Mortgage Free by 53!!

crunchy_time

Mortgage_Minimiser said:

Hi

I’ve just come across your diary and read it all. Not sure how I’ve not read it it before! I see so many similarities in your approach to mine (I don’t have a diary). 

I’ve been following Ramit Sethi since last January - love his approach and his Netflix show / YouTube show. Implemented it in my goals too. 

Are you still on IG - would love to follow you 

MM
xx

Hi MM!

Great to find another Ramit fan! I do like his approach because you do have to live this life as well as - it’s all a balance.

Thank you for reading my diary.

The IG halted as well in February when my relative died shaking us up massively, and then I deleted it so it’s back to this diary.

How much mortgage have you got to pay off?

Crunch xx

Mortgage_Minimiser

crunchy_time said:

Mortgage_Minimiser said:

Hi

I’ve just come across your diary and read it all. Not sure how I’ve not read it it before! I see so many similarities in your approach to mine (I don’t have a diary). 

I’ve been following Ramit Sethi since last January - love his approach and his Netflix show / YouTube show. Implemented it in my goals too. 

Are you still on IG - would love to follow you 

MM
xx

Hi MM!

Great to find another Ramit fan! I do like his approach because you do have to live this life as well as - it’s all a balance.

Thank you for reading my diary.

The IG halted as well in February when my relative died shaking us up massively, and then I deleted it so it’s back to this diary.

How much mortgage have you got to pay off?

Crunch xx

So sorry about that - life does throw us curveballs and unexpected things like that make you take stock. Sending hugs. 

Mine's still a bigggie and there's only me here to pay it - in 2 parts totalling £185k still...I was going really well at overpayments until work redundancies kicked in (twice) over recent years and then of course everything went mentally expensive - just as i was remortgaging lol. Hopefully back on it now I've got my EF plus 4 months worth of bills saved up. New job pays commission but it's quarterly not monthly so that took some getting used to.

Smaller one is up for renewal in June next year (only did a 2 year fix) so throwing everything i can at that one at the moment to see how low i can get my monthly payments, then I shall focus on the bigger one which is due for renewal in Nov '26.

I shall keep reading and cheering you on!

MM
X

crunchy_time

Mortgage_Minimiser said:

crunchy_time said:

Mortgage_Minimiser said:

Hi

I’ve just come across your diary and read it all. Not sure how I’ve not read it it before! I see so many similarities in your approach to mine (I don’t have a diary). 

I’ve been following Ramit Sethi since last January - love his approach and his Netflix show / YouTube show. Implemented it in my goals too. 

Are you still on IG - would love to follow you 

MM
xx

Hi MM!

Great to find another Ramit fan! I do like his approach because you do have to live this life as well as - it’s all a balance.

Thank you for reading my diary.

The IG halted as well in February when my relative died shaking us up massively, and then I deleted it so it’s back to this diary.

How much mortgage have you got to pay off?

Crunch xx

So sorry about that - life does throw us curveballs and unexpected things like that make you take stock. Sending hugs. 

Mine's still a bigggie and there's only me here to pay it - in 2 parts totalling £185k still...I was going really well at overpayments until work redundancies kicked in (twice) over recent years and then of course everything went mentally expensive - just as i was remortgaging lol. Hopefully back on it now I've got my EF plus 4 months worth of bills saved up. New job pays commission but it's quarterly not monthly so that took some getting used to.

Smaller one is up for renewal in June next year (only did a 2 year fix) so throwing everything i can at that one at the moment to see how low i can get my monthly payments, then I shall focus on the bigger one which is due for renewal in Nov '26.

I shall keep reading and cheering you on!

MM
X

Ah thank you.  

It was so frustrating when mortgage rates went up.  Our monthly payment went up but about £350 which is what we had budgeted to overpay.  Ah well.

It is lovely to throw whatever you can at it. I shall be cheering you on too!

Crunchy

crunchy_time

Hello all!

I managed not to post for the whole of September despite being quite active on here looking at other peoples diaries.

The mortgage is now £240,578 so very close to dipping into the 30s which I cannot wait for.

The emergency fund is now lumped together as one and is about £9565 and we have a target of £15,000.  The husband is not too fussed about working on this but I am

Both children have had growth spurts so a lot of money has been spent in September on clothes and shoes for them.  We have cleared out lots of stuff ready for life with a 12 year old and a 10 year old.  We have promised them bedroom makeovers in the new year so need to start saving up for that.

