

Lomcevak

Mortgagefreegonnabe said:

Well done Lomcevak. Your diary might be next on my list to read!

Sadly I never did one - it would be a bit dull really, it's just been a case of plugging away at it. I've paid off £190k in seven years, but the only "secret" there is that my salary has more than doubled in that time but my expenses haven't changed (if anything, they've dropped a bit) so I've ended up with a lot of free cash to push at my FIRE plans. I prioritized pension first, then mortgage. It's very easy to get drawn in to lifestyle inflation as your salary rises, and avoiding that is probably the only smart financial thing i've done.

It's interesting that lots of people are considering downsizing jobs and/or reducing hours. It's definitely an aspiration for me, but I've not really given any thought to how I would actually do it. Are there any good resources out there? The ideal would be something like three days a week as a skilled "do-er" rather than leader (i'm currently a director-level engineer, and escaping the stress and meetings to do real work sounds a great idea). But quite how to make that transition...?

AprilR

We are almost 3 years into our mortgage journey. We have 2 more left on this deal and then hoping to get another 5 year fix, to be done with the mortgage. We will be in our early 30’s when we aim to be mortgage free. We currently don’t have children and we’re engaged. I’m budgeting for a wedding, neither of us are wanting a big wedding, so hoping we can still achieve our goals. Obviously if we have children our mortgage timeline might change. I would like to not have to worry about needing to work full time if we have children and to be able to have experiences together. We went on a road trip in canada last year, so would like to do something like that again in the future. We’re already in a decent size house, just a couple of pet peeves with the size of the kitchen etc, but we have room to grow in the house. This is my first post about our mortgage, people that know us think we’re obsessed and cheapskates 🤣. I love saving money and getting a bargain, when mortgage free, I don’t think those habits will change! 
I love reading all your diaries and seeing your plans 😊

Youthgonewild

That sounds fab, April. Being mortgage free before having kids will set you in good stead for life (unlike me who got a mortgage BECAUSE I had children). Your plan sounds pretty concrete, I wish you all the best. 

Durban

We were mortgage free 7 years ago at the age of 47

6 years ago we bought and moved into a new house. We kept our old house - released money from it - turning it into a BTL mortgage ,keeping 25% in the old house and put the remaining 75%  onto our new house and rented out our old house.

This left us with a mortgage of around £92000.  We will pay off our current mortgage in the middle of next year.

We still have our old house rented out and still have that on a BTL mortgage ( interest only ) .  It now has about 55% LTV rate.

We will use the BTL property eventually to help our 3 children with a deposit for their own properties and put the rest towards our pensions.

When we are mortgage free again next year - new kitchen  , various home improvements and a new car for me.  We already put as much as we can afford into our pensions

LadyGnome

We have been mortgage free once but decided we really wanted to live in a different bit of the London Borough we are in. We rent out the other house and I am pushing the mortgage on this one.  We are early 50’s and so we are running a parallel reduce the mortgage and build assets plan. The mortgage should be paid off in the next 7 years by which time the children will be adults.   

I am looking forward to choosing how much I work. I want to travel more slowly and outside of the school holidays.  I want to spend more time growing stuff. 

It’s a quite a psychological shift when you don’t have a mortgage and it was a sign of how much we wanted to move that we took on another one. 

Youthgonewild

Durban, LadyGnome, you've both done similar things. I imagine the psychological impact of not having a mortgage is HUGE! My mortgage is only 350 a month so not very big at all. It's the just the fact that I have centuries left on it and kids who need childcare/wraparound care at school, that makes me feel I will be restricted in life for as long as I have it. I dont know if that makes sense. Basically, I'm working to live and it's very stressful. I am thankful in a sense that lockdown has allowed me time with my children that I never would have had otherwise. The money I have saved on fuel for work has gone on OPs. My signature will need an update soon. 

AprilR

Youthgonewild thank you, I’m hoping we can pay as much off as we can and achieve our goals. However I feel that I would like children before the age of 33 ahha. Me and my partner agree about how being mortgage free at that age will benefit our future selves. I keep trying to find a way to knock it down further as I’m obsessed. 

I love seeing what other people are doing, keeps me motivated 😊

Youthgonewild

The obsession only gets worse

Bargainhunter30

Our plan when mortgage free hopefully in 5 years when I'm 40 will be to both work part time, enjoy family time, do several activities - we enjoy surfing, cycling, running, travelling. Maybe get a camper van or a small holding if we feel we want to expand our small veg patch! My mil has a farm and oh is convincing her to get pigs!!