Motivation graph? 27 January 2008 at 8:45AM in Mortgage-Free Wannabe 14 replies 3.7K views

Lotus-eater

I've got this idea, to have a graph on the back of a cupboard, or on the pc and plot the remaining years of payments on my mortgage and then when I make extra payments I can plot a new curve and see how much time/money I am saving.
I haven't got a clue how to do it though :rolleyes:

Any ideas? Or am I thinking about this slightly wrongly and should be considering something different.

Karmacat

Hiya

I like the visual ideas - I know someone on here has blocks representing £500 or so, and crosses them off when she pays it off, but yours also represents future interest saved, if I'm reading you correctly. Sounds really interesting, and I may just have to copy you if I can understand your system!

Lotus-eater

Thats the idea, you can copy me once I work out how to do it

Karmacat

:wave: Great stuff!

MK_2020

Hello.
How about two graphs, one for how much you've got left (time and money) and one for how much you've saved (again time and money).

Myself, I use the 'blocks' method that Karmacat mentioned but I do mine on blocks of £100. I also have another 'blocks' chart for the percentage.

george_jetson

I drew a chart of amount owed by month, but found the figures quite daunting. So what I do instead is plot my monthly mortgage interest bill. It's just as satisfying seeing this drop month by month, and over the years. Looking back over the past few years (they're all plotted on the same chart) I can see sudden dips and rises where the interest rate increased or decreased. But over the long term, linear regression shows the overall trend is one way - down! And when my interest payment is £0 I'll know I'm officially mortgage free!

molit

I fiond counting how many months payments I've saved so far to be good - and what that means in terms of money saved. At the minute I think I'm at a brand new lotus elise- aiming for a Boxster by the end of this year :-)

Gazella77

Hi,

what a brilliant idea, if you work sth out can you please make it available?

as some of you know I am really rubbish at calculating - that would help me so much and keep me motivated as well:j

catshark88

The mortgage store does a good calculator for this. I enclose a link in case it helps the design process.

http://www.the-mortgagestore.co.uk/mortgagecalculator.asp

woollyjumper

I did have an excel spreadsheet - with graphs I downloaded from somewhere..
I will try and find it if anybody is interested.

Lotus-eater

Yes please, thats the sort of thing I had in mind. But I haven't got the skill to sort it out I think and I haven't had time to even think about it since I posted