Set your sights to finish early

Paying a mortgage off early can result in savings of tens of thousands of pounds. But the trick is finding a lender that will let you do so without too many penalties.

Last summer a friend of mine demonstrated to an audience a device that saves energy.He did this by flicking on an ordinary cigarette lighter and inviting me to join him on stage.

I had to place the palm of my hand above the flame at a height where I could not feel the heat of the flame.
He next strapped two small Ecoflow magnets round the metal part of the lighter and in a flash I realised that I had to move my hand away as the heat grew.

To the delight of the audience, my friend explained that this was not magic but instead the properties of the magnets caused the same amount of fuel to burn more efficiently. He claimed that such a device could save the average consumer some 20% on the fuel bill.

I put it to the test and, amazingly, my gas bill has gone down and it also gave me an exciting idea.
As an Independent Financial Adviser, I am forever seeking means to obtain for my clients and myself the best value for our money.

The experiment described above made me ponder on other ways to reduce the cost of running my home.
Like the majority of people, my largest individual outgoing had to be the mortgage. I decided to investigate ways to reduce it and am pleased to say that I am succeeding. I am at present on course to pay off a 20 year £56,000 mortgage in 7 years and 10 months - thus saving myself £38,669 on an interest payments.

You see, I believe in the power of focusing and having turned the idea of paying off my mortgage early into an obsession. I was delighted to find a solution while on vacation in the USA.

The principle is simple: See your mortgage as an overdraft - a liability that you want to get rid of quickly.
The difficult part is to find a lender who will provide you with the opportunity to pay off your mortgage this way.
Having experienced the benefit myself, I felt confident that I could offer this plan to my clients who, provided they stuck to the projection set on the outset, would save themselves thousand of pounds. For example, one of my clients, a young Hampshire couple hope to save £45,519 of interest on a 21 year term £33,000 endowment mortgage by paying it off in seven years 10 months.

Another couple in Poole who now have a £65,000 endowment mortgage project and plan to pay it off in just under 15 years with a saving of £35,000 plus the whole maturity value of the endowment.

I am not in the business of clairvoyance but am prepared to bet that in the very near future, everybody will want one of these mortgages.

Besides saving on interest paid, it will go a long way to meeting the consequences of your endowment not reaching its projected value at maturity.