Alion's Mortgage Reduction Diary

happilass

Hi,
i'm generally a lurker here but i felt that i had to say well done you for starting off so savvy. I couldn't agree with you more about staying at home with your child/ren if you possibly can. We made that decision and it was the most important one of our lives, apart from marrying each other and having our son in the first place!! Our friends did not stay at home with their children and they have gotten used to expensive lifestyles and are now envious of us as we are nearing paying off our mortgage and we have good pensions. We are able to live well, but frugally, since we needed to learn this when i was not working outside of the home, and now we have continued to do so we are adept at managing our finances and are not in shedfuls of debt like our friends. I just wanted to say that i am sure that you are doing the best thing for yourselves and your future children, for what my opinion is worth !!!
Best wishes for your journey,
Happi

Liz33

Hey, Good Luck with that!

I often feel that to attempt to become mortgage free is impossible. I have a £120,000 interest only mortgage on my own. I currently pay £250 a month into a savings account, which pays more net interest than my mortgage interest rate is. And i'll pay this off my mortgage at the end of the year in addition I have a mortgage pig that I pay into each month and I reduce my balance by a small amount, however I have set myself an initial target to reduce my mortgage by £30k and then go from there for me this will be more achievable.

It's great to read all your inspirational stories though keep up the good work.

:T

Alion

Well, it's a new year and the plan is now fully into action. I've got a spreadsheet and faith that we can do this. First overpayment not due till February, and husband appeased with a new TV (he's a bit more of a "stuff" person than me)

I've got a spending budget, spending diary and packed lunch in my bag. I'm rather looking forwards to this - £3k to save in 12 months as I already have £2k put aside...I CAN DO THIS

Oooh and pension investments and other investments being looked at this month to make sure they're doing the best work possible for me

setmefree2

Good Luck:j:j:j:j

Alion

almost finished month 1. had put together the plan with OH and he'd suggested aiming for a £20k overpayment in a year. however when he saw the spreadsheet of how we'd be able to achieve that his eyes nearly popped out.

A few days later he went for lunch with a friend. They bought their house 2 years before us and for £40k less. They're in the process of upsizing to a family home (no kids yet, but very much on the cards) just down the road from us. Their mortgage repayments are increasing to almost £2k a month!!! He had such a fright because there is no way we could afford that (especially in the dream of single salary) and all of a sudden he had a spending diary and a saving plan and he was even more keen than me

Full steam ahead and we've both saved our parts for overpayment next month already! (And I do realise that it would be better to do an overpayment this month, but it's earning interest and the psychological benefits have been more important)

Alion

Well, I'm very pleased to say that our savings for the big remortgage overpayment next year are already ahead of schedule and we overpaid £500 today. Feeling really proud and motivated right now. We're both keeping spending diaries and so far have not cut back anything we want to do, we're just keeping an eye on the things we don't need. And it's working

taxi73

Well done what great thinking and it will put you in a great position for having children

BACKFRMTHEEDGE

Well Done you:j:j:j:j:j:j

Alion

OK, savings for the massive £10k overpayment are ALMOST COMPLETE!!! We're almost 9 months ahead of schedule on that!!! We've been so careful with cash.

Have decided to keep up the hard saving and take a big holiday at the end of the year.

And we've overpaid £500 this month - keeping on track with the plan.

If we keep to what we've planned, and house prices don't drop to much less than we bought it for, we'll have 25% equity next january which will open up a lot more mortgage deals for us

setmefree2

Well Done:j:j:j