mortgage-free by magic?

Di-Dough

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

I've already fallen into this in a certain respect because I remove my signature when making posts. I'm going to stop doing this, I'm proud to be working hard at securing my family's future. If this put's people's backs up then that's their problem not mine.

:T :T :T :T :T

I love being a mortgage free wannabe and if somebody doesn't like that then thats their problem not mine

I do know someone who has a similar mortgage to me and she knows that I am overpaying but she has never been nasty about .... she does say however how "lucky" I am to be overpaying. Its not luck its choice.... I choose put any extra money I have into mortgage .... Yes I do spend money on something I like but I wait a few days to make sure I really want that item and is it worth it. I don't really mention to anyone now that I am trying to pay of my mortgage early ...... it seems to be a conversation killer:rolleyes:

Di

mountainlioness

Yes, sorry, I didn't mean there was a problem with DFW just that DD's post made me reflect on how these different monetary "statuses" can affect our behaviours and reactions...

I've never had a prob on DFW and I do check in regularly - just that I am a bit self-conscious when it comes to money - based on long experience of ppl (outside DFW!) finding it a bit awkward or sad to be MSE/MFWing with any degree of enthusiasm!

patrick1

I'd love to be able to pay my mortgage off. I'm overpaying it as I can and it's now down to £270,000 but the property prices are dropping so fast the chance of me getting a remortgage (on 4.99% til July 09) look slim as I'll probably be in negative equity.

What's worse is that the flat's leasehold from Lambeth Council - last month I received a bill for £18,500 to repair the roof of the block and replace the windows with double glazed ones - and apparently it's compulsory.

On top of that I'm worried about my job - there have been a lot of layoffs where I work lately. Eeps!

count_rostov

This thread really surprised me. I'm far from being a MFW (we owe £130,000 on our first house we bought a year ago) I'm still a DFW as can be seen from my signature (a little student debt and the rest from doing our house up). One of our friends has paid his mortgage off and another is almost there. They're both 33. I just feel so proud for them, it's brilliant that they've worked so hard to achieve it. I was absolutely amazed to read that they might get envious or snidey comments!
Well done all you MFWs and those who have made it. I lurk on your board sometimes and dream of when I can join, hopefully in about a year or eighteen months.

Sweet_Pea_2

I have been in a similar situation at work. A couple of colleagues were having a general discussion about money, and it turns out that they have credit card and store card debts. They were saying that they worked almost every weekend in the last year as overtime, and overtime had now stopped. They were discussing getting a second job at the weekend to replace this loss of earnings. They were complaining about food prices going up and how much the cost of living in general was going up.

Both colleagues have had at least three holidays in the past year, one of which was abroad, one colleague had put the cost of the holiday and the spending money on the cc. (She felt she deserved a holiday, so s0d the expense, "worry about it later" she said) She admitted she had recently put her gas bill on the cc, and does her food shopping at Waitrose and M+S.

I told her about my food budget and some of my strategies to keep my food bills low, including growing stuff, and that I do my food shopping at Aldi and cook from scratch etc, and she thought I was mad! Both of these colleagues work full time and I work half the hours that they work also have 2 children and one of these colleagues does not have this expense. They asked me what my husband does and when they heard that he is a manager they more or less said "well there you go then!" But I know what they and their OH's earn and what I and my OH earn and I calculate it to work out at roughly the same. I can afford to work these hours because we economize. One colleague even said I was posh for growing stuff in my garden! (Which is the size of a pocket hanky!)

Since then I have kept my mouth shut tight when these conversations crop up, as they are, more and more frequently, and have not admitted that we have no overdrafts, credit cards or loans. (Except for the mortgage!) I would probably be drummed out of the building. I did tell a few colleagues about MSE a while back in a conversation about mortgages, but not a single one of them ever looked on here so I have given them up as a bad job.

Some friends of ours are making hefty overpayments on their mortgage and have recently bought a property abroad. I must admit that OH and I did wonder how they managed it, and although they are good friends we felt it would be very nosy to ask outright, but having said that I think its great. Our friends are very hard workers, both have had two jobs each at times, and if anyone deserves it they do, also they do it without being mean with money either.

Sorry for the rant, I just find peoples jealousy about other peoples hard work really annoying. I am hoping we will be MFW's soon, finances are currently being overhauled in order to make this happen, but I dont think I will be mentioning it to my colleagues at work!

esthomizzy

Courgette wrote: »

I told my mum I was planning to get rid of the mortgage as quickly as possible and her reaction was one of horror! She says I'm daft because H2B could divorce me and walk off with all my hard work!! Thanks for the faith, Mum. Does that also mean she'd rather I gave thousands and thousands to the bank rather than take the risk that H2B won't do a runner once we're married?

