The Mortgage Free in Three - Take 7 challenge (MFiT-T7)

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 4 and 5 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 hopefully lucky 7th 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 seventh challenge runs from January 2025 to January 2028 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 Number Goal Start balance Goal balance julicorn 1 Build up savings 85,091.31 175,000.00 Everydecision 2 Clear or pay down my mortgage 123,311.00 80,000.00 Hettyhound 3 Clear or pay down my mortgage 21,930.00 0.00 Clueless56 4 Clear or pay down my mortgage 76,135.00 44,000.00 RedLipstick 5 Clear or pay down my mortgage 163,500.00 120,000.00 ajmoney 6 Clear or pay down my mortgage 60,100.63 30,000.00 Mortgage Minimiser 7 Clear or pay down my mortgage 176,681.00 130,000.00 MFWannabe 8 Clear or pay down my mortgage 69,278.38 30,000.00 Powerspowers 9 Clear or pay down my mortgage 82,702.00 50,000.00 smetf 10 Clear or pay down my mortgage 53,730.41 16,000.00 Nonny02 11 Clear or pay down my mortgage 190,000.00 163,000.00 Bounty123 12 Clear or pay down my mortgage 196,025.00 155,000.00 Another New Day 13 Build up savings 10,257.00 40,257.00 tiredbutdetermined 14 Clear or pay down my mortgage 146,747.17 125,000.00 Simobla1 15 Build up savings 20,000.00 70,000.00 Squirrelz92 16 Clear or pay down my mortgage 88,219.02 67,515.71 mummytummy 17 Clear or pay down my mortgage 193,000.00 0.00 CrazyBee787 18 Build up savings 0.00 9,000.00 carboot_karaoke 19 Clear or pay down my mortgage 63,000.00 -12,000.00 Anagran 20 Clear or pay down my mortgage 115,000.00 99,999.00 twinklie 21 Clear or pay down my mortgage 167,112.94 133,000.00 drspouse 22 Clear or pay down my mortgage 140,000.00 0.00 Bella_Budget 26 Clear or pay down my mortgage 24,877.00 0.00

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-T7 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 spreadsheet, currently including updates 1-2 (up to July 2025).


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 T7 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 25/1/25 and it will complete on 25/1/28.

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 25/1/25, 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 (25/1/28), 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-T7 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 2025. 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 six 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
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5945459/the-mortgage-free-in-three-take-5-challenge-mfit-t5/p1 

Sixth instalment of MFiT challenge - MFiT-T6:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6322389/the-mortgage-free-in-three-take-6-challenge-mfit-t6/p1


Q. I have a question that you haven’t covered.
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.

ajmoney

Hey julicorn,

Thanks for doing this again. I am definitely in again with a potentially ambitious target although I am not entirely sure what my starting and end targets are in reality yet, I remortgage in 7 months time and it will be to a much higher interest rate. Is it ok to complete the form with a set of figures and update around the 25th with what I think they will actually be?

julicorn

ajmoney said:

Hey julicorn,

Thanks for doing this again. I am definitely in again with a potentially ambitious target although I am not entirely sure what my starting and end targets are in reality yet, I remortgage in 7 months time and it will be to a much higher interest rate. Is it ok to complete the form with a set of figures and update around the 25th with what I think they will actually be?

Hi there, thanks for joining in again! Yes that's absolutely fine, feel free to sign up with any sort of placeholder target and we can get things updated down the line When you change your target, just pop through an update target form, but ideally also give me a heads up (either by posting in here or via message) so I can look out for it and update things manually if the auto-update goes a little wrong  

twinklie

Very excited to be joining again. Eek! I just need to work out my target. 

RedLipstick

To say I'm excited would be an understatement! I've been following the MFiT-T6 thread for the past couple of years and cheering on everyone, and was very eager to join the next chapter, so here I am with a little streching goal. Will start slowly as I need to get my EF a bit more up and pay off my MSc but going to throw everything I can at the mortgage in the meantime and after savings/debt are in a good place just throw everything post bills lol.

Thank you for organising and running this for us @julicorn, it's truly a life changing challenge and I'm delighted to finally be part of this.

Happy T7 and good luck everyone! 

julicorn

I should also add - I'll post everyone's numbers after the 25th if that's ok! If you want to keep your number from the last challenge just make sure you sign up before that date, pop your number in the form and I'll see what I can do  

But I've already received forms from @mummytummy , @Everydecision and @RedLipstick , so don't worry, I've got all your info through and you're all signed up (albeit currently number-less!).

ajmoney

Thanks julicorn, I have submitted my form now. i have put down a conservative £30k having never got anyway close to that in the previous challenges. I am actually aiming to get rid of the whole mortgage during the next challenge which should coincide with a new remortgage which will then complete. It all depends on the interest rates etc once June/July gets here.

Mortgage_Minimiser

Registration submitted - thanks so much for running this again @julicorn!

Hoping the next 3 years are smoother than the last 3

MM
XX

MFWannabe

Registration submitted 
Really want to smash this mortgage over the next three years 🤞

Bounty123

Registration submitted. Set myself a bit of a stretch target and hope to get close.
Thank you for running the challenge @julicorn.
Bounty.