Quest for (mortgage) freedom

eat_that_frog

Well the energy company we were with went bust. My message yesterday was prophetic. Following Martin Lewis's advice now on what to do next.

I've never felt more strongly in favour of overpaying the mortgage and getting our debt to zero. I'm feeling really focussed right now.

I need to do another SOA to reflect my new role and understand (roughly) what our outgoings will look like after energy price rises, council tax rises, etc.

eat_that_frog

Hope everyone is having a good Autumn so far, we've been hit by a bad cold, not Covid thankfully. To put a MSE spin on our bad colds, we've barely been out of the house in Oct so our current accounts are looking really healthy right now 

This week I made a £2k OP on the mortgage. This now brings the mortgage total down to £202,600. We are SO close to the number ticking down into the £199k bracket, I can feel it. I don't think we'll quite get there next payday but it's looking likely just in time for Christmas. So far this year I've overpaid just shy of £17k, I am so close now to my 2021 OP goal of £20k.

In other news, I've no idea how my weight loss is going, I've eaten a lot of buttered toast and other stodgy food recently to try and get me through this cold, but once I'm well again I'll get back on with it because I loved seeing the results. No decluttering either for a long time, I need to get on with that. There's still the greenhouse and garage to tackle, not to mention the loft which I just don't dare look at 

With regards energy supplier, we were moved in the end pretty smoothly after our old supplier went bust. The difference in price hasn't been horrific either, which is good because there's just no choice right now. And I imagine it'll get worse before it gets better. We're out in the sticks so we're on oil for heating and hot water, electric for cooking and power. Oil isn't cheap either 

Anyway I'm going to go and catch up with other people's diaries now, I've not been on this site for other a month so have a lot of catching up to do!

SandyShores

Amazing to be almost at the £199k figure.

eat_that_frog

Absolutely delighted to report that today I made an overpayment of around £2k, which takes my mortgage total to £199,000!!

This means I've now paid off one-fifth of the mortgage (starting balance was £250k) since we bought the house in early 2019. I cannot describe what it means to have got the first number left owing down from a 2 to a 1.

I looked through previous posts of mine and came across a post from January this year where I crossed the £225k threshold, and was somewhat pessimistic that I'd paid off one-tenth and it felt like such a long way to go...I feel so happy that 12 months later I've effectively doubled that progress. It proves to me what I can achieve if I really concentrate on living an MSE life.

In terms of my other goals, no further progress made on weight loss, but we've all been so ill with colds and other bugs since Oct I've been concentrating on calories in rather than out. 

But I am happy to say that I finally got round to decluttering the garage and the greenhouse - over 250 items decluttered in there! Looks so much better out there. Also took the opportunity to declutter the Xmas boxes up in the attic, got rid of some things in there too. I will tackle the rest of the attic in 2022, and will roll my 2021 challenge and total over to next year. To date so far around 1200 items decluttered! 

And as we continue to overpay the mortgage, and it becomes a little less of the bank's and a little more ours, and as we continue to declutter and sort, I'm sure I love the house more and more.

Hope everyone has a peaceful Christmas 

South_coast

What a wonderful update to read 😀! Well done you on all your achievements this year, brilliant work x

SandyShores

That's amazing, and in less than three years!!  Well done, it will be a lovely start to the new year.

eat_that_frog

Thanks @South_coast and @SandyShores hope you both had a good Christmas!

eat_that_frog

eat_that_frog said:

It'll be interesting to look at this post again at the end of the year and see how I've got on. If I've met these goals (or come very close), at the end of the year my mortgage total after regular payments and overpayments should be around £200k and the scales should show me as 14lb lighter! Something to aim for... 

As we're fast approaching the end of the year I looked back at my post from the beginning of the year where I set out my goals for 2021. I'm really happy that I managed to make the following progress this year:

I overpaid £19,000 on the mortgage and brought the mortgage balance down from around £226k at the start of the year to now £199k.

I've lost 14lb in weight and am looking and feeling much better for it.

And an additional goal added midway through the year:

I've decluttered over 1300 items from my house and garage, some of which we sold and put the money towards a new patio in our garden, which looks fantastic.

I was also promoted midway through the year which helped our finances, and although I can't say it's the best job I've ever done, it was a good and necessary step to take as I'd been in my previous role for a bit too long and was starting to get a bit cynical about things.

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year and hope 2022 is more positive and a bit more back to normality again 

SandyShores

Great achievements eat_that_frog!

powerspowers

Fantastic achievements frog! I love how it’s helped change your mindset from feeling pessimistic about 10% to optimistic about 20%!! Roll on 2022!