BBC2 paying off your mortgage in 2 years....

[helsi]

was fascinating -picked up loads of tips. the couple last night had similar incmings/outgoings to us but they had more debt! I couldn't believe that in 9 months of starting the experiment they had saved £10,000.

anyone else watch it?

Yes, I watched it...missed the last 10 mins though. Is there a second update programme?
Thought the bloke was very very motivational, must have been very annoying seeing her smoking the money away.

what was the jist of it? as i missed it thank you

Yes, let's have all the tips I couldn't watch it, as wrestling with the children.

I've recorded it, helsi. Started watching it this morning whilst the kids were having their breakfast, looks interesting. I doubt we'd be able to pay off our mortgage in 2 years, would love to be able to though.

AAA - It was a programme on BBC2 about paying your mortgage off in full, in 2 years. Part of a 2 year experiment by the BBC to see whether it can be done. They've taken 8 households (some families, some couples and single people too, from all financial walks of life) and given them tips and a financial whizz-kid to help them achieve their mortgage-free goal in 2 years.

yes come on please
I couldn't find it on the BBC2 website

what sort of things did they do?

I only saw bits of it but he took the train to work, made packed lunches and restarted his comedy routine. She was trying to take up singing again and was meant to be stopping smoking. I didn't see all of it though so there will probably be more

She could sing (in a ear-bashing rounabout kind of a way) and he had a mildly dubious 'talent' for comedy stage-hypnotism, so they were encouraged to do pub gigs as well as doing their ordinary jobs (both worked in banks).

The H took the train instead of drove to work which was a projected saving of £2,800 in running costs and parking over the 2 years.

The W took to walking the kids to school saving them additional running costs on their 2nd car.

The W was strongly encouraged to give up her 70 a week smoking habit, projected saving of £1,800 over 2 years.

He was a gadget freak and so his £200 a month boys toys spend was cut, too.

She was a store-card-a-holic, so her spending was also cut drastically.

They were allocated a budget of £155 a week after mortgage and utilities.

Basically they had to live a very pared down lifestyle in order to achieve the savings.

(I only saw the first 10 mins)

I think the concept of saving your existing income is easy. you just have to cut down loads and put up with value this and that, second hand clothes etc etc and if you are really down in the dumps about your financial situation, its a good thing to do.

on the other hand, the difficult part is finding an alternative source of income when you've got kids. working at things in the evenings is all fine and dandy but when you've got kids its bloody difficult.

I thought he had a good thing going. he was getting out of the cheesy pub gigs and getting into some sort of corporate mind training using hypnotism and his claims were well founded. He really could make £1000 a day no probs if he continued with it.

I thought he was a little bit of jerk but saying that, he looked tired and stressed and he was really trying hard to make a go of it.

what kept pissing me off though was his reluctance to tell his wife things or talk things out with her. he just decided to quit his job without consulting her on anything. thats what a wife is for (that sounds kinda weird but its true). Your wife is their to sound you ideas off and discuss your future as a team (amongst other things )

I assume that their mortgage was already quite small and already part paid off?

Even making those savings there is no way we would be able to pay off our mortgage in 5 years let alone 2.

this couple obviously had lots of disposable income anyway after bills/utilities if they were spending so much on storecards/gadgets etc. how much extra were they putting into their mortgage per month?

Haven't seen it yet but the bbc site was looking for a couple with a mortgage of around 140k to appear on this prog.

DH and I were wondering how anyone with an income of say 50k could poss pay that off in two years but I suppose if they are getting you to look at alternative sources of income too.

But I guess you also have to look at whether you live to work or work to live and how you achieve a blaance. I wouldn't want to do a day job and an evening job - when would I see the family? It was fine when I was in my late teens and early 20s to work 12-14 hours a day but I wouldn't want to do it now except as a very short term thing to keep my head above water. Not THAT desperate to pay off the mortgage that i would give up family time.

