Mortgage free

Sarsibob1 · 11 October at 7:34AM

I have been a lurker on here for years rather than a poster but as I can't tell anyone in real life I am going to shout it out where someone can hear me

As of approx 30 mins ago we are mortgage free - made an online banking transfer equal to the amount outstanding this morning. My 2.79% fix ended last month and I don't fancy the current rates available but didn't quite have enough at the end of sept to make the final payment.

Started with first mortgage of 109k in 2007. I bought a 3 bed house as a single person and rented out two rooms. Have overpaid the mortgage since day 1 - my first lodger moved in the day after I did and I overpaid by the amount of rent I got. Back then I was on 16k plus commission.

In 2010 moved with partner now husband to a new house and took out a mortgage of 125k. I kept hold of house 1 and rented it out so had a combined mortgage of 220k at that point. Kept house 1 on a repayment mortgage so the rent paid that and we paid our new one.

Moved again in 2014. Sold house 2 and took out a new mortgage for 250k so over the two mortgages owed somewhere around 325k at that point.

We paid off house 1 mortgage in 2020 and it is still rented out and our residential home mortgage was paid off today.

We haven't had any inheritance as all parents and my grandma are still alive. We have lived way below our means in order to achieve this. I was very lucky in that in 2018 I went self employed and my income trippled from when I was employed (40k to around 120k plus £13k a year rent) but we didn't up the spending massively with our new income and instead have concentrated on overpaying. Could we have made more keeping the mortgage and investing more in the stock market - probably but as a self employed person and sole earner (husband is a sahd since being made redundant during covid) for me the security of our home being safe no matter what is priceless.

We were paying nearly 2k a month mortgage payments plus a 10% overpayment when I took my annual dividends (I reduced the term on overpayment and kept the monthly payment the same). I am going to divert most of the monthly mortgage money into an annual s&s isa but the lump sum overpayment money we made will be used to upgrade our lives a bit more. Will be booking a
big holiday next year when I can get my dividends in April. Thinking euro disney in summer 2026 and mexico for hubbies 50th in 2027.

So thats my mortgage journey over. 18 years and two mortgage free houses later I now have to learn how to be a little less frugal which is going to take some doing. I am 42 and husband is 48 with two kids.