The Mortgage Free in Three - Take 6 challenge (MFiT-T6)

julicorn

A three-year challenge for all of those who are want to pay down their mortgage (or save for house-related expenses) over a longer time period than MFW. 

First of all, a huge thank you to trix-a-belle who ran the previous two iterations of this challenge, inspiring many of us to stay on track (and becoming mortgage-free herself!). Also a huge thank you to Financial Bliss who ran the challenge before that. 

This is a the sixth in a series of three year mortgage challenges on this MFW board. Anyone who has joined a previous challenge should be aware of the format and timescales. If not see the next few posts below.

This sixth challenge runs from January 2022 to January 2025 and is open to anyone who wants to devote the next three years to greatly reduce or completely pay off their mortgage, or build up a pot of savings.

Below is a list of the challengers who have signed up and their goal:

Forum name No. Goal Start balance Goal balance julicorn 1 Clear or pay down my mortgage £276,000.00 £175,000.00 Mortgage Minimiser 2 Clear or pay down my mortgage £155,939.00 £110,000.00 Hettyhound 3 Clear or pay down my mortgage £40,500.00 £15,000.00 Clueless56 4 Clear or pay down my mortgage £103,385.99 £72,000.00 twinklie 5 Clear or pay down my mortgage £202,000.00 £167,500.00 MFW2026 6 Clear or pay down my mortgage £82,000.00 £66,000.00 Girlie1412 7 Clear or pay down my mortgage £189,000.00 £130,000.00 Filo25 8 Clear or pay down my mortgage £322,724.00 £238,186.00 powerspowers 9 Clear or pay down my mortgage £110,290.00 £85,000.00 smetf 10 Clear or pay down my mortgage £92,766.00 £60,000.00 nonny02 11 Clear or pay down my mortgage £216,000.00 £190,000.00 Newgirly 12 Clear or pay down my mortgage £64,873.00 £24,873.00 shangaijimmy 13 Clear or pay down my mortgage £46,600.00 £31,100.00 Bounty123 14 Build up savings £6,300.00 £21,500.00 northwalesd 15 Clear or pay down my mortgage £30,383.94 £9,999.00 eat_that_frog 16 Clear or pay down my mortgage £199,000.00 £70,000.00 mummytummy 17 Clear or pay down my mortgage $345,000.00 $240,000.00 Hetta 18 Clear or pay down my mortgage £311,000.00 £280,000.00 Bargainhunter30 19 Clear or pay down my mortgage £40,400.00 £0.00 LadyWithAPlan 20 Build up savings £79,628.00 £300,000.00 Tartan Mum 21 Clear or pay down my mortgage £153,500.00 £113,500.00 skippie 22 Clear or pay down my mortgage £199,900.00 £150,000.00 PiggyBankShaker 23 Clear or pay down my mortgage £134,814.00 £100,000.00 Maybe_its_because 24 Clear or pay down my mortgage £138,900.00 £109,900.00 poppycat 25 Build up savings £0.00 £12,000.00 Bella_Budget 26 Clear or pay down my mortgage £68,185.65 £0.00 Sistergold 27 Clear or pay down my mortgage £412,414.00 £335,000.00 LadyGnome 28 Clear or pay down my mortgage £165,000.00 £90,000.00 pavlovs_dog 29 Clear or pay down my mortgage £42,950.00 £12,950.00 EG_MF_LO 30 Clear or pay down my mortgage £184,000.00 £140,000.00 Tiredbutdetermined 31 Clear or pay down my mortgage £175,400.00 £150,000.00 Muppets 32 Clear or pay down my mortgage £142,050.24 £124,050.24 Kr147 33 Clear or pay down my mortgage £62,000.00 £40,000.00 DiscountDuck 34 Clear or pay down my mortgage £38,000.00 £0.00 Miss undastood 35 Clear or pay down my mortgage £265,500.00 £180,000.00 villafan10 36 Clear or pay down my mortgage £35,000.00 £0.00 AvidSaver 37 Build up savings £0.00 £50,000.00 T. x 38 Clear or pay down my mortgage £41,111.55 £18,611.55 Anagran 39 Clear or pay down my mortgage £127,314.89 £102,500.00 x_raphael_xx 40 Clear or pay down my mortgage £113,694.11 £99,990.00 gillynomad 41 Clear or pay down my mortgage £137,495.00 £110,000.00 Martas 42 Clear or pay down my mortgage £70,915.00 £17,000.00 BammBamm 43 Clear or pay down my mortgage £126,386.00 £100,000.00 CathT 44 Clear or pay down my mortgage £82,172.00 £44,000.00 Nut97 45 Clear or pay down my mortgage £37,355.24 £0.00 Felicityfandangle 46 Clear or pay down my mortgage £47,000.00 £0.00 Kerreh 47 Clear or pay down my mortgage £80,892.11 £51,000.00 MaidenDevon 48 Clear or pay down my mortgage £26,455.00 £7,000.00 Oldwoman_3 49 Build up savings £0.00 £5,000.00 Sistergold 50 Build up savings £0.00 £20,000.00 amanda1024 51 Clear or pay down my mortgage £92,535.37 £82,000.00 AnotherNewDay 52 Clear or pay down my mortgage £168,455.00 £155,000.00 Cheery_Daff 55 Clear or pay down my mortgage £178,818.20 £145,000.00 ajmoney 70 Clear or pay down my mortgage £79,787.04 £57,000.00 pinknsparkly 99 Clear or pay down my mortgage £425,000.00 £400,000.00