Yes, I would rather have a mortgage to pay and be enjpying my life and my time with my family. Far nicer scenario to me that having no mortgage but having not spent the last 2 or so years working every hour, having no fun time or spending time with my little one and DH.

absolutely SueW.

The main thing here was the source of alternative income and the complete change in career.

The show didn't seem to be about saving money as such but to get your ass in gear and make some serious by penetrating the market in some high earning personal business.

It's like recruitment or estate agents.... if your driven you can make six figures, if your a bit dim or not really into it you make bugger all.

the guy seemed to be just pushing them to try harder and start pulling in the cash big styley.

it was all about short term sacrifices for the greater good.

like I said, he was on to to a good thing. He just had to do some intensive training and build up a client base but then he go into working only 2 days a week at £2000 a week.

I had this on in the background, didn't she do something with a slimming club? Their mortgage was about £80000 iirc,and over 25 years they would pay the same again in interest!! I've never had a mortgage that big and can't see them paying it off in 2 years!

Interesting idea but I agree about putting family first. If being mortgage free meant two years of hardly seeing your kids working back to back shifts and pairing everything down to absolute bare minimum, not worth it. Better to do this on a ten year plan and make smaller changes and be more careful budgetting.
A family friend (now in his 40s) spent most of his 30s building a family home himself. He spent years and years on the plot (about 10 miles from their old home, in lovely village). Sure, they now have an amazing home, truly beautiful barn conversion with massive conservatory, lanscaped gardens big detached triple garage with boys toys room in gables above it etc etc Problem is that he missed a massive amount of time his kids were growing up. Now he tells everyone and anyone who congratulates him on his lovely home, marvel at him doing it all himself while still working fulltime etc, that he wishes he had never ever done it and stayed in a three bed semi. His two boys needed him when they were toddlers and young children. They are now teenagers and have got so used to him not being there in eve and weekends that they no longer need him. His wife must have also struggled a lot. Such a shame, such a great dream and so much effort but at a massive family cost.

Hula, they had an £85k mortgage.

There is another update on them, along with the other 8 couples, over the next 8 weeks.

They will never do it.
They saved over £10,000 in a year.
Great.
well done.
But, managing to save £75,000 in the next year, to pay of your £85k mortgage - what, whilst still maintaining any sort of relationship between husband, wife and children - IMPOSSIBLE !!!

I thought this programme was really interesting it made me look at my life differently. We are thinking of gettinga conservatory built and just adding it to the mortgage (current have about £75K to pay off over 18 more years) I have always seen my mortgage as something I will pay off in time or if I inherit a bit of cash I will pay it off then. But this programme made me see perhaps we should look at making changes in the ST, to benefit hugely longterm. I am not saying pay off teh mortgage in 2 years, I don't think that is feasible. But If DH and I BOTH save £200 a month (rather than waste it on clothes) that would be £400 a month = £4800 a year. If we overpaid or mortgage like that it would be gone in less than 10 years. (don't know the exact figures)

The thing is I am sure I do waste at least £200 on friviolous spends like clothes (sorry to those who haven't got the money) and could certianly cut my cloth much better.

Hmmmm something to think seriously about.

The savings were clearly not going to achieve the goal of being mortgage free. The husband becoming largely self employed and doing the NLP work for corporate clients may well make the difference.

It has made me and dh decide to really sit down and number crunch through our annual income and expenditure because we certainly could pay off our mortgage faster if we put the effort in, without living like paupers.

My DH said exactly the same thing. DH and I paying off our mortgage in 2 years would result in a) divorce, b) nervous breakdowns or c) both....

Exactly crunchie - it's the cumulative effect of those monthly savings being used to pay down a mortgage faster - it makes an enormous difference.

Rachd - BUT if the hubbys job did bring in the money it so easily could... He needs to do one to two jobs a week with the NLP and a couple of nights comedy to earn £600 for comedy and up to £2000 on NLP = £2600 a WEEK

This could be done.

However I doubt they will do it in two years, but they have made a good start, and at least changes their attitude.