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Mortgage Free Plod
Hello MFWs I'm de-lurking after living vicariously through you all for a very long time. I've exchanged on my first house today! So now I'm a MFW too. My context: I'm a divorced, single mum (1DS). We'll be moving into a little 2-bed house with our moggy. I've taken out a 95% repayment mortgage over 27 years, which takes me…
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Bricks Not Books
The first day of a New Year seems like the best time to start this diary! I was on this board under another name for a number of years, but I felt like a change of name as well as a change of diary, so here I am! Completed on new home with OH in December, we haven't even owned it for a month yet. But we have a mortgage of…
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Our Journey to Mortgage Freedom by 2030 🏡💪
Hi everyone, I’ve been reading lots of inspiring posts here and thought it was time to start my own little diary to keep myself accountable (and hopefully help others who are on the same path!). A bit of background: * We bought our house in 2022, borrowing just over £400k on a 5-year fix at 2.4%. * We originally wanted…
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🌞 Happy Days in our Golden Years 🌞
Just over a year has passed since the final entry of my last
diary. A whole year of no debts and no
mortgage 😁 We
are semi-retired, using our private pensions to cover the cost of bread and
butter and running our own business part-time to put jam on it. You’d think I could do without a money saving
diary in those…
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The second hurdle - Nichelette v the huge mortgage
Hello! I thought I would start a new diary as we attack the second phase of our mortgage... In Jan 2019 we bought our first (lovely, but little) house for 320k with a 10% deposit. South east prices :s . With the fees we began our journey with a mortgage of £289,500 over 30 years. To be honest, whilst it was affordable to…
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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…
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A new chapter for Kaycastle: fresh start, renovations & the quest for mortgage freedom
Hiya all, it’s been a while. Thank you for all the support and advice after the divorce announcement last summer. I have returned now I’ve sorted where my life is going more :) We finally sold the marriage house, it’s been many buyers and a total nightmare but definitely completing start of May. I have brought a new house…
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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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Easter 2025 I’m coming to get you!
OK so that maybe slightly optimistic but you have to dream big! I’ve been reading these for a while and decided it was time to go public instead of lurking; hopefully I can keep up with it and keep motivated. I have a mortgage which is not huge but I still have one. Originally £80,000 in November 2015 and as of tonight…
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Where to focus - mortgage, renovations etc?
Hello, My partner and I bought our first home together last year (we're late 30s, and both had homes of our own before). The mortgage is high, but it's a forever home and we also only put down a 15% deposit so as to keep some cash back for renovations. Although we have a lot in savings, we've found the cost of materials,…
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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…
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There and back again...reducing the mortgage to manifest our forever home
Have been a long time lurker on MSE, and DP and I bought our first house together in March 2025 with a mortgage of £190,000. Had many plans for overpaying, what we wanted to get done however life has had other ideas so starting a diary for the first time to try and help me keep on track. We did manage to OP £3500 in 2025,…
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Mortgage free mayhem
Hi everyone! Really excited to track my mortgage-free journey at 52. Before becoming a uni lecturer this year, I've worked in charities my whole life. I've got a pension of £60K, an easy-access savings pot of £3000, and a mortgage of £84206. I want to see how quickly I can pay off the mortgage with my new higher income.…
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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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MF by Christmas 2024 - let's do this!
Hi everyone, I’m taking the plunge and starting a MF diary as DH and I
want rid of the millstone around our necks. We both work full time and are currently supporting DS2 who
is in year 2 at uni. DD finished uni in the Summer and has a temp job so we aren’t
charging her rent atm. DS1 lives with his GF so they are…
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Future Proofing my life: Deposit saving then MFW journey in under 13 years
I have been reading lots of these MFW diaries over the last few weeks, some 300 odd pages long and tracking a decade or more of life. They have been fascinating, very inspirational and given me some great ideas. I am looking to buy within the next year, and then get MFW and o/p as soon as I can. My savings rate, income…
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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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Onwards to freedom!
Hello and welcome to my MFW diary. Not sure how often I'll update as I'm going down the boring 'increase monthly mortgage direct debit' route, not the more interesting to read 'random repayment as and when a bit of extra money is made' route. Still, no harm in starting a diary here, even if it's just for me to look back on…
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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…