A new beginning and the first steps on our journey

Good morning and welcome to our journey.

I’ve written this opening paragraphs a few times now, unsure at how to begin this blog properly again. So, I have come to the conclusion I am going to start at the beginning, as that is always a good place to start!

With the new year here, it is always a good place to start new goals and dreams. However, for us, it is the start of 188 months towards debt-free and retirement. When I talk debt-free, I don’t just mean our credit cards or loans, for example, I am talking mortgage too.

You see, far too many people we have known have worked for all their lives and then when they have retired, they have had a far too short time to enjoy it. We would love to get ourselves into a position where we can retire early and enjoy some of life without the working stress.

I have 188 months until I turn 50, by that point I would like to have everything we owed paid off, so we could then start to build a retirement pot. Obviously life doesn’t always go to plan, so I am expecting some bumps along the way. However, there will have to be some sacrifices along the way too.

We have a total of £251800.76 to pay off at that time, excluding interest that is £1340 a month we need to clear. Of course, a huge chunk of this is our mortgage and other bits are mostly on repayments, so the total will go down monthly. I just want to get it down and cleared as soon as possible.

It does seem a little overwhelming, but I’m focusing on the positives. We are obviously paying things off anyway however any spare cash will be thrown into paying things off sooner. Here is our action plan:

1. Snowball debts – Starting with the smallest we are going to snowball the debts to get rid of those as soon as possible, then the money saved goes on the next debt.
2. Overpaying the mortgage – We are aware that it is recommended to leave your mortgage until you have cleared other debts, however, after years of paying just interest only on our mortgage to get ourselves on the property ladder. We decided we would like to start paying just a little more on our mortgage. It isn’t much, however that little bit we are paying is cutting 5 years 11 months off the mortgage. Then of course, once other things are paid off we will be throwing more at it again.
3. Cutting our spending – I’ll be honest, we still want to live whilst on this journey so we won’t be cutting everything from the budget. I know this may slow down the process but I want to do this journey happily and committed to it, rather than hating every step of the way and it becomes a huge battle.

So, there it is.

Our starting point, as scary as it may feel. However, you have to start somewhere and for us that is today and at this point. The first step I’m sure is always the most daunting, but now is the time to improve it.