The dream is within reach!

A question about : The dream is within reach!

Hello everyone, I have been a supporter of Martin for some time now, basically consulting the website before we buy ANYTHING/make any financial choices. My husband and I have recently come across the MFW pages, and have made the decision that this is the path we wish to follow, as we feel it will open so many doors, relieve a lot of pressure and generally enable us to enjoy life a lot more rather than working too many hours to mention, which is our current situation.
So, a bit of background info on pumpkinpies....
We are in our early thirties, been married five years, only just bought our first home last March...nothing too fancy, just a two bed larger terraced. When we met, we both had bad debts with sky-high interest, in excess of 10k each, which at 25 years old really isn't cool. This prevented us from doing so many things, and is partly the reason we have only just bought our house now. We rented two dire properties before we got married, and at our worst, OH had 20p in bank on payday. We have struggled through, and taking on extra work and generally battering down the hatches (after a lot of advice on here) we are now debt free.....apart from the mortgage! Our current mortgage debt is 80k, not a lot compared to some, but our wages are a lot less than the national average. It feels strange to write down how we have progressed, and am chuffed to say we managed our first OP of 1k last week. We keep having to pinch ourselves at the size of the savings....so any encouragement would be greatly received to keep this up

Best answers:

• Welcome!
  I love a new diary. Well done on clearing the debt and on the op .
  MUSER X
• Thank you Muser, I have been terrible at keeping up to date with this, but really am going to try harder! Pleased to report since my last update we have made another OP of Ј300.00 on Saturday...and boy did it feel good! I can't believe the savings.....where Ј300.00 op is equal to saving Ј750.00 in interest. Why more people don't do this I will never understand! Had an interesting conversation with a 21 year old colleague of mine today which made me smile, so thought I would share it on here. I was sending a text to my hubby, and she said "awww look at your little samsung!" (whiny patronising voice needed for effect). My phone is a smartphone, paid outright and I put Ј15.00 credit on it a month. I can text, call, browse...anything really. Then I realised, what she was implying was that it wasn't an Iphone.....I overheard her telling someone her phone costs Ј60.00 a MONTH. I thought to myself, my phone does everything I need, my family and friends still speak to me (even though I don't own said Apple product)....and I'm Ј45 a month richer than you....am I bonkers for thinking this????
• Well done on getting out of debt. Keep on saving. Totally agree with you about the phone. Samsung do great phones.
• Hello, congratulations on your progress so far
  Your attitude sounds similar to mine. I find it so interesting, now that I think/hope I've really seen the light, to listen to other people's thoughts on money/possessions. So many get tricked into believing these things are important. I've never been much of a radical but DH and I were wandering around the shops the other weekend and I was admiring the pretty, pretty things when it suddenly dawned on me that it's all just a trap! I said to DH that it all suddenly reminded my of the witch's house in Hansel & Gretel haha!
  Good luck with your journey, I look forward to hearing your updates
• Good Morning everyone. Wow Jasmine, never thought of it as hansel and gretel before but you really have hit it on the head there! I mentioned it to hubby and he nodded vigorously!!!!! It is his birthday later on this month, and I said what would you like? New trainers? aftershave? etc etc.....you know what he said? "A mortgage overpayment!" So rang the building society yesterday, made another op of Ј200.00 (the money I'd saved for his birthday treat) not much, but amazing to see that just by doing that it has shaved two months more off the term. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!
• How on earth can someone's phone package cost her Ј60!!! Even for my top end iPhone at the time my tariff is half that!!!! Maybe that young lady needs to become MSE!
  That being said I got called by one of those stupid companies that bombard you with calls once you start doing questionnaires and surveys and I had a woman offering me a better package than the one I was on now, and she wanted to offer me a Samsung which I refused as I have one for work and I hate it.
