-
The Mortgage Free Roll Of Honour
Welcome to the Mortgage-Free Roll of Honour. This is for Mortgage-Free Wannabees who are no longer Wannabees. Please report a. The date you decided to become a MFW b. Mortgage Debt at its highest c. Mortgage-Free Date d. Your one perl of wisdom. e. The MSE Mortgage guides and others that helped you f. And if you had a…
-
Mortgage-Free Wannabe sticky
🏢 🏡 Here are some Forum threads you might find useful: * Mortgage-Free Wannabe Welcome and Explanation * The Mortgage Free Roll of Honour * 2023 Mortgage-Free Wannabes 🏢 🏡 And here's some relevant content from MoneySavingExpert.com: * Overpayment calculator * Should I overpay my mortgage? * Should you remortgage? * I'm a…
-
From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future
Good evening MFW'rs I hope there is a little space in diary land for me (Greying Pilgrim) to take up residency and chart our journey to mortgage freedom - albeit we're doing it a little back to front. The short story is, that we did own a home - Greying Towers - but 4 years ago we moved into rental accommodation with the…
-
22 Foxhole East
I just made my first mortgage overpayment. We bought a 5 bed Victorian terraced house in the East Midlands in April 16 that has been badly neglected. It needs everything doing, it has been let out on a room by room basis and used as a rental machine. Now it is our family house (4 kids = one bedroom each!!). So far I have…
-
Watty's Awakening
Time for a new diary I think. It is 2024, my last diary began over 10 years ago and so much has changed. My introduction in case we have not “met” My first diary told the story of, what I thought was a long and
happy relationship, paying off a mortgage aiming to get my financial freedom
from the world of work by paying off…
-
+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++
My third diary. <<<out of cheese error>> documented our debt free journey and then paying off the mortgage +++ Whoops! Here comes the cheese! +++ focussed on early retirement plans, and then my first year as a widow. This time I will be focussing on a positive new start in my brave new world. Final stages of renovating a…
-
Steadily climbing the mountain, enjoying the view along the way
I have been pondering for a while stating a new thread, as at 700+ pages my old one is getting very long and doesn’t feel so aligned with where I am now. 2026 is going to be about getting myself to as healthy and happy a place as I can. Life is short and my inherent perfectionism means that I tend to want to achieve,…
-
Knocking years off the mortgage…that’s the goal!
Good morning! So thought it was time I started a diary so I can keep track of progress we have made. Bought our home in 2019 with a £240000 mortgage. Consistently overpaid £100 a month for the last 4 years and now starting to tackle the mortgage seriously, we are able to overpay around £600 a month so we are clearing 2…
-
Investing in Us: Holidays, Health, and the Road to £150k
New diary for 2026 (I know I am a little early)! The last year has
been so up and down for me, I would like some fresh energy and a new
focus. If anyone is following me over from my old diary, then they
may know I moved house end of 2024 and upped my mortgage from a
comfortable sub 100k to approx £120k. Then this summer…
-
Pay off mortgage and start having even more fun 😁
Finally after twelve years of part one of this diary it’s time for part two 😆 Heres part one, slightly lengthy now to say the least! https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2408201/pay-off-mortgage-and-start-having-fun/p1 So condensing 12 years into a few sentences…. I joined the mfw board in April 2010, with a…
-
And now we go again...
...new diary title taken from the line I had already added in to my signature! Regulars will already recognise me - I've been here a while, although aside from one fairly short stint always on the DFW boards. A quick summary of our MSE history for those who have not stumbled across me before though - started out with a…
-
"Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it."
So after lurking on other people's diaries for the last few years it's time to start my own. I'd almost paid off my mortgage 4 years ago when I decided to move to somewhere a lot bigger and a lot more expensive. It was also a project. So for the last few years there have been no overpayments as everything has gone into…
-
Living the Good Life - mortgage free and living in line with our values
Evening all, I thought it was time I started a
new diary, as we've now been mortgage free for 18 months and the last pesky bit
of mortgage debt (on the 0% card) went in October. We're now almost through Mr
MV's 40th, Christmas, New Year and my 40th (coming up next week), so it seems
like a good time to start afresh and…
-
One step at a time
2024 has been a big (and expensive) year. I got married! We also moved into our ‘forever home’. Weddings and moving house are so expensive, and I am now looking towards getting a hold on our finances in 2025. I have been on the MSE forum for years, and contributed to some threads particularly on the old style moneysaving…
-
Thank god we paid the mortgage off
My previous diary was pulling my frugal pants on. I decided to start a new diary because, well because our new start that we had planned isn’t going to happen. So dad’s house sale finally went through and we’d decided that we would use my inheritance to offset OH dropping a day at work. Money would be tight but doable.…
-
Mortgage free wannabe part 2
Hi, it’s been ages since I posted and I was very lucky to pay off my mortgage before covid. my house was 25 years old and needed a lot spending on it to make it energy efficient and modernise it so we decided to move instead as we just couldn’t change certain things we didn’t like) Unfortunately this meant getting a…
-
The final countdown to June 2026
After +15 years of lurking on the site l have finally decided to create a MFW diary of my own. A brief-ish history 2009 took out current mortgage a tracker with FD, +0.79% base rate, allows fee free unlimited overpayments, and crucially, withdrawals upto the original amount borrowed. Thanks to your inspiration, super low…
-
Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻
Hi all 😊 I'm Cheery 😊 By name and (usually 🙄) by nature. I've been around here for many years, taking in all the excellent wisdom and trying to use as much of it as possible 😊 We are two, Mr Cheery and I. We have been together for over 18 years 😮 We moved to the countryside six years ago, gained a large mortgage, and a…
-
misstara's mortgage free diary
I've been kicking about dfw for years, firstly paying off debt, then saving a deposit and now am finally joining the mfw section of mse :smiley: We've just bought a wee 2 bedroom terraced house - missives were concluded last week, will sign all paperwork this week and get the keys next week. Thanks to an extremely generous…
-
Dilemma, Dilemma, Dilemma
Hello, I've been on MSE for many moons, gone through debt repayment and many challenges but this one feels the absolute worst. I'm kind pre 'mortgage free wannabe' but also needing the comfort blanket of a good ole MSE diary. So current situation, co-parenting with Ex H. We both have partners and everything is friendly. We…
-
Learning to walk before I run
Hello all! :) I am returning to the forum in an attempt to gain your collective wisdom in sorting out our dire finances. I've been experiencing a series of mini lightbulb moments of late and have realised that it's time for a change. Despite being vaguely savvy as regards areas of personal finance such as pensions, I have…
-
The Case of the Overwhelming Mortgage
I’ve lurked for a long time. I have no-one in real life I can discuss these issues with and thought it might be helpful to get it out of my head and on to paper. I am mid 40s, married, with two pre-teen children. We moved in 2017, with a 20 year mortgage of £140,000 and interest of £10 per day. We now have a mortgage of…