Journey to a mortgage free future

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  • Oh lovely, congrats on your OP! Bet it felt good seeing the difference on your mortgage :)

    Just the standard, confirm your full name, confirm you're the account holder, your full adress and sometimes your D.O.B too
    Mortgage left: £105,427.32
    Savings: £5,000/£4,850
    OP Total 2019: £1,900
    OP Total 2020: £2,400
    OP Target 2021: £2,400/£0
    Emergency fund: £1,000/£1,550

    Christmas pot: £360/£30
  • kev2009
    kev2009 Posts: 1,038
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    ah great, thanks! I thought maybe they wanted you to re-confirm mortgage type questions as opposed to your generic identification questions, sounds great!

    I'm thinking next year, i'll phone them up to make OP and get them to advise what my new rate would be IF i OP & reduced term so i can weigh up best option.

    I was bit hesitant as was largest sum I've ever OP on mortgage to date and kinda thought am i doing the right thing or not... but then even more worrying, it disappeared form my current account instantly BUT didn't show up on mortgage account till following day - i was worried they had paid to wrong account.. it was done as a transfer too - i was expecting it to update with in an hour at the most but nope not till next day... feels good to see the lower amount, I've broken the barrier i wanted to break by 2020 so that's good. Now to try and aim for as much as i can for next year to make my new fixed rate the best option possible :) Plus i have to stay ahead of you in terms of owing less :) lol

    Kev
  • Good luck with your goal!
  • Thank you! I'm going to need it! :j
    Mortgage left: £105,427.32
    Savings: £5,000/£4,850
    OP Total 2019: £1,900
    OP Total 2020: £2,400
    OP Target 2021: £2,400/£0
    Emergency fund: £1,000/£1,550

    Christmas pot: £360/£30
  • kev2009
    kev2009 Posts: 1,038
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    Hi @labradorlove
    How are you? How are things going? Hope your ok and job is still ok!
    Kev
  • Hi @labridorlove. Great sharing and thank you for being there. We highly recommend checking out alternative custom mortgage websites as you continue to evaluate future mortgage options. 
  • ronda454
    ronda454 Posts: 12
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    After almost a year of reading peoples mortgage free diaries, I've finally decided to start my own! I'm not very good at sticking to things, especially diaries! but hopefully by starting this thread it will keep me on track of my own mortgage free journey :j

    Me and my fiance bought our first home together on the 2nd June 2017! :happyhear It's just me, him and our furry child at the moment, who is laid at my feet while I post (the dog not my DF) :rotfl:

    We put down a £13,500 deposit on a £135,000 3 bed semi-detached house, not a lot of money, but we worked very hard and it got us on the property ladder with a good interest rate.

    Mortgage taken out £121,500 at 2.21% (fixed for 2 years) with Santander with a term of 27 years and 3 months

    I'd never considered over paying before my plan was to get on to the property ladder and that's that. But then while house hunting and reading all these diaries and journeys it just made sense to put our disposable income to some good use!! We don't drink a lot, neither of us smoke, neither of us have any debts apart from the mortgage we now have together, we love to save and there are no children on the scene yet! So what better time to start cutting that mortgage down?!

    I wanted to start overpaying straight away but they aren't lying when they say the first 6 months are the most expensive!

    So we managed to make our first over payment last month of £200, I was so excited ringing them up I couldn't wait for payday, :j such a good feeling knowing you're one step closer to paying it off, even if it's one out of a thousand steps!

    £200 is the monthly target I am setting myself for this year, so anything I manage over is a bonus :) So far this month £100/£200 has been paid. Waiting for DF payday to pay his half :beer: team work makes the dream work and all that.

    Looking forward to sharing my journey, and hearing about everyone elses :)

    Going now to get a nice early night before work and the gym tomorrow!

    Labradorlove x

    Great read thanks
  • We found the first year was the most expensive, buying furniture & putting our mark on the house, so don't feel too bad if you can't OP straightaway as it'll come.
  • Hi all, 10 whole months since my last check and a LOT has changed!! It has been a good year financially, but what an awful year as a whole, the pandemic has really affected my mental health as I imagine it has with many others also, when family are your everything and you cannot spend your free time with them, it really drives home what life is all about and has really had me thinking.

    I have said before I am appalling at keeping up with this diary but this is going to be a long mortgage free journey and so it's probably better this way. :)

    I will list my updates as I usually do!

    1. I am still in my secondment role which was originally an 18 month contract due to end March 2021, however the project is constantly hitting road blocks and so this looks like it will be extended. Brilliant news for me. Although I am keeping my eyes open for a permanent role as I hate the thought of going back to my old role and my wage dropping back. I am currently on £26k a year but when this position ends I will go back to £22k. So for now I really need to focus on securing a permanent role at this scale and save, save, SAVE, as much as possible before returning to my old role. Due to the pandemic, there is now a recruitment freeze at work which will make it near impossible to change jobs. Won't stop me from trying though. :)

    2. I still have my car, which has been brilliant in the 15 months I have had it, touch wood! The loan is fully paid off, 3 months early too! I will be taking it for its MOT and service for the first time (with me) next week, and I know a guy so with the spark plugs being changed too, it will only cost me £120, all being well. I am now working from home for the foreseeable future and have been since March this year. I absolutely love this, I feel too much time and money in life is wasted by commuting, I have 3 hours of my life back every day which has been put to much better use such as sleeping more, being able to walk my own dog instead of paying someone to do it whilst we work, more time to prep and cook tea, tidy my house etc. My overall well-being has gotten a lot better with being able to balance work and life more flexibly and smoothly and I hope to never have to go back full time to office life. So from this, I have saved £60 a month on bus fares, £40 a month petrol, £80 a month on dog walking fees and around £10-20 a month on food outlets in the City Centre. I am around £200 and 65 hours better off a month just by working from home. £2,400 a year.......780 hours lost.........to work in an office.......that blows my mind and it's actually very depressing. May those days be long gone!

