I want to break free

Shakey87 · 4 June 2018 at 10:59PM

Evening all

I'm a long time lurker and very sporadic poster on these MSE forums but the place I keep coming back to is Mortgage Free Wannabe!

I'm fascinated by the idea of paying off the mortgage early but am still very much in a "how could I make this work" phase.

A little about me... married & expecting my first baby in October. Both my hubby and I have good salaries and we manage to save £1000 a month quite easily. No debts other than my student loan and the mortgage which has around £136K and 17 years remaining.

Upcoming expenses include a new kitchen, bathroom & expensive external door (all necessary before baby comes, our house is definitely a do-er upper!) but we have £20K in savings and I have £70K inheritance.

We are in an incredibly fortunate position and I recognise how lucky we are.

I'm wondering if we could be mortgage free in 4 years if we put our minds to it... we'd need to find an extra £800 per month on top of our usual payment to do it. Without the Home improvements, baby, my loss of salary on mat leave, followed by potentially dropping down to part time after returning to work, I'd say it was well within grasp. But with all of that? I'm not sure. im going to try to work some stuff out. Hopefully this could turn into my MF diary! We'll see.... huge kudos to all you heros out there doing this already. You've inspired me!!

A_Frayed_Knot · 4 June 2018 at 11:16PM

Welcome,
you have big changes ahead, but lots out there in exactly the same position and they all manage some kind of o/p.

It is amazing at just what you can do for that little extra saving, be it batch cooking, utility change, surveys, we, each in our own way - find what suits us to make the savings.

I never had a lot of "spare" cash to o/p, so found my own little way to o/p little and often by rounding down my mortgage balance to the nearest 00.00 or 000.00 always just stretching that little bit more.

You have a good amount of "spare" cash each month - which will start you off - just make your own target and in a few months you can revise - it's addictive, which is good - right?

Are you ready for your new addition/addiction

Good Luck

wishingthemortgaheaway · 5 June 2018 at 7:45AM

Exciting times ahead.
I found mat leave quite a frugal period in my life. I had time to shop around, get the best deals, do surveys to earn a bit of extra income to op with those overnight feeds.

Breastfeeding is hugely money saving although I appreciate it's not everyone's first choice.

I worked out what I needed my
Living expenses to be each month, then, in the weeks smp was more, I saved, in the months it was less I withdrew
Money from the 'mat leave pot'

I keep the child benefit money separate in my budget, some goes to Pickle's savings, some for shoes & swimming lessons and the £2.80 shrapnel is tilly
Tidied to the mortgage overpayment pot as his rent/board/lodging fees (the real reason being I prefer nice round number in the budget where possible. )
Work related costs dropped - fuel for the car, union fees etc, but coffee shop costs increased, especially in the early months.

It took a while to get into a rhythm and routine, so don't rush, the first few weeks and months are crazy, so don't be too hard on yourself.

Good luck.

Shakey87 · 5 June 2018 at 4:54PM

Thanks both for your replies! Yes, it is quite addictive thinking about the possibilities of saving and over paying. At the moment though I'm much better at doing all of that in my head than in reality but I think once I've done a bit more number crunching it will feel more real. Overpaying by £800 p/m still seems like such an abstract concept.

I'm thinking at the weekend I will have a go at looking at some figures in detail. Here's what I think I need to do so far:

1) look at current mortgage: how much precisely is left; what's the interest rate; how many years/months exactly remain

2) properly research how much our income in likely to be in the year following the baby's birth. This is complicated as my husband is intending to take 5 months Shared Parental Leave after I've done the first 7 months, and because his work will give him up to 6 months full pay, I need to opt to not be paid for some (probably most) of the time when I'm off to enable him to claim this. I think. It makes my brain hurt a bit.

3) look at what we can save over the next 5 months. I would say that I am very motivated to set saving targets & do what's necessary to meet them; hubby is much more laid back and not motivated by a target - very much happy to go with the flow and see what happens. Which can be quite frustrating!!

