Quest for (mortgage) freedom

SandyShores

Great goal achievements and congratulations on the new job - hope you're enjoying it. 

savingholmes

Fantastic progress. Have a happy new year!

eat_that_frog

eat_that_frog said:

Thought I'd kick off my 2022 diary entries by listing my goals for the year:

1. I'm aiming for £18k overpayments, so around 10% of outstanding balance, which should take me down to £175k left owing on the mortgage at the end of 2022
2. As I can't overpay any more than 10%, I'm also aiming to put £3k into savings. When my mortgage fixed rate finishes next year I will put it towards the mortgage then
3. Lose a further 14lb in weight, taking me back down to my pre baby weight of around 9 and a half stone
4. I started decluttering in May last year and reached about 1300 items decluttered. I'm going to roll that amount forward so by the end of this year I'm hoping to have decluttered 2022 items from my home/garage/garden.

So by the end of the year if I am successful, my mortgage should be around the £175k mark, my emergency fund should be £3k bigger, my bathroom scales should read around 9 and a half stone, and my decluttering progress should have topped 2022 items.

As we're coming to the end of 2022, thought this is a good opportunity to summarise my achievements this year.
I set the goals above at the beginning of the year and I cannot believe that 12 months has passed so quickly. Anyway...

In terms of the mortgage, I met my goal for 2022 and overpaid £18k as planned. This brings my outstanding mortgage balance down to about £171k - I started 2022 with a mortgage balance a bit above £200k.

In terms of savings, due to a bit of luck with bonuses and promotions I met and exceeded my goal of £3k and instead saved around £12k. I'm delighted with this as it puts me in a good position to make a big lump sum OP on my mortgage in January 2023 and save on the interest straight away, rather than make trickle OPs throughout the year.

With regards my weight unfortunately I didn't quite hit my target however I did lose 9lbs in 2022 which I am very happy about.

With regards decluttering, I didn't hit my 2022 target but I did declutter a further 300 items during the year which is good progress.

So all in all I'm really happy with my progress in 2022 and it gives me confidence that I can make further good progress in 2023. I'm looking forward to celebrating a peaceful New Year with family over the coming days.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Jessy103

Great progress, well done!

Happy New Year to you and all the best for 2023 🙂

LeighofMar

Congrats. Those were some awesome goals and you did great achieving them. 

savingholmes

Well done on your progress. Happy New Year for 2023!

eat_that_frog

Happy new year to everyone!

As we're now well into January, thought I would list my 2023 goals, to help keep me accountable and making progress to reach my target of mortgage freedom.

My goals for 2023 are:

1. Mortgage: overpay £16k. This is the maximum I can overpay in 2023 without incurring an early repayment charge.

2. Savings: save £30k in 2023 - this is a really ambitious stretch goal to set myself. But with my recent promotion and my other half's planned promotion in June this year (which fingers crossed will happen), I think this is possible.

3. Weight: lose 12lbs, this amounts to 1lb a month which I think is doable

4. Decluttering: declutter 600 items. Again broken down by month, that's 50 items, which is definitely achievable - I just have to set aside the time to do it and do it consistently.

So by the end of 2023 if I am successful, my mortgage should be around the £151k mark, I should have £30k set aside in savings ready for remortgaging, my bathroom scales should read that I'm 10lbs lighter, and my decluttering progress should have topped 2023 items since starting my decluttering journey in 2021.

With regards my mortgage and savings goals, these are deliberately ambitious this year because we are due to remortgage in the last quarter of this year. We took a 5 year fixed mortgage when we bought this house in early 2019 (I can't believe we are nearing the end of that 5 year fix, where has the time gone!) Our current mortgage has a rate of 1.9%. Our next mortgage rate will likely be 2 or 3 times that, perhaps 4 or 5 times that, who knows. So my goal this year is to get the mortgage as close to £150k as possible through regular payments and OPs, and to increase our savings by £30k, so that when we remortgage at the end of the year we are in the best position to access the best rates but also to shorten the term.

With everything feeling so uncertain at the moment, I am concentrating on the things that I can control, and getting my mortgage balance down as much as I can is one of those things.

savingholmes

Great list of goals there. Best of luck

try_harder

Wow ,those are great targets and i can tell reading through your diary that you will reach them 

powerspowers

Well done on your achievements in 2022 eat that frog, and good luck with the mortgage savings this year. £200k down to £171k is a fantastic achievement and is more than half way to £150k!