    3. I passed my Level 3 college course, and started the Level 4. However, the pandemic has affected how they run the course, they decided to split the class in two and instead of attending for 4 hours every week they wanted us to attend 4 hours every fortnight instead. This concerned me as I felt I wouldn't be able to take full advantage of what the course had to offer as they essentially cut the course in half, but not the price.......surprisingly. So I have withdrawn from the course and will reconsider in a few years when we are back to 'normal', whatever that is. Instead, I have signed up to the Open University to study Psychology part-time for 6 years. I never went to Uni after college as I had a chaotic home life at 17. I had been living on my own and needed a job to buy furniture and so Uni was never an option to me then. So I am proud to be able to start this course now I am financially stable and in a much better place. I will be 30 when I graduate which is quite daunting but I will be turning 30 regardless! So why not have a degree (hopefully) under my belt as well. I am hoping this will broaden my career prospects and I have been granted a loan to cover the fees so that isn't something I have to worry about and I am still able to work full time. If anything I won't have time to go out and spend money now as I'll be working and studying.

    4. It's almost that time of year again now, Christmas!! But again this year we both put £30 aside each every month and this works brilliantly every year as it covers every Christmas related cost we have from the wrapping paper to the presents we buy each other to the little extra decorations we like to buy for our home!! I really recommend people set up a Christmas fund every January it really alleviates the money worries as the end of the year approaches. Calculate how much you spend in total over the Christmas period and divide it by 12 and try and put away as close to that figure as you can every month.

    5. We have done so well in regards to Over Payments this year!! I am so proud of us! Last year we managed to overpay £1,900 in total across the year. This year we have already overpaid £1,800 and we still have October, November and Decembers wages to go yet. By the end of December we will have paid a total of £2,400!! Which was the target and I am so so happy at where we are now. At the end of December 2019 we had £111,797.22 left to pay on the mortgage. At the end of September 2020 this figure was £106,911.94! We pay £508 for the standard mortgage and then overpay £200 every month. Hopefully by the end of 2021 we can get it under £100k which would be a massive milestone to reach and it won't seem as daunting then.

    6. Because of the pandemic my savings have been doing very well. Come Friday this week (payday), I will have £3,200 saved. I haven't had this much saved since moving in to our home back in 2017, so it feels good. I could have had a lot more in this year but DH turned 30 this year and I really trimmed up and bought a handmade cake and gave him £500 to put aside for when the new Xbox is out plus lots of goodies on the side. You only turn 30 once and we were in Lockdown so I tried to make it as special as I could. I paid off my car early out of my savings so that lowered the amount and I also I had a 'Treat yourself' day with my best friend. We both had debts we were paying off, me with my car, her with her overdraft and agreed that once we had paid this, we would then have a month’s break where instead of putting money in our savings we would go into town, treat ourselves to a pricey meal and buy whatever we wanted. It was brilliant, and much needed. I took £550 and only spent £300, turns out when you finally have the money to spend as you wish there's not actually much you need. I think I am just getting older and realising I don't need to keep up with the joneses to be happy. When you grow up poor and it's all save save save since leaving school, for necessities, for a house, a car and the new garden, having just one pay day where you think right, this is just for me, felt absolutely brilliant. I am also a lot closer to my goal of having at least £5k in savings before I am 25, which I will be in August 2021!

    7. Not sure what's happened to the signatures on here so just in case mine doesn't show after posting this, this is where I'm at right now. 
    Mortgage left: £106,911.94
    Savings: £5,000/£3,200
    OP Total 2019: £1,900
    OP Target 2020: £2,400/£1,800
    Emergency fund: £1,000/£1429.79 (woohoo, surpassed the £1k goal, thanks to COVID and the money saved from dog walking we put in here, going to keep going, want to have a good joint safety net)

    Hope everyone is well and is keeping safe.

    Mortgage left: £105,427.32
    Savings: £5,000/£4,850
    OP Total 2019: £1,900
    OP Total 2020: £2,400
    OP Target 2021: £2,400/£0
    Emergency fund: £1,000/£1,550

    Christmas pot: £360/£30
  • kev2009
    kev2009 Posts: 1,038
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    Congrats, glad everything is going well for you so far.
    For me, the lockdown/Covid has had the opposite effect to most... I've been classed as a "key worker" in my role so I'm having to go in every day.. initially I went in for 3 or 4 weeks every day, then I got around 5 weeks WFH.  Since June, been in office every day.  I'm not using public transport, not comfortable using that at present, so I'm having to drive in and pay parking which is more expensive that public transport so its actually costing me more than it used to. Opposite to most people.
    Hope things continue to go well for you!
    Kev
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