Katkatmachine’s Adventures to Mortgage Freedom and Life Updates

katkatmachine

2023 Year End Review

Original mortgage: £276,250 
Mortgage left: £248,450

Remaining full term: 19 years 11 months
HTB: 10%

Current savings: £35,000
Credit card debt: £3,000

Big expenses this year:
Citizenship application: £1,600
New York holiday: £4,000
Christmas market holiday in Vienna: £1,700

2023 has been amazing for us! I finally got my citizenship, albeit a bit costly, I can finally travel without having to apply for us visa. You British people will never know the struggle of what we, people with weak passports, have to go through just to travel!   Finally that chapter of my life is over and I can just breeze through immigration controls!   

So for my partner's 50th birthday we went to New York, and OMG! It's such a beautiful and vibrant city. We truly enjoyed our holiday! It's very dirty and steam is coming out of manholes (this scared me a bit thought cause i thought it's poisonous gas lol), and the placed in Brooklyn where we stayed was a bit dodgy BUT I truly I enjoyed it! The vibe was just so good and even though it's my first time there I immediately felt welcomed. And the food too... gosh! Their enormous and really good! I would go back to New York just for the food!

What I didn't like though was the tipping culture, it's really crazy, it's not required but you will feel that it is and the minimum is 20%! D@mn!!!! But I was stubborn so I only tipped around 12.5-15%, I just couldn't accept to give a tip of 20%! No!!! It's just too much!!!!!! (Though in some I did tip 20% because the service was just impeccable and the food was amazing). Also, I was really surprised that when you buy stuff in stores the tax is not included in the price and when you get to the till the amount they charge you is bigger to add the tax. It's ridiculous! What if I just brought enough money with me! Come on! Just give me the price that reflects the full cost so I can optimise my decision-making!!!!

Also, update on my options, I received the rest, the remaining 20%, and it even increased in value! I will get the next one again for this year in April so I'm really excited! I hope the value grows or at least stays the same. Let's see.

Lastly, another one of our biggest achievement this is year is our Dyson V8 Absolute! It's the best purchase this year! And I tell you, once you have a cordless hoover you will never go back! Definitely once of man's best inventions next to the dishwasher.

So that's it for me! Happy New Year!   

LadyWithAPlan

NY is super cool I was in the States twice last year and yes the 20% tipping even on coffee gets expensive.

I love my robot vacuum mop thing but the Dyson sounds cool

savingholmes

Well done on achieving so many goals. Lovely.

katkatmachine

Update!

My partner and I had a talk and we reviewed our finances and we agreed that we are going back to our original plan of settling our HTB loan using our savings. Given the current interest rates, adding it to our mortgage would not be a good idea. We have a 10% HTB loan so our plan now is to save at least GBP 30K by the end of next year, that will give us a total of around GBP 65k in savings. Our house has increased its value so we'll probably have to pay around GBP40K (original loan is GBP 32.5K) that will still leave us with enough cash for our emergency funds.

I really do hope that we'll be able to hit our target savings to be able to pay the loan. We're already paying a lot in our mortgage so it would be really hard for us if our monthly repayment would increase because of the HTB loan. Fingers crossed we pull this off!

Good luck to us!

savingholmes

Good luck with your plans.

katkatmachine

2024 Mid Year Review

Original mortgage: £276,250 
Mortgage left: £245,608

Remaining full term: 19 years 6 months
HTB: 10%

Savings: £53,000
Credit card debt: £1000

Upcoming expenses this year:
Holiday back home for a month with side-trip to Japan in July
Croatia holiday in September
Strasbourg Christmas Markets holiday (not yet booked)

So we have a bit of some cash but that's okay because we're planning to pay off our HTB loan around end of next year, that's probably around £40K depending on the value of our house and we are hoping to have at least £30K remaining for our emergency fund. I'm actually thinking it's more practical to pay off our HTB now since we already have the money but my partner is insisting that we wait until we have enough emergency funds left. So yeah... I guess we're going her way...

Our car finance is also going to end this August so starting September we will have an extra £200. We're planning to use this freed up money to overpay our mortgage. And come December, we will have £300 more so that means we can overpay our mortgage by £500 monthly. We're hoping we can finish this whole mortgage thing in 13-15 years. Fingers crossed

We're also going on a holiday in the most beautiful country in the world, our home country, so we're super excited! It's been five years since I last visited, can't wait to see my parents and sisters again, our cat Clovis, and dog Bart. Ahhhhhhhhh! I can't wait to come back home! I bet this holiday is going to be very expensive again cause my dad will make me pay every time we eat out but good thing my sisters are there too so I just need to force them to share. LOL.

So that's it for me!

Love,
Kat

  

katkatmachine

P.S.

My options from the company grew in value again! I only received 80% last April and I'm getting the rest this October. So yes, I guess I'll be staying with the company for three more years until my options are done... 

beanielou

I would pay off the HTB as you have the money.  My reasoning is that the longer you leave it the more it will be due to increasing house prices? 

LadyWithAPlan

Ouch to the paying all the family dinner bills - yes get your sisters involved :£ 
£500 op will be great and definitely get that term down

Money_Monkey

Hi,

What's your interest rate on your current mortgage? Is it fixed, term length?
I assume your savings are tucked away in an ISA?
Are you both contributing into a workplace pension?