2008 MFW newbies

elantan

well done tobrex ...i'm still excited about this challenge ...it's about the longest i have lasted wtih a challenge yet lol....i havepaid some off this month but hopefully will pay more off by the end of the month will update and pm bellbells then


hows everyone else doing?

aliportico

I've paid £16 so far this month, and am waiting impatiently for my Child Benefit to arrive and a couple of Amazon payments to clear so I can pay some more! Then hopefully will have a third little bit at the end of the month. Reading this thread really helps keep me focussed

Oggieinglos

Hi all my first ever post on joining. Be gentle with me! (girls you dont have to!)

Anyway, we have a Virgin One account and are £10000 ahead anyway. That will change in the next couple of months as we are having an extension built. We have 8 years left to pay off our mortgage that will be about £65000 with extension costs.

Our aim is to pay it off in 5 years. Once the extension is complete it will be back to overpaying every month by about £500. To help us in our quest, I will volunteer to do shift work from next year. Anyone else made drastic changes to their lifestyle just to pay the mortgage off early?

kezza12

well before i started this ...Quest..i'll call it i was a pretty flippant person who didn't really think about the cost of things if i wanted it then i bought it and then thought about the cost later when the bills came in (yeah pretty stupid i know) whereas i think my whole outlook has changed, as well as my crazy spending lifestyle. i was a spendaholic now i think more (well most of the time anyway):rolleyes:

aliportico

I (finally) signed up with Quidco a couple of weeks ago, and have used it once, and FORGOTTEN to use it at least 3 times. Very frustrated with myself! I've now stuck a post-it on my monitor - hopefully that will help. Did remember to go through ipoints last week when buying an MP3 player from Amazon though.

loomacdon

Made an extra payment of £100 today, feeling good...........will update my totals later in month bellsbells.

ShreksBodyDouble

Whilst paying some bills using online banking today, thought I'd throw another £20 at the mortgage. Every little helps

Sosh

Managed to get my broadband reduced, so that's another £10 for the pot. Got Barnaby bear at a toy sale for 10p. Hubby took the mickey when I introduced him, but my 2 year old keeps badgering him to put his money into Barnaby. So far, she's managed to put £30 into him. Not sure how much we'll be able to over pay after this month as my maternity pay is about to drop to something ridiculous like £400 so I'll be relying on my savings until I go back to work.

bellsbells, My mortgage payment day is the 25th, so I'll pm you then with my final total for this month.

bellsbells

Oggieinglos wrote: »

Hi all my first ever post on joining. Be gentle with me! (girls you dont have to!)

Anyway, we have a Virgin One account and are £10000 ahead anyway. That will change in the next couple of months as we are having an extension built. We have 8 years left to pay off our mortgage that will be about £65000 with extension costs.

Our aim is to pay it off in 5 years. Once the extension is complete it will be back to overpaying every month by about £500. To help us in our quest, I will volunteer to do shift work from next year. Anyone else made drastic changes to their lifestyle just to pay the mortgage off early?

Welcome to MSE and the challenge Ogg. You sound like you have a good clear plan and an aim all sorted! You have been added to the list on the first post and when you have a specific goal in mind or totals let me know!
I wouldn't say that I have made drastic changes to my lifestyle but I am much more aware of where my money is going and the best way to save it. I suppose I am much cleverer with my money as I have learnt lots of tricks to make it stretch further.

steve-o_3

I love things like this, they keep me motivated!!!

We made a conscious effort to pay off the mortgage last year and started overpaying regulary about middle of last year. We've paid a few lump sums off too when we get bonusses or savings mature etc, but as of now, this is where we stand and where we plan to be over the next few years.

* 2006 - We bought our first house (I was 25 and the missus was 23) for £170k, repayments were about £1000 a month over 20 years.
* Middle 2006 - I had some savings from a previous house sale so paid off a £25k lump! Mortgage down to approx £140k ish.
* Standard payments from then until middle of 2007.
* Middle 2007 - Re-hashed the house budget and squeezed out enough to start overpaying by £200 a month.
* Morgage was due up the last month, so paid off another £9500 we had saved. Mortgage now down to £127k ish over 18 years.
* Repayments have now dropped to £850 a month ish, so as we were paying £1000 + £200 overpyament, we now pay £850 + £350.

Current projected completion is in approx 11 years (taking existing overpayments into account and no further lump sums). Reality is we will probably pay off a few lump sums as we go as well, so we think 8 years to financial freedom isn't unrealistic? :j (I'll only be 35 and the missus 33 by this time!)

I have another bonus coming next month and we have some share save schemes to cash in later in the year which should total to approx another £3k lump to pay off.

So, in summary, we've already managed to pay off £43k off the mortgage in 2 years (god that seems like such an impossible number looking back!!!)

This year, overpayments should equate to approx £7200 including the predicted lump sums.

And before anyone says, no we're not loaded, we don't earn loads (approx £50k between us (or approx £25k each) which is no more than our freinds) and we don't get support from family or relatives, we do it all ourselves!

Its so cool to be so young and so financially minded that we can do this, we have loads of friends in so much money trouble, we are very lucky to think about money the way we do and agree on it.

Somehow we managed to also pay for a wedding last year and buy ourselves an Audi TT !!! Most of our freinds are still renting or even living at home with mum and dad and don't have any assets of any value! I'm shocked at how so many people fritter money away.

As I say, we don't earn loads, we just count the pennies. And the wierd thing is, we go out just as much as all our friends, eat out at least once a week, go to the pub at least once per week, buy ourselves luxuries etc etc... and still we can do this with the mortgage and have no other debt? Hard to see how so many people get it wrong?

We are both very lucky to be so money savvy. (God how full of ourselves do I sound!!!) lol, I am sorry, don't mean to be, just very proud of ourselves!

Good luck to everyone who's doing this, you all inspire me to get to my next step of financial freedom. :T

PS: Sorry for the long post!

Steve.