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Original poster

Paid off our mortgage

94 replies

Mumoftwoyoungkids · 30/12/2014 20:31

If you are struggling for money then please don't read this thread - I don't want to upset people!

We paid off our mortgage last week. We are mid - late 30s. (To be exact I am mid and dh is late Grin ). Paid it off by over paying every month as much as we could.

Nobody knows. So I thought I'd tell on here.

It feels a bit weird. My brother is planning on buying a new house ATM so we were all discussing mortgages and mortgage rates over Xmas. It kept hitting me that we no longer have a mortgage rate. Felt a bit of a fraud.

Feel like we should have a party or something. Except we can't tell anyone!

Anyone else in the same boat?

OP posts:
Original poster
Mumoftwoyoungkids · 30/12/2014 23:24

Someone mentioned not suddenly deciding that we need 3 guest suites and a stables and trading up.

I have to admit it is tempting! Property porn does feature a bit on my IPad at the moment. (Although I'm generally up for several hours a night with ds and I keep forgetting the Netflix password and I have to look at something - and I've already stalked all my ex boyfriends on Facebook so much that I'm bored of them - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

I do worry though that if we stay in our current - perfectly lovely - house and house prices zoom up then we will never be able to trade up. And I would rather like a playroom for the kids.

On the other hand our house would be much nicer if we just got rid of all our clutter and de-cluttering is soooo much less effort than moving. And dd is settled at school so we can't move too far. But I don't like our catchment state secondary so if we do move (and don't go private - and if we move we may not be able to afford private) then we need to move to a new catchment. But then that will be out of the primary catchment and we still need to get ds into the school.

So I think we are not moving!

But I also think that I have the real definition of a first world problem here!

OP posts:
poisonedbypen · 30/12/2014 23:28

We paid ours off just before DH was 50 so we celebrated with close friends who were also mortgage free. Lots of friend buying bigger houses recently. I feel jealous but a bit smug Grin

Shakey1500 · 30/12/2014 23:30

Bloody well done you Grin

That's really great and it's a shame you can't shout it from the rooftops nearer to (mortgage free) home.

What a lovely, scrumdidddlyicious feeling to have. Have you craked open a bottle of something celebratory? Wine

MyballsareSandy · 30/12/2014 23:34

Lovely feeling. My in laws paid our mortgage off for our 40th birthdays (close birthdays) We told very few people. DH is self employed and we we felt it would affect his business as it's quite a close knit area.

ChippingInLovesChristmasLights · 30/12/2014 23:38

Congratulations!! Enjoy the lovely feeling for a while.

However, I'd have a serious talk about your long term needs wrt a home. Is it going to be big enough when the kids are teenagers? If not, there's never going to be a better time than right now to move. Partly due to ever increasing house prices, but also before you get used to having the extra money.

ChippingInLovesChristmasLights · 30/12/2014 23:40

Mortgage free is nice, but I'd rather live in a home that has the space and layout I wanted and have a small mortgage, than to live in a mortgage free house I wasn't happy with.

Peedie · 30/12/2014 23:43

Well done! We're essentially in the same boat but have left a tiny token sum in it for reasons that are too long and boring (and probably out of date now) to go into. We did it the same way as you, overpaid like mad pre-kids and put all bonuses into it. We also lucked out a bit as I got a very large redundancy payment and a new job straight away so that went in too. So our mortgage is now £1.50 a month. It's great.

Violetta999 · 31/12/2014 06:24

Three off my friends have done this and it's great!! I would have done this but we got a bigger house.

My friends are in the same situation school wise. I've suggested they stay put in their present house and also put a deposit on a nice house close to a nice secondary school and let it out.

financialwizard · 31/12/2014 06:39

We've just started to overpay our mortgage, and when my husband finishes paying his Child Support commitment this year we will be able to throw a lot more money at the mortgage to get rid of it.

I honestly don't understand people getting jealous of people who have repaid their mortgage early. Everyone's life is different so they would always be at different mortgage debt levels.

DropYourSword · 31/12/2014 06:45

Wow, that must feel amazing. I am only just starting with a mortgage, to be paid off seems like a lifetime away!

Violetta999 · 31/12/2014 07:24

Do a buy to let near a secondary school you like

Olivo · 31/12/2014 12:56

Congratulations to OP and the others who have managed this, what a great feeling that must be! We deliberately moved to our forever house two years ago so we could get on I with the mortgage, but we won't be paid off for another 15 years or so.

