Mortgage Free: The final countdown

rugbymadfamily

Great progress @mark55man, no point being annoyed at what you could have done before, you can only take action here and now which is what you are doing. Keep the good work up!

mark55man

very true @rugbymadfamily - although if you can't give yourself a good talking to now and again - who can??

savingholmes

mark55man said:

very true @rugbymadfamily - although if you can't give yourself a good talking to now and again - who can??

but sometimes we need to be as kind to ourselves as we would be to other Mark!

mark55man

Reporting back as of start of January 2022

• My 06/04/21 OP Mortgage Neutral Pot was £7.3k, and I have added an additional £24.6k OPs (Pension Savings) this tax year

With the result that

• My MN Saving pot is £31.9K and my Repayment Mortgage Balance was £86.5K
• I am now £54.5K away from being Mortgage Neutral

The observant amongst you will see that is a £10K+ improvement over last month.  Let me explain - alongside my MN pension pot is my main pension pot, which is differently invested and whose purpose is essentially to cover the period between retirement and able to draw on my other pensions.  Although its been turbulent  that pot has had a goodish year (7% growth) so I decided to take the growth of that pot in excess of inflation and allocate it to the MN pot alongside a small bonus which I had paid into the pension of a few £K.  This in combination with increasing my contributions this year now I am clear from my CC debt brings forward my MN date to Feb 2023.  

My OH and I are happy that the main pot will be enough to support us from about the end of 2023 unless anything more terrible happens.  Thus MN in early 2023 and retired by early 2024 are my continued focus this year

I know its a bit of magic money shuffling mixed in with new money, but a direct contribution to removing the worry of mortgage from my budget is in the spirit of MFW I think, as is the decision to prioritise it over other investments.

savingholmes

Congratulations. That's a really hefty addition to your mortgage neutral pot. Good that your plans are all on track

mark55man

Thank you SH - it is so nice not to be just talking to myself on here, especially as this is a non standard way of dealing with OPs. 

savingholmes

HI Mark - over time I hope to be increasing my pensions as part of my route to mortgage neutrality / freedom too so I get it. There's a lot to be said for investing in something that continues to give you an income rather than something static like the house...

mark55man

Reporting back as of start of Feb 2022

• My 06/04/21 OP Mortgage Neutral Pot was £7.3k, and I have added an additional £26.3k OPs (Pension Savings) this tax year

With the result that

• My MN Saving pot is £36.5K and my Repayment Mortgage Balance was £85.0K
• I am now £48.5K away from being Mortgage Neutral

As planned last month I have kicked up my salary sacrifice this year to redirect my 2021 Debt busting money into my MN pot.  This was about £1K/m - with pension higher rate tax rebate this adds £1.666K/m to my MN pot although as I will pay basic rate tax on 75% of that on withdrawal that is equivalent to a net OP into MN on £1.4K or an extra £400 paid to the mortgage and not the revenue

My estimated Mortgage Neutrality date is now in Feb 23.

savingholmes

Only one year. That's fantastic

mark55man

Thank you SH - just goes to show when I stopped faffing around with CC debt, but stayed equivalently frugal, then building the MN pot with help from the tax man is just going so quickly.  Something that would have been better done years ago, but not beating myself up, just gently tutting at my former self