The Mortgage Free in Three - Take 2 challenge (MFiT-T2)

financialbliss · 10 January 2009 at 10:56AM

Hi everyone!

Sorry but didn't manage to get anywhere near the computer last night. I'm also busy this morning and need to go out, but just a quick update...

Via PMs and posts here, there are already 11 challengers. I'll PM everyone and also post back here with your numbers when I've some free time later.

Thanks,
FB.

Desperate_Housewife_2-2 · 10 January 2009 at 11:00AM

maz123 wrote: »

Thankyou desperate housewife,
like you say at the start it just seems impossible but you and the others are proof it's possible and give us inspiration.
Now lets get to the important stuff, any tips for us learners? What 1 piece of advice would you tell yourself before you started your challenge?

oooh, where do I start?!

My tips would be

-sit down with rest of family and talk about it, do a budget and decide what you all are happy to cut out/cut back on. (We like holidays but are not bothered about going abroad so we decided on that and it worked a treat for us. Everyone is happy then and no-one feels like they are shortchanged. I haev 2 teenagers and they know what we are doing and why and understand.) I try not to waste food and get all my clothes from the jumble/charity and we are all well fed, clean and smart.

- Do a yearly plan, I have a book and plan for the income/outgoings for every month, a bit like the running total on your cheque book but more detailed. It saves you from saying 'I'll catch up next month' and makes you realise you have nowhere to hide when overspending.

I could go on forever with this but the essence is 'earn more, spend less' you just have to find ways to do this that will fit in with your lifestyle, also its like a diet, if you go to bed having failed that day you know you can wake up the next morning and make a fresh start, take each day as it comes but plan for the future.

I call my mortgage free plan 'The Shawshank plan' have you seen the film? He chipped away small amounts for years to build a tunnel, well, I'm nearly out of the prison!

All the very best! You can do it!

Floxxie · 10 January 2009 at 12:55PM

Desperate Housewife, well done on your mortgage reducion - that is really impressive and motivating! And the 'Shawshank Plan' - absolutely brilliant!

Have to admit that I hate doing spreadsheets especially budget ones. I often start and then forget to add to it so have given up with these.

What works for me is 1) not spending the money - asking the question do I need it or just want it? 2) making a list of all the things I am going to do for the year to raise extra funds and then doing them 3) popping onto the jeacle.ie site to have a play around with some figures to motivate me.

I'm sure that if I really tried and reduced spending elsewhere, I could make even more overpayments but I haven't got the time (or inclination at the moment) so my overpayments come from money I have earnt online. Will make it part of the challenge though when it starts.

Have found sitting down with the family has helped; they are only young but I've explained that we owe the bank lots of pennies and want to give it back. My eldest son has been watching snippets of the news and is aware of the credit crunch and impending recession so this has helped him understand although think he is terrified the bank is going to ask for it all back now as they are 'bust' as he puts it! :rotfl:

Looking forward to getting this challenge over and done with! Here's to 2012.:beer:

Floxxie

ShelleyC_2 · 10 January 2009 at 2:10PM

Thanks to FB and Maz for setting this challenge up. If I do buy my next house over the next year I would loved to join as my plan is to get rid of the new mortgage as soon as is possible.

Just have to say thanks to Floxxie for the Dr Calculator site - thats going to give me hours of fun :j

hughmungas1986 · 10 January 2009 at 2:54PM

Just dropped in to say good luck to everyone.

Its great to follow everyone's progress on all these challenges and pick up any tips / info that people post.

hugh

Trying_to_be_good · 10 January 2009 at 3:45PM

Good luck to everyone - I'm sticking with the original 'Mortgage Free in Three' gang for now, as I hope to have my whole mortgage offset by my ISA in April 2010 when that finishes.

It's really inspiring to read how others are getting on with the challenge, so I look forward to reading all about it, and would encourage you all to keep posting, no matter how 'small' your piece of news is - it's much more like a family and friends chat then!

Robert_Tycelyn · 10 January 2009 at 8:46PM

Thanks once again FB and Maz123 for setting up the challenge. Please count me in - I will work on my figures over the next few days.

financialbliss · 10 January 2009 at 9:27PM

TallGirl wrote: »

Just wanted to say good luck to all of you and I hope you achieve your goals. Please let me know if any of you wish to leave the original MFi3 Challenge so I can take you off the chart.

Ofcourse I hope you don't leave us but that you will continue to post your updates to me every three months. It may even help if I use the same dates as you are using here. We only have 15 months left of the original challenge.

TallGirl - Thanks for dropping in. I think I've managed a mortgage update for every MFiT chart so far, and I'm not about to drop out now...:D

In the above Q&As, I've said I won't hit my MFiT goal, but I'm still determined to get as close as I can to it, ie I've no intention of dropping out at this stage.

This challenge doesn't officially start until December 2009 and the mortgage free in three challenge ends in April 2010, so there is just ~3 months of an overlap.

I'm hoping that as many people as possible become mortgage free from the MFiT challenge, but I'm sure there will be some who for whatever reason, don't make it - remember that you've until December to register for this challenge, so perhaps the MFiT members should take stock towards the latter part of the year?

I'm also in the 2009 MF Wannabe's challenge too. The idea there being that I run with that challenge for most of 2009 to attempt to get the mortgage down to sub 50k, then announce this in late 2009 and run until 2012, but we all know if didn't happen that way..

FB.

financialbliss · 10 January 2009 at 9:40PM

Thanks everyone who has expressed an interest so far.

I've updated post #1 with a list of the current 12 challengers and attempted to put down a goal where either some specifics were mentioned or numbers and aims were thrown about.

Note: I'll make sure I PM everyone so that they don't miss their number.

Please don't worry if you've not got a goal just yet, or if you want to alter your goal. Just PM myself of Maz123 and we'll get around to updating the information.

I've estimated that my own mortgage will be somewhere around the £48,947 mark, so I've put that amount in as an initial stake in the ground. You may note from my sig, that it's currently £58,338, so I've some way to go.

I've also put together a rough chart and posted an image on post #4 - the current chart. I may look into placing a copy on Google docs, so you can get a copy of the sheet, rather than the image, but this is something I'll have to do some research on, as I've not played with Google docs before.

Thanks,

Financial Bliss / Maz123.

StuartGMC · 11 January 2009 at 12:11AM

financialbliss wrote: »

I may look into placing a copy on Google docs, so you can get a copy of the sheet, rather than the image, but this is something I'll have to do some research on, as I've not played with Google docs before.

FB, I've tried to use Google docs in my voluntary activities at home. No problem for me using it (OpenOffice documents) and some users accessed but couldn't seem to get their head around this part. I think here you'll have people savvy enough to handle this simple task though!

Best wishes to all on this challenge. I'll be watching but not joining as I hope my timeline will be shorter.

The Mortgage Free in Three - Take 2 challenge (MFiT-T2)

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