Participants who reach mortgage-free status during this challenge will be listed in the roll of honour here:


Please see the posts immediately below for further information. Good luck in your own challenges.
Registration / update form: MFiT-T6 Form
Please note that I have made some tweaks to the form and process - if you encounter any issues, please let me know and I will fix them asap. Apologies in advance for any potential hick-ups!

Juli x

julicorn

Chart update schedule.

As this is a three year challenge, I am maintaining the 3 monthly updates. Please provide your updates by the 25th of the relevant month (January, April, July, October), and I will publish the updated chart by the end of the month. 

Here is our update sheet, including all updates for the challenge.






Questions and Answers (all credit to trix-a-belle!)

Q. Why are you doing this/Why should I do this?

As a longer term challenge you can really see the snowball effect mortgage overpayments or regularly saving can have on your balance which aren't necessarily seen over the course of 12 months.

• Note: You can take part in T6 whether you're looking to reduce / clear your mortgage, or build up savings. 

Its worth trying to push yourself with your end target as it's a longer term challenge and things can snowball nicely over a longer period but do think about your individual circumstances. Whether you meet your target or not though we are all rooting for each other 

Q. What is different this time?
I've simplified the form and resulting tables slightly, so please let me know if you encounter any issues.

Q. Is this challenge for me?
This is a 3 year challenge. Updates will remain every 3 months, ie 12 updates over the course of the 36 months. If you don't think you can provide periodic mortgage updates over the course of the 3 years, then perhaps this isn’t the challenge for you.

There are regular annual challenges on this board which you can join if you feel a three year challenge is too long for you.

Q. What are the timescales?
The challenge will officially start on 25/1/22 and it will complete on 25/1/25.

Q. How do I join?
Simply fill in this form to register. 

Q. What if I cant clear my mortgage in the 3 year period?
The joy of this challenge is you don't have to pledge to clear your mortgage completely to enter this challenge, you don't even have to have a mortgage. Everyone’s circumstances are going to be different, so look at what you can realistically attain and set your own challenge goal accordingly.

Q. What information do you need about my own challenge?
I will need an estimate of your mortgage or savings balance on 25/1/22, the update form can be used to provide an accurate figure nearer the time.

Also, I will need a figure of where you would like to be by the end of the challenge (25/1/25), i.e. a challenge start and end value, eg:

Completely pay off my £125,000 mortgage.
Reduce mortgage from £48,000 to £30,000.
Build my savings from £0 to £30,000.

Q. What happens when I register my challenge objective?
I will allocate you a MFiT-T6 challenger number, add you to post #1 and the progress chart and tag you in this thread with your number.


