Pay off your mortgage in two years.

Could you summarise what it was about, sounds interesting?

I sometimes wonder what all this "pay off your mortgage" fuss is all about. The program even made out that the bank "owned" most of the participant couple's home! Then they seemed to imply that once your mortgage was paid off you would be able to live like a millionaire, jetting off to exotic locations the whole time.

In message , Tumbleweed writes

8 couples mentored by an aggressive entrepreneur. The goal is to suffer for 2 years to make savings and extra income to pay off your mortgage in 2 years.

Last night - mortgage £85,000, current income £2600pm current expenditure £2600pm.

Savings - stop smoking, walk to school/work, etc.

Extra income - he just happens to be a hypnotist, so earns by doing pub gigs after work. Also does a course on NLP, and sets up a business helping people to lose weight at £95 per seminar. Gives up his day job to do it full time.

She is a reasonably competent pub singer, but decides she doesnt like it. Loses some weight with weightwatchers, and sets up her own franchise.

Savings + income after 10 months £14,000.

I am guessing that we will see one couple per week, and then all