Quest for (mortgage) freedom

daisy_1571

Well done, eatthatfrog, makes all the hard work very worthwhile 

Daisy xx

South_coast

Wow, wow, wow 😀 What a fantastic result!

LeighofMar

100K in 3 years is amazing! You should be very proud.

eat_that_frog

Hope everyone is having a lovely summer! Ours is going by too quickly...

I put away another £2k in savings at the end of July. That brings me to just over £25k saved year to date out of my target total of £30k. So I'm pleased with that.

With regards our mortgage renewal at end of the year, after numerous discussions it's looking more likely now that we'll be going down a tracker route. It gives us the flexibility to overpay more than 10% per year and if the rates do come down in 2024/25 then we have the option to fix then. Of course it's also a massive gamble if rates spike. As a couple when it comes to money we very rarely make decisions like this, we always take the safe option and would normally fix straight away - but our educated gamble is that we have enough of a flex in our monthly budget to accommodate rates spiking again. Could be famous last words mind you. Fingers crossed.

eat_that_frog

I'm a bit late reporting this but I put £3k into savings in August, taking my yearly savings total to date to £28500.

Looking at ways of trying to squeeze money out of our budget. Having shopped at the German supermarkets for the last decade or so, I moved over to Asda about 6 months ago as I was able to get more value for money from their Just Essentials yellow range. But in recent weeks I think the German supermarkets have become more competitive again so I'll switch back to them for a few weeks to see if I can make savings there.

My OH, having worked from home for the previous 3 or so years, is now having to go into the office a few days a week, so this is having an impact on fuel spending - just as fuel prices are going up again  !

And lastly in more exciting news my little one has started in reception at primary school this week! Fortunately the first few days went very well and it's a relief to my budget that I'm no longer having to pay childcare fees!

KajiKita

Well done on the £3K to savings 😊👏

Hoping that the increased commute costs aren’t wiping out the benefit of the reduced childcare costs?

KK

eat_that_frog

Yeah good question, at the moment we're saving money overall but with fuel prices rising it's possible those savings will eventually be wiped out 

Plus living where we are we are on oil, so although we currently have a full tank, when we need to refill in Jan/Feb time if oil continues to rise like it has done, that might wipe out some of the savings too 

savingholmes

£100K in 3 years is phenomenal. Well done you!

LadyWithAPlan

£100k in 3 years - what an achievement- well done. 

What rate will the tracker be and I hope at least your monthly payment will not be going up too much given your OPs. 

Are you planning to shorten the term as well ? 

eat_that_frog

We managed to get a tracker rate of .2% on top of the BoE base rate, which we're happy with. We wanted the flexibility to overpay the mortgage in unlimited amounts over the next couple of years, rather than being on a fix and being stuck only being able to overpay 10 or 20% before the ERC kicked in. We've kept the term the same and yeah our monthly payment has come down a bit, which should cover inflationary rises elsewhere. We will be putting all our financial efforts (although we were already!) into overpaying the mortgage as much as we can over the next few years. 18 months ago I'd have said we'd be mortgage free by late 2026 based on the progress we were making; now it's probably more likely 2028/2029 based on interest rates and inflation elsewhere.