Just wanting to say hi!

wabbits

Hey there,

Really impressed with your motivation...I just remember what I was like at 22....if I only knew then what I know now......unfortunately my crystal ball got dropped some time ago, it is still being repaired :rotfl: .

We don't know many people at our age (22) that have bought houses

....great move you have made. My wife and I bought the house we are still in now at 24 (now 32).....best thing we ever did..... ooops, other than get married (you know what I mean).

whenever we tell people about our MFW plans it is generally met with some hostility

.....aren't people mad. I suppose if we were all the same it would be boring. Keep doing what you are doing.

so we tend not to say anything now and just quietly get on with it.

...
....I know exactly what you mean...hence me spending time (albeit a newbie here) on these forums with like-minded people.

Keep up the good work.....i'm finding it infectious.

Cheers

McKneff

:hello: Hello there, nice that you have updated us with your progress
and that you are proud of yourselves and rightly so. keep up the good work.:T :T

I was looking forward to the day we paid our mortgage off so that we owed absolutley nothing to nobody. The day came and the euphoria of coming out of the Halifax after handing over the last payment of our mortgage was indescribable. Then i remembered i had two payments of £30 to pay on a telly we had got on 12 months interest free credit. I promptly went round to the co-op, paid off the £60 and literally did a Morcambe and Wise getting out of the shop. At last, we did not owe a penny to anybody.

Wonderful feeling to look forward to - good luck

atypicalblonde

Thanks for the comments guys, it is lovely to know there are like-minded people who share the goal of being mortgage free! I think we will be able to reach £3k by the end of the year, which is great news!!

SmlSave

Hello :wave:

I am in awe of your amazing OP's - any hints?

I bought my house when I was 23 and don't think I would have liked doing rented - there may have been less stress :rolleyes: - but I like the fact the money I'm paying may means I own my own place outright some day!

atypicalblonde

Hi Smlsave,
Thanks for the encouragement and your post, it is lovely to see people popping in. I think that for us to key has been constantly reviewing our SOA, and going through Martin's money makeover etc on a regular basis. We have shaved quite a bit from our regular household bills recently by doing the following:
1. Switching to a water meter - this has saved us £15 per month.
2. Switching energy suppliers - saving us £10 per month.
3. Changing our life insurance providers - this saved us £5 per month.
4. We took out our buildings and contents insurance through Quidco - it has cost us less than half of our previous premium and has saved us £10 a month.
Whenever we make savings such as the above these are added on to our standard OP. We also regularly do the 'storecupboard challenge' over on the OS board to encourage us to use up things that have been in the cupboards for an age! Please don't get me wrong, we still do enjoy ourselves and have fun, but for us it is so exciting to see the mortgage balance come down and hopefully, if all goes to plan, we will have paid it off by our 30th birthdays.
Time to go and tinker with the OP calculators again!!

setmefree2

Welcome & Good Luck:T:T Look forward to reading abot your progress.:D

JonnyBravo

atypicalblonde wrote: »

Hi Smlsave,
Thanks for the encouragement and your post, it is lovely to see people popping in. I think that for us to key has been constantly reviewing our SOA, and going through Martin's money makeover etc on a regular basis. We have shaved quite a bit from our regular household bills recently by doing the following:
1. Switching to a water meter - this has saved us £15 per month.
2. Switching energy suppliers - saving us £10 per month.
3. Changing our life insurance providers - this saved us £5 per month.
4. We took out our buildings and contents insurance through Quidco - it has cost us less than half of our previous premium and has saved us £10 a month.
Whenever we make savings such as the above these are added on to our standard OP. We also regularly do the 'storecupboard challenge' over on the OS board to encourage us to use up things that have been in the cupboards for an age! Please don't get me wrong, we still do enjoy ourselves and have fun, but for us it is so exciting to see the mortgage balance come down and hopefully, if all goes to plan, we will have paid it off by our 30th birthdays.
Time to go and tinker with the OP calculators again!!

Well done!

Long time since you've been in but great to see you've kept to your plans.
You have indeed done well and it's good to see you're going to beat your goal. All the more impressive when your age is considered.
The equity you're building up will give you many more options as you get older.
e.g. I didn't buy til I was 27 (bought first in Feb 98), then extended that house, but still could have been mortgage free 8 years later due to overpayments.
As it was we bought another house in 2004 that needed lots of work again, but as we had reduced our debt so much we stayed in our first house while the work was done on it then moved out when the work was complete. We now rent out our old house.



Now, you may never move (unlikely as you earn more, your family grows etc) but the central tenet still holds.....

Getting your debt down will give you options..... and of course, save you money.




Well done.... don't worry about what others say. Often people don't like to think about it as it's something they just find too hard to do. They are the type of people who clearly waste far too much money.... and deep down they know it.
So going back to my first post.... you are indeed more "atypical" than "typical" but it will benefit you in the long run!

:T

gallygirl

Well done :j. many people wouldn't be *rsed changing things for a few pounds here & there (what they spend on a sandwich at lunchtime after all). You've shown that all those small amounts really add up to
!!!thousands of pounds!!!
well done again :j

StuartGMC

ATB
Excellent to hear of your progress and the fact you are both working at it together. Few people overpay, although it seems more common now than when we started in 1994 at 29yrs old.

As JonnyBravo noted, you are providing yourselves with a lot of freedom of choice later, or indeed, if their are children then you can manage the bills, the mortgage, OP and still go on holiday etc. Alternatively, you'll be able to wisely use your money, build up funds and hopefully enjoy some great extras once in your 30s which others around you can't - and all paid for out-right without any loans!

Well done.

atypicalblonde

Hi everyone

Thank you for your kind words and encouraging comments. I was having a truly awful day at work and your posts have really helped me to pick myself up and remind myself exactly why we are doing this - i.e. so that I don't have to continue to do a job that I don't truly enjoy simply because it pays well.

I have signed up to the MFW 2009 challenge, and our goal is to OP £6000, which I think is mighty achievable. I have just called up to check the balance on our mortgage (I couldn't wait until January for the annual statement!), and have made a note of it in my 'OP notebook'. Time to do a bit more number crunching I think!

ATB xx