  So she offered me a package with a WORSE iPhone than I currently have on my tariff. And I was just laughing asking her why would I change for an older phone when I have the top end one now - the script she was reading didn't have the answers obviously because she just insisted that because I wanted to stick with Apple this was a great package as I could have a phone 2 versions older!!! I just put the phone down in the end!!
• Hi There
  Well done on your debt free status - feels great doesn't it?
  When I started on this path, there were so many instances where I started to see other people's poor financial decisions (and my own)justified by a fancy label. If you are in marketing it's all about adding value to your brand, quite simply, being able to charge more for your thing than the next man. This was the real lightbulb moment for me. I still like nice things, but I refuse to be led by the nose by fancy marketing and the pressure of others.
  Good luck on your journey.
  Someday Soon
• Good morning, hope everyone is well. Just thought I'd update, had a letter from the BS yesterday re the mortgage. As we have been overpaying, we need to sign something to say we want the term reducing accordingly...(so we can see it coming down before our very eyes!) Current balance is Ј78970.86 with remaining term of 23 years and 1 month. Absolutely cannot wait til this is not in the "twenty years away" bracket. Might have a play about with calculators and see what it takes to achieve this for 2014. Have a good day everyone, and thank you for your lovely comments and support so far.....the forum is so helpful!
• Welcome and good luck.
  As Dave Ramsey says...you are weird but normal people are broke, so weird is good.
• Ј60/mth for a phone?!!
  There is a cracking blog/forum/book called 'Early Retirement Extreme' that looks at exceptionally early retirement based on very high savings rates and very low expenses. It advocates saving enough money so that you can cover your expenses forever, so long as you don't go above your 'safe withdrawal rate' (typically 3-4% of your pot each year).
  Assuming 4%, you'd need to save Ј60*12*25=Ј18,000 to keep this phone package going once you were financially independent. That's my after tax wages for about 10 months
• Happy Easter one and all! Edinburgher I have had a look at the Early Retirement Extreme blog.....I think it may be a bit too extreme for me, some good ideas though which I shall try to use in my quest! Feeling a bit flat at the moment, really fed up with work and seriously considering jacking it all in! I just don't enjoy it anymore, and really feel like I am stuck in a rut. Had a chat with my two best chums tonight and they both said it seems to be an area which causes me huge amounts of stress.....but then if I reduce my hours/leave my job it will affect the amount of spare cash I have for OPs!!! Think I need a good shake/talking to/advice please!
• Well done on getting mortgage under the 80k! As for your job, why not start applying for somewhere else while you continue where you are. Keep thinking of the mortgage!! Lol! My mortgage was 78k last march and we will be under 60 with next payment. So keep chopping away at it
• Just another update, we have asked the BS to send us regular statements to show mortgage term reducing and outstanding balance. Had a letter through today....Ј78491.52 left with 22 years and 10 months to go. All I can think is 'I really want to pay that extra Ј1.52 off so its a round number!' jeez what is happening to me?!?
• Happy bank hol everyone. Rather a frugal week in the pumpkin household this week. Have had seven NSDs in a row, possibly a first since I was a child?!? Also, although I know its warmer weather, but I thought I'd dig out the slow cooker we got for Christmas as it has been left unused. OMG what a convert I am!!! Beef and Ale Stew! Will certainly use some of the ideas I have seen on here to make nicer teas, we will be eating like kings from now on! Mr Pumpkin made an OP on 1st May of Ј175.00. Not as much as we'd hoped but we are going on holiday later this month and really am trying to get the balance right of saving, spending, overpaying and living....feel like we haven't got it quite right at the minute! Have a lovely day everyone
• Hi Pumpkinpies, fantastic progress with your OPs and they are big amounts
  Any more thoughts on the job situation? If you can keep going you'll get ever closer to being debt free, then you really will have choices.
  Love Gallygirl's comment about being 'lucky' to have paid off a mortgage, we're working so hard at being lucky!
• SCs are wonderful, aren't they? So easy to use and they cost next to nothing to use.
• What bank are you with? Do they not offer online banking? I make my ops by bank transfer and they show on my mortgage account online next day.