New year, new goal

South_coast

RS89 said:

2026 is off to a reasonable start 

And you're already in 2026, so halfway there 😘!

RS89

Hit interesting milestone today. Our mortgage balance is the same today as the first ever mortgage we took out  roughly15 years ago. Since then we borrowed (much) more and moved house. 

At the time the number was very daunting. How time and perspective changes things… 

Other updates 
- Partners job is safe! 🙂
- council tax up 5% 🤯
- DS2 needs glasses some special kind not NHS 😳
- went for lunch in London and it cost nearly £200 for a few tapas and wine… whhaattttttttt 🫣

RS89

It’s been a while since updated but we remain on track. We have kept up the overpayments and savings. Today’s balance is about 212k. 

The plan to pay it off was formed of 3 pots - cash saving, equity regular saving and share awards. 

Well we hit a big milestone last month and achieved the cash savings pot needed (about 35k) 🎉 

This will now just collect interest til redemption. 

Am now diverting cash towards building a post mortgage buffer - so the day we redeem we aren’t immediately totally broke. 

Which does give me a question - those that  became mortgage free - did you use every last penny in savings to do so or did you have savings remaining and how much?

RS89

November update and sitting at about £210k. Emotional as we sold some old wedding jewellery since the gold prices are at an all time high and that’s all gone into the savings pots. 

We did allow ourselves a little splurge with some of that money and I confess to buying gadgets and a new phone. 

It’s nearing the end of year and Christmas. I’m grateful we have been using the You Need A Budget app as all of the presents are already budgeted for and nothing to derail the plan. Aside from it being tax season too and the self assessment due soon. 

According to my tracker the mortgage is paid off in exactly 400 days from today - but I am still not sure if we will actually redeem when the moment comes or let it ride for 2 more years. It’s nice to have the optionality. 

RS89

Truly new year, new goal! Starting the year with a small set back that one of the share schemes that we are relying on the clear the mortgage will only pay out at 50% of what we expected, which leaves a 10k hole in our mortgage free plan. 

With that said, the more I have been thinking the more I am realising that the most financially advantageous position is going to be to be “mortgage free on paper”. 

The goal is to have an amount invested in equity equivalent to or greater than the mortgage balance. So if we ever needed to we could simply pay it off, but whilst we don’t need to that money can generate returns more than the mortgage interest rate. Psychologically this isn’t exactly the same as it requires some self control and not sure if it’s fully in the spirit of this forum. 

But all the math says it’s a better place to be. 

beanielou

Sorry to hear that but seems like you have got your head round it.