It's a start. Do any of you use any good budgeting apps on your phones? I think this could be the time to start looking into getting one, I think it would motivate me to cut out mindless spending.

wishingthemortgaheaway · 5 June 2018 at 5:52PM

Oooh that sounds good, and definitely a calculator required for the shared parental leave calculations. What generous terms.

I use ynab - you need a budget. It's a subscription service, but worth every penny as far as I'm concerned. You can use it over multiple devices. There are lots of online tutorials, but it comes down to a few simple steps:

Budget only what money you have
Give every dollar (£) a job
Roll with the punches
Age your money.

I'm so much richer for using it, but realise that it doesn't work for everyone. You do get a 34 day free trial which takes you over at least 1 month end/start.

julicorn · 5 June 2018 at 7:43PM

Happy New diary! I would also recommend YNAB, it's amazing. I've only started using it recently but am completely addicted. You can get a three month free trial actually, just Google search it

beanielou · 5 June 2018 at 10:25PM

Happy shiny new diary

wishingthemortgaheaway · 5 June 2018 at 10:48PM

julicorn wrote: »

Happy New diary! I would also recommend YNAB, it's amazing. I've only started using it recently but am completely addicted. You can get a three month free trial actually, just Google search it

Even better. You can use those three months to save up the money for the first annual subscription...

Shakey87 · 24 May 2019 at 9:36PM

Right. I’m back. Feels appropriate as today is my first payday coming back from mat leave.

Quick summary of events since my posts last year:
- redid kitchen (yay!)
- bought & installed expensive interior doors (double yay, it basically meant the living space downstairs was usable this winter for the first time ever)
- bought all stuff a new baby requires
- had baby (ultimate yay!)
- used inheritance money to make a massive overpayment on mortgage (very privileged yay)
- bought a car
- also bought myself a new phone (old one lasted 6 yrs and was so decrepit I couldn’t even take pics of my baby to send to my mum)
- had 13 weeks of unpaid mat leave during which time I relied on my savings to tide me over
- have just returned to work - will be 0.6 til September, then 0.8
- hubby is now on shared parental leave for 20 weeks; his place have an incredible SPL policy & he will be getting full pay for the entirety of this time

Will detail exact mortgage figures tomorrow (currently typing this on phone whilst baby sleeps next to me) but we have around £60k left to go. The past year has been very turbulent financially but now I’m earning again, and we’ve done all our “big” spending for a while (fingers crossed), I want to start tackling the mortgage with a view to paying it off within the next 5 years.

It’s quite interesting coming back in here almost a year after my first post, and seeing how much progress everyone is making. Makes you realise that seemingly slow progress in the present really does add up to huge progress over time.

Anyway, enough waffle. Will be back very soon to post up some figures & a plan!

Shakey87 · 26 May 2019 at 10:06PM

Have probably enjoyed poking around with my little spreadsheet more than I should have! It’s quite addictive playing around with the figures trying to see how to maximise savings each month.

Due to all of the expenses of the past year, we need to prioritise general saving first of all - for an emergency fund, holidays, any diy projects (I still dream of getting the bathroom done). With that in mind, the plan will be to save like crazy each month and then in December make a decision as to how much to put to OP. I’d really like for it to be at least £2K.

I have spent some time setting up various pots in my Monzo account (eg baby stuff, eating out, travel etc) and creating my own personal budget. At the end of each month anything left over I will put towards the OP fund. I’ve also set up save the change to go into the OP pot and already (in a weekend!) I’ve got £4.72!

Already think I know which category I’ll need to work on the most: buying stuff for the baby. It’s just sooooo easy to buy more cute baby clothes that we probably don’t need at the supermarket!

Our current mortgage balance is £63,804 and we’re paying £978 per month. Our interest rate is a little over 2%.

I want to break free

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