It is nice to hear about overpaying paying off. We pay just £50 extra each month. It long term, that will save us 20k.

Enjoy your secret celebrations!

TalkinPeace · 31/12/2014 16:57

OP : Well Done. Have some Wine
I paid mine off earlier in the year.

My siblings situations are
(a) 10 years to go
(b) living in rented, unlikely to ever be able to buy
(c) 15 years to go
(d) 10 years to go

I'd have paid mine off 7 years earlier if we had not putt a mahoosive extension onto this house so it lasts us till the kids leave home

I'm now piling money into pensions and savings to stop DH spending it!

For those wanting to work out how little changes make debt clear early, have a look at my spreadsheets
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/1987219-SPREADSHEETS-for-Debt-Control-Budgeting-Mortgages-etc

Namechangeyetagaintohide · 31/12/2014 17:01

I'd love to know I come vs price of house OP.

I'm late 20s and can probably afford to put a deposit down on a house and pay a mortgage at all after next year. Granted I am buying along and will be paying mortgage on one income but house will be less than 90k. Even so there is no chance of me paying that off in my mid 30s overpayments or not.

Unless you can let me in on the secret ? Grin

Namechangeyetagaintohide · 31/12/2014 17:03

Ah I see that there were 2 of you married young and pre kids. No hope for me then.

Inthedarkaboutfashion · 31/12/2014 17:09

My mortgage will be paid off when I am 42, so not many years to go.
I won't be afraid to tell anybody that it is paid off as we have had to make a lot of sacrifices to be in the position we are in. We haven't had any financial help from anybody and had our children quite early in our relationship. We have our forever home and will not need to move as we have plenty of space so when the mortgage is paid off we want be needing another one.
I am counting down the years.
Well done OP and congrats on your mortgage freedom.

TalkinPeace · 31/12/2014 17:12

Namechange
DH and I bought our first house - a 3 bed terrace in Kent - in the 80's when we were earning £15,000 between us
for £30k Xmas Grin

admittedly, interest rates rose to 13.5% while we owned it, but still

Namechangeyetagaintohide · 31/12/2014 17:16

Wow talkin !!
if only I could buy a house now for around double my earnings..so 40000 ? God that would be a breeze ! I could pay that off no problem. Grin

Perfectlypurple · 31/12/2014 17:16

Well done. It must be a lovely feeling. We have 20 years left on ours, but are remortgaging at the moment and knocking 6 years off by paying more than we need. We have both had pay rises too so paying more than we are at the moment. My dh retires in 8 and a half years. My plan is to have it paid off by the , so every 2 years we will remortgage, getting a better rate each time because of more equity (I hope) and each time knock off 2 years. If we can knock off more than 2 years each time we will. I am hoping to pay it off early enough to have a couple of years of being able to put money away to enable dsd to buy a house, without doing ourselves short on holidays etc.

Ratracerunner · 31/12/2014 17:21

That's fantastic! Lovely to hear some positive happy financial news amongst all the doom stories in the news lately.

Know what you mean about not telling anyone though - people are jealous and there are too many nosy buggers about who love to speculate on others financial positions/available income etc.

And then of course there are some family members who suddenly expect you to start footing the majority share of family dinners/expensive gifts/other contributions.

I know this sounds cynical, but I think silence is golden on the subject of money, where family is concerned!

Laska42 · 31/12/2014 17:21

congrats .. it is a nice feeling.. we have enough in bank to pay ours off now ( its not much thankfully..) but DH thinks that we should still pay it off monthly so we have some debt so we have a credit score.. neither of has any other debt now and we'll still be overpaying as we have for some years .. I can see the logic but does this make sense?...

(Tip?)

MrsSchadenfreude · 31/12/2014 17:24

We're about to pay ours off too, I hope, in the new year. We have saved/invested a large proportion of our take home pay (around one third) for the past 14 years. It has been tight, and tough, but, I think, worth it.

Inthedarkaboutfashion · 31/12/2014 17:26

It only makes sense laska if you are paying less in interest on the mortgage than you are earning on interest from your savings (highly unlikely). If it is about credit score you would be better getting a credit card and using it to buy all your food shopping but paying it off in full each month.

TalkinPeace · 31/12/2014 17:27

Laska
Pay it off. For the sake of not giving the bank any more of your money - what do you need the credit score for anyway?

RichardParkerTheTiger · 31/12/2014 17:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.