My Mortgage Free Mountain - A 7 year expedition to climb to the top

craftingmad

I have finally managed to sit down and look at our figures so I can plan our next expedition . I couldn't do it before now as I could not access my post office savings account annoyingly but it did give me a few days to relax and celebrate our achievements so far which was lovely. We treated ourselves to a lovely meal out at a local restaurant near us but in true money saving style also combined that celebration with celebrating my birthday as well so we ate once but celebrated twice  

So I have no clue how much to save for our retirement but £250,000 sounds like a good amount to start off with. I'm not including hubbies lovely pension pot in this sum only spare cash in the bank. After we have paid off all our mortgages we have £49892 left sitting in our bank account so that means we have a whopping £200108 to find. We hope to retire in 4 years (that will make me 55) so here we go - buckle up - I sense it could be a bumpy (yet very worthwhile) ride x

daisy_1571

Woohoo !  Here we go !!! 😆 🤣 😂 

Dxxx

Baileys_Babe

Good luck with your plans 

craftingmad

Good news - I forgot to add in one of our savings accounts and the investment is worth about £7k more than I thought so we actually only need to find £150206. Still a huge amount to get in 4 years but much better than I originally thought  

I listed lots of things on FB Marketplace last night and somebody is coming to collect one of them on Friday for £6 so I've taken my first baby step towards our retirement

Baileys_Babe

@craftingmad how are you? It's been a while since your last post, I hope everything is okay l 🤗

Baileys_Babe

Happy New Year @craftingmad I hope all your plans for 2026 come to fruition 🤗

craftingmad

Hi everyone - I'm back :)

Sorry for the silence - my mum has been diagnosed with cancer so I have been spending as much time as I can with her and my dad as he also broke his back in three places and keeps falling so the two of them are keeping me busy on my days off. It's like having young children again who need constantly looking after ;)

Big news though - Today we paid off BTL mortgage number 2 as the fixed rate ended and we could clear without any financial penalty so we now only have one more mortgage left to pay off which the balance is £77500. We have this amount saved but have to wait for the fixed rate to come to an end to save the penalty charges on this one :)

But as of today we officially own three houses outright with a total combined worth of an estimated £650K.

It is a great feeling :)

And now to tackle our retirement fund. I'll post later with where we are currently up to with that as sadly whilst I have been away from this forum we have had to buy a car as hubbies finally packed up so that has hit our funds quite hard. Although of course we did not buy a brand new one in true money saving style :)

Hope you are all well and smashing your Moneysaving goals x

Baileys_Babe

Lovely to hear from you @craftingmad brilliant news on paying off the BTL.

Sorry to hear about your parents health issues 🤗

craftingmad

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81909381#Comment_81909381

Thanks Baileys.

They are both 81 bless them so are doing well at their age but it is certainly hard and I think all of us have been through every emotion imaginable already. Its so hard both physically and emotionally for all of us. I'm hoping being back here will help me have something else to focus on :)

daisy_1571

Sorry to hear about your folks

Dxx