Q. I have a mortgage free diary. Can you link to it in post #1?
If you have a mortgage diary, then it's not a problem to link to it in post number 1, please simply post a link to your diary in this thread.

Q. When can I give a figure for a chart update?
Chart updates are published based on your balance on the 25th day of Jan, April, July & Oct. The first chart is due to be published on 25th April 2022. If your mortgage payment is taken on the first of the month, so you may want to report your mortgage as soon as the payment clears when we are in a chart month. That then gives us enough time to gather and publish the data.

Q. What information do you need in a chart update?
Hopefully you have gave an accurate starting mortgage value or savings balance, so updating us with a current mortgage value or savings balance will show the reduction or increase made in each 3 month period. Your forum name, challenger number and current mortgage/savings balance is all we need.

Q. How do I provide information for a chart update?
Follow the link to the registration/updates form on Google Docs and follow the steps, as simple as that then there is a record of all updates. If you have trouble, please just post in this thread.


Q. What happens if I become mortgage free during the challenge?
Do tell us as soon as possible when you became mortgage free and we will add you to the list of challengers who became mortgage free during the challenge & celebrate with you!

Q. What if I want to leave this challenge?
While I hope this wont be the case, perhaps a change in circumstances may dictate this, life does happen but remember the challenge is the long game and its not the winning but the taking part and the journey that counts so we can change your targets, commiserate, celebrate, make suggestions or all of the above
If you do still want to leave please let me know and I will retire your challenger number.


Q. Where can I find the first five challenges?
Each of the previous challenges have their own threads and can be found here.

Original MFiT challenge:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/435291instalment of MFiT challenge - MFiT-T2:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1402631instalment of MFiT challenge - MFiT-T3:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4152769instalment of MFiT challenge - MFiT-T4:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5375506/the-mortgage-free-in-three-take-4-challenge-mfit-t4

Fifth instalment of MFiT challenge - MFiT-T5:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5945459/the-mortgage-free-in-three-take-5-challenge-mfit-t5/p1 

Q. I have a question that you haven’t covered.
Hopefully the challenge is simple enough. If you do have a question, post in this thread and I will try to help / add the question and answer to this list.

Best of luck everyone.

julicorn

Welcome to the first few joiners! Here are your numbers:

@Mortgage_Minimiser 2
@Hettyhound 3
@Clueless56 4

Maybe_its_because

Hi Julicorn,

Thankyou for picking up the mantle on this thread. Our family are very happy to continue to be a part of it. 
The curveballs of life meant we over performed on MFiT4 and under performed in MFiT5. Hoping that challenge 6 will see us back to full financial health.

With very best wishes to all participants of the MFiT6 and may the winds of fortune blow in your favour.

Thanks MIB x

pavlovs_dog

excited to see the new thread.  Thanks to Captain juliecorn for agreeing to steer the good ship MFi3 forward!

I'd like to keep 29 as my challenger number if I may.  Target is to reduce our balance from £42,950 to £12,950

julicorn

pavlovs_dog said:

excited to see the new thread.  Thanks to Captain juliecorn for agreeing to steer the good ship MFi3 forward!

I'd like to keep 29 as my challenger number if I may.  Target is to reduce our balance from £42,950 to £12,950

Go for it @pavlovs_dog Feel free to enter number 29 when you submit your form. 

girlie1412

Hi can I please join 

julicorn

girlie1412 said:

Hi can I please join 

Sure, just fill in the form. 

julicorn

Here are the numbers for everyone who's joined since yesterday afternoon

@twinklie 5
@MFW2026 6
@girlie1412 7
@Filo25 8
@Maybe_its_because 24
@pavlovs_dog 29

smetf

Am very excited to be joining for the first time! Have spent a long time thinking of figure to aim for and have gone for the ambitious target of getting the mortgage from 93k to 60k, working on the theory that 11k of repayments and overpayments combined is not impossible! Form submitted. Thanks for organising julicorn

nonny02

Just signed up using the form and am excited to get going!

The plan is to reduce our mortgage from £216,000 to £190,000. 

I'd love to set the goal lower, but we're also saving separately for some renovations, so I think the 26k is realistic.

Thanks for running this Julicorn.