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The turtle moves.... slowly
Hello all! Must admit, I spiritually feel like a DFW who doesn’t belong on the grown-ups board, but I’ve been debt free for over a year now so I'm shyly venturing into MFW territory 😂 For some background - after spending several years living beyond my means and thinking a ‘good’ salary meant I didn’t need to budget (while…
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Climbing the Mortgage Mountain step by step
Hi All I've returned to MSE after several years away, I was previously here under a different user name. I have previously been mortgage free twice in my life and both times, just as things should have gotten easier, life threw me a curve ball! This most recent time my marriage suddenly imploded and so, at the grand old…
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The Ongoing Saga of Ruby Trying to Own A Home
Hello, new home, new thread. If this is your first time here, welcome, I'm Ruby and together with my husband Mr Eskimo, we're on a journey to be mortgage free. We bought our first house in 2017 and made quite a big dent in the mortgage over that time, mostly due to some inheritance money and taking advantage of a very low…
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Keeping our options open
Hi Everyone, I've debated setting up my own MFW diary for a while and I've finally decided to go for it (hopefully the children will stay asleep long enough for me to write my first post!). We took our £200k mortgage out nearly 5 years ago on a 25 year term so that it would be paid off by the time my husband turns 60 and…
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Mortgage-Free Musings: mindful money & FIRE focus
Time to start a new diary and try to post more to keep myself accountable! The numbers: Current mortgage: £279,586.61 on 1.74% fixed for another 6 years. Little to be gained by OPing so my focus is on savings and WIOTW (what I owe the world) and ATMN (amount to mortgage neutral). £55k stoozed, £78k in cash savings. ATMN…
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My Mortgage Free Diary
Hi all, After lurking here for 3 months, decided to finally sign up and start my diary. My wife and I bought a 3 bed maisonette (1st and 2nd Floor) in August 2008 for 168,000, with a 5% deposit, with Directline 30yr mortgage, 2yrs fixed at 6.89% (ouch!), and since August 2010 we are on the SVR, currently 1.5% above base…
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Light the fire...
Hi All :wave: After lurking for a few years and having been inspired by lots of the amazing stories on this board I have decided that its time to join in and post my (our) journey. I am a mum of two (DD is 8, DS is 3) and have been married to my lovely DH for 10 years. We moved into our current house 4 years ago. We paid…
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My Mortgage Free Mountain - A 7 year expedition to climb to the top
OH and I are in a
position where we will be able to repay the mortgage on our own home either at
the end of this year or in Jan 2023 thanks to an insurance claim we have been
waiting to pay out for several months. However we also have 3
BTL mortgages which need to be cleared and our big dream is to clear them all
before my…
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Lumiona's MFW Diary
As a forum lurker, I'm not a threadstarter but I figured like many of you that a diary is a good accountability method. Ok so here goes: Backstory, we moved to our current house in 2006, bought for £178k mortgaged at £130k for 30yrs. Interest rates were high monthly payment about £750, went up to nearly £900 at one stage.…
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Overpay now or later?
I can now access my 25% tax free sum from my pension. I started the mortgage late so we have 10yrs to go £300k to pay off still Which is the smartest of these two moves: take my 25% now - value £30k and use it to overpay the mortgage now Wait circa 5yrs, when the 25% tax free sum will be bigger (circa £50k) and use it to…
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Tip toe towards my goal
Well I read mortgage free diaries all the time and find them motivating. So going to do a diary myself and log how I get on. Property purchased five years ago for £155000 now has I think £119570.24. This was a five year fix and and at the end of December will have 19 years and 4 months left. It has interest at 2.99%. I…
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Mortgage Redemption
I’m planning to pay off my Nationwide mortgage in full this month (yippee!). Currently the money is split between different accounts (cash ISA and non-ISA savings) with different institutions, none of it in the Nationwide. Am I better consolidating it all in one account and making a single payment to Nationwide, or would 2…
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MF Date 2037 - MOP it up by 2030?!?
Hello my fellow MFWers. I've decided to start a new thread now that I am debt free (4th June 2025) - yippeeeeee! I took out my mortgage in 2021 for 16 years and I'd absolutely love to get it paid by 2030 but we've recently been told that our tiny team in work is being transferred to another department and our job is very…
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Alternative living to escape the rat race....
Has anyone here managed to escape the rat race and semi‑retire before 35? I’ve been part of this forum for around 15 years, and it’s been an incredible resource for navigating all things money. But until about six months ago, I was like most people—caught up in the rat race. Constant bills, rising mortgage payments,…
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Halving our income and still aiming for mortgage free!
Hi everyone, A long time lurker of DFW forum, and then here. Finally starting my own diary as I feel it will help keep me on track! As the title suggests we are halving our income as I have resigned my job in order to keep sane and support DD with home educating for the next year. The last two years we have managed to…
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Strange Discussion today with Santander
I called Santander today to ask questions re paying off my mortgage in full later this year and waive the early repayment fee (which I can due with inheritance money). The conversion was straightforward right until the end. I said "thank you for answering my questions" to which he responded, "actually I have a question for…
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Starting (again). My mortgage-free journey took a detour
I am re-stating a diary of sorts because I feel I am at a genuine fork in the road and this type of diary really helped me early on when I was just starting my MFW journey years ago. In summer 2025 I was around five to six years away from being mortgage free. That was based on regular overpayments and the possibility of…
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Mortgage Free in the slow lane
Hi all, I have been enjoying reading the diaries so much, I thought to start one for 2026. We are a family of two parents and our kid. We bought our forever home and now have a mortgage of 220,130, with 24 years left to go. We have offset 4500 in an investment account. Our financial goals are the following (in order of…
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Should I overpay or save?
Not sure if this should be here or the general mortgages board?? Hi all, interested to know what you would do if you were me. Mortgage is £53400 left, current deal is 1.29% (£335pm) fixed until October 2026. There will be 14 years left in October. I could probably overpay between £100pm and £200pm. Would this make sense,…
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What would you do?
Hi, not been here for a while, apologies, and also want to thank in advance all the replies and advice received. OK here goes, situation is this, i work for myself, have done for the past seven years, business is not too good, i average about £15K a year, the mortgage is £1011 per month on a tracker, I'm just entering in…