She's only thinking of you (however misguidedly it may turn out to be). My ex did that very thing to me (inadvertently admittedly) but all the extra payments we made were initiated organised and suggested by me. I reduced our term loads and arranged for lots of extra payments where we could afford them and then we unfortunately split up and I had buy him out of the even larger portion that we now jointly owned. I'd have been better off if we hadn't bothered.

Still it was in good faith at the time.

I know what you all mean though. I don't tell most people I make extra mortgage payments. If they start a conversation about mortgages/debts etc I might steer them to the whatsthecost site so they can see for themselves what various payment amounts will do to the term. I have to admit though that I usually say well I'd like to make extra payments because look how much of a difference it makes, but I can't really afford to. While keeping quiet that I actually do make extra payments and that's partly responsible for why I'm so skint. Sneaky I know but people just wouldn't understand that I'm choosing to cut down on my lifestyle now slightly so I can be comfortable and have more choices later.

StuartGMC

esthomizzy wrote: »

I know what you all mean though. I don't tell most people I make extra mortgage payments. If they start a conversation about mortgages/debts etc I might steer them to the whatsthecost site so they can see for themselves what various payment amounts will do to the term. I have to admit though that I usually say well I'd like to make extra payments because look how much of a difference it makes, but I can't really afford to. While keeping quiet that I actually do make extra payments and that's partly responsible for why I'm so skint. Sneaky I know but people just wouldn't understand that I'm choosing to cut down on my lifestyle now slightly so I can be comfortable and have more choices later.

It's interesting the response you can get, we have always overpaid, but we've had the mortgage since 1994, and with annual interest calculations and higher interest rates even regular £100-£150 only reduced the term 3 years by the 12yr stage. Moved to 10yr offset 2006, with overpayments and things are improving so we are nearly at the stage where the max we can save in interest is now £6k whether we paid off tomorrow or in 4 yrs.

I do talk about this, but most of my colleagues and staff think I am on a much higher salary than them (the S-Type jag does little to alter that wrong impression ) but I do chat about the offset, overpayments and generally the need to save interest costs for a better future and prompt them to just take a little time to look at MSE etc. I guess I'm lucky that they don't take great offence, but one other overpays significantly and another is in offset; whilst I've sent my budgeting spreadsheet to another few.

As you say, you can take a short-term dip in living standards and luxury with the aim of clearing quickly, or like me a broader view on what you want; neither is wrong just different, but "difference" is something society seems not to be encouraging now especially in the financial arena.

Best wishes with your plans.

camper

One of my work colleagues said I wasn't doing myself any favours - because if anything happened to my DH, the insurance would only pay off the mortgage owing and I would have 'lost' all the overpaid part!

We are still overpaying, and hope to both enjoy the freedom on MF day together.

BARGAINHUNTER!

I learned a while ago to stear clear of conversations about what I spent my money on at work. My collegues seemed horrified that I was scrimping and saving (well not exactly, but i have cut back and i watch what I spend) in order to overpay my mortgage. I go comments like "why?" "whats the point" "you could die tomorrow" but deep down I know that I am doing the right thing for me and my children!

Dithering_Dad

camper wrote: »

One of my work colleagues said I wasn't doing myself any favours - because if anything happened to my DH, the insurance would only pay off the mortgage owing and I would have 'lost' all the overpaid part!

We are still overpaying, and hope to both enjoy the freedom on MF day together.

I worried about this due to my overpayments and so I did a bit of research. If you have 'term' life assurance, this pays out the insured lump sum on death regardless of your mortgage size. So if you have a £100k term life policy for 25 yrs for your 100k mortgage, but pay your mortgage off in 10 yrs, you still have a £100k life policy for the remaining 15 yrs.

Mortgage Protection Insurance, is where the insured lump sum reduced down each year by a certain percentage. They calculate the percentage on the size of your mortgage. So if you have a £100k mortgage over 25 years, they will reduce the lump sum by 4k per year (or 4%). If you overpay your mortgage by 10% per year, your MPI still only reduces down by 4% so if you have paid your mortgage off after 10 yrs and die the day after, you will receive £60,000 from your life assurer, ie. 100k - (100k / 100 * 4 * 10yrs) = 100k - 40k = 60k.

This is what my insurance blokey told me any way, but for piece of mind you might want to check with your insurer. If you have MPI and it doesn't reduce by a percentage each year, regardless of your mortgage, then I'd suggest finding an insurer that does, or alternatively buy term life assurance.

Hope this helps