I always get excited but a bit anxious this time of year.  Not only is Christmas looming but 3 out of our 4 birthdays fall in this season and it gets a bit busy and therefore we get a bit disjointed with finances.

I am determined to end the year with no credit card debt apart from the 0% we are doing for garden landscaping because it makes sense to get it done before it gets too cold and then we will have a vegetable garden finally for spring.

Husband and I have been a bit spendy on clothes this year, bought stuff to try on at home and then kept most of it.  We have imposed a clothes ban until the new year while we pay this off.  There are also a few bits for the children and a £2000 car bill on the cards which is now down to £900 ish and planned to pay off by end of November.

The older of the 2 cars 0 the 10 year old rather than the 8 year old has broken down for the 3rd time this year.  Red engine light is on again  I think it is time to bite the bullet and buy a new (second hand) one.  Husband has a business trip abroad in a week so when he is back we will start looking.

We will trade the old one in for what we can in the state it is in and take out a loan for the rest of it.  We already have an idea of what we want, now need to shop around for it.

We have a had a legal issue that has been going on for about 6 years now and is finally getting sorted and we are due some money - £580.  We are going to celebrate with the £80 and then put the £500 in the emergency fund as we had to use our EF 5 years ago to fund this when it started.  Very pleased!!

Im planning a frugal October since husband is away for 2 of the weekends, we won't have to buy food for him so hopefully be able to save some money there!

I'm hoping to get back onto the mortgage overpayment plan once we get into 2025.

I think that is about it from me!

Crunchy xx

Mortgage_Minimiser

Sounds like spendy, but well thought through times, cheering you on from the sidelines (quietly)

MM
X

crunchy_time

Morning all!

The moment has happened that I have been looking forward to for a while! We have dipped into the 30s!

Car is fixed at a cost of £450 so now tasked with getting a new one in the coming months. 

Husband is off on his business trip today. I’m going to try and do some decorating and organising whilst he is away.

The other news is the EF is nearing the £10k mark. We have over £10k in our S&S ISAs combined though so I am wondering whether £10k in cash savings and £10k in ISas is fine for an emergency fund. We add to the ISas at £400 a month currently so it will increase that way.  Something to ponder.

Crunchy xx

Jessy103

Congrats on getting in the 30s! 🙂

pennywisepoundstupid

Well done on hitting the 30s

crunchy_time

Greetings fellow money savers!

It's been a while and very busy of course.

I had to read my September post to see what we were up to then! Ha ha!

So - we bought a new car - gosh it's hard to get a car these days.  Husband decided on the make he would like and we went to the nearest dealer, traded in the old one and now we have a 2024 plate one at a cost of £524 a month we used the old car plus £1000 as a deposit.  We planned for this.  It's a lovely car and exactly what we need.  The main car has now been upgraded to the second car, which is now 9 years old and needs a lot of work done to it recently - air con, new brakes, tyres, and something else costing a fortune.  We had minimal car costs for nearly two years so I'm not complaining.  Hopefully, it is set up now for its role as the second car.

Husband went on two abroad work trips and put on the credit card the expenses he couldn't charge to his work credit card and has only just completed his expenses so we were in debt as we didn't have a plan for this. More on this in a bit.

Husband also owes £3000 plus to the tax man for some reason so now is reverting to doing self-assessment again for reasons I don't understand.  He got a £6k bonus at Christmas but £3k is saved for the date he owes this.  Annoying but nothing can be done.  The rest of the bonus has gone to new glasses for him - £500, new bedroom furniture for the kids from Ikea - £400 and various other things.  I'm grateful to have the money to solve these problems.

We have decided on the champagne glasses method to tackle what has happened these last few months as we now have about:

£525 - credit card  -not 0%
£2080 - credit card  - 0% until September 2025 - but better than using our savings.

The emergency fund is also around £7600 and we want that to be more around £10K

All extra money goes to various champagne glasses first and then spills over to the others.

Oh, and I also only work 4 days a week now so I can do the things to the house that are needed without having to buy support.  We are doing up the kids bedrooms first and then there are garden projects as well when the weather gets warmer.  Better than employing someone else to do it.

Mortgage is currently - £238,200
ISA savings currently - £12k
Emergency Fund - £7500

Oh, and we are going on 3 holidays this year - Thailand, New York and somewhere in the UK for a cottage holiday.  Life is too short and I'm not waiting.

We are both very focused and ready to maximise where we are at and make the most of where we are.

That's a lot.  Sorry.  Onwards and upwards!

Crunchy xx

South_coast

I love the idea of the champagne glasses method, that's such a clear visual image!