Morgage Free Motivation

wacker293

Hi All New to MFW, I am about to enbark on our quest to be MF and wondering how you all keep motivated? and if you have any tips for us.
I am hoping to pay of our morgage in 4-5 years which will mean i will be 33 once we have done it.

bellsbells

Welcome wacker293 - imagine how amazing it will be for you to be mortgage free at the age of 33! That would be motivation enough for me:rotfl: Just think of all those holidays you will be able to take!
Seriously however something that works for me is seeing it in terms of interest saved. It works out something like for every £1 you overpay on your mortgage it saves you £3 in interest (or something similar). Looking at it like this is a great motivator. £1 is just a cup of coffee or a magazine, so putting that money in the overpayment pot is making a real difference.
Another good motivator for me is the mortgage pig idea - see the sticky at the top of the board. If you have not already joined you get yourself a piggy bank and add any loose change, savings etc into the pot. You then add that to your overpayment. The OP suggests writing a statement to go with your pig (I've got a dragon:rotfl: ) to remind you why you want to pay off your mortgage early.
The final big motivator is feeling in control - I am not following the banks timescale and agenda but my own. In a small way I feel like I am beating the system that says we have to have a mortgage for 25 years and pay off the full amount of interest.

Good luck and welcome

Daft_Pegasus

If you get the balance right then the motivation becomes easier. By balance I mean that you should still be able to treat yourself from time to time. So long as you don't pay off the mortgage to the detriment of having a life.

There was a thread recently about what people plan to do once they're mortgage free. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=676065 - You want to be MF for a reason, just focus on that reason.

Finally reading these threads on a regular basis helps me keep motivated. In the 2008 challenge thread a lot of us have set targets to achieve in the year. Having those targets on a public forum and setting myself an ambitious target (that I don't expect to achieve) helps me focus but I'd rather fail trying to achieve something ambitious than set my target too low just to achieve it (but that's my own personal preference). There's lot's of great threads on this whole forum which will help motivate you and show you ways of saving money or making money that you'd never thought of before - these will all help you focus on your goal.

It's amazing how much you can pay off without really trying just by reading this forum.

Jonbvn

Daft_Pegasus wrote: »

By balance I mean that you should still be able to treat yourself from time to time. So long as you don't pay off the mortgage to the detriment of having a life.

In a nutshell!

I think it is important that paying off your mortgage does not become your only goal in life, to the detriment of everyone and everything else.

george_jetson

Jonbvn wrote: »

I think it is important that paying off your mortgage does not become your only goal in life, to the detriment of everyone and everything else.

Completely agree! If you're too ambitious and force yourself to make too many sacrifices you're likely to get sick of the whole thing and jack it in. Remember the Chinese proverb 'Make haste slowly'!

I'm on track to be MF this year, though sadly I'll miss my original deadline of being MF while I'm still 40 by a couple of months.

I would agree with bellsbells about focussing on the interest you're paying. When I began my quest I charted the amount I owed and the amount I'd paid off. However I found the big numbers and my initial slow progress disheartening. It's much easier to focus on the interest you pay each month - especially with an offset account where you can see the amount drop monthly.

I've been keeping a chart for the past four years of my monthly interest bill and it's very satisfying to look at its steady progress towards £0!

Good luck!

gallygirl

[

I would agree with bellsbells about focussing on the interest you're paying. When I began my quest I charted the amount I owed and the amount I'd paid off. However I found the big numbers and my initial slow progress disheartening. It's much easier to focus on the interest you pay each month - especially with an offset account where you can see the amount drop monthly.

I've been keeping a chart for the past four years of my monthly interest bill and it's very satisfying to look at its steady progress towards £0!

Good luck! [/quote]

A month.... Crikey, I've worked it out hourly , but then I need to get a life

PS 31p an hour

setmefree2

Fear was my main motive when we first started our quest. Owing £250k was terrifying:eek:....now it's the fact that I hate paying the bank £850 in interest every month_pale_


P.s. and I pop in here once a day just to keep motivated too!

gallygirl

setmefree2 wrote: »

Fear was my main motive when we first started our quest. Owing £250k was terrifying:eek:....now it's the fact that I hate paying the bank £850 every month_pale_


P.s. and I pop in here once a day just to keep motivated too!

Which is £27.945 a day :eek: and £1.16 an hour :eek: :eek: just in case you weren't motivated enough

On Sunday my 31p an hour increases to 32p an hour :mad: , before falling back to 31p on 1st March. Projected to fall to 30p on 1st June. Emmmm, not that I'm sad enough to calculate of course

getmore4less

The imortant thing is that it form part of an overall finacial stratagy no point in paying iy off to find yourself paying tax on savings which could be in an ISA.

For most mortgage free means rent free no rent to a landlord or to a bank lending you money, so you need less income in the future.

save-a-lot

wacker293 wrote: »

Hi All New to MFW, I am about to enbark on our quest to be MF and wondering how you all keep motivated? and if you have any tips for us.
I am hoping to pay of our morgage in 4-5 years which will mean i will be 33 once we have done it.

Are you at all penalised for paying too much off in one year? I have a cap of 5% of the outstanding mortgage balance per annum that I can pay off as an overpayment before I start to get penalised. So, if you have the same case, split off some money and save or invest a portion of it. The motivation I have is to still be young enough to enjoy being mortgage free.

george_jetson

ali007 wrote: »

A month.... Crikey, I've worked it out hourly , but then I need to get a life

PS 31p an hour

Couldn't resist! 10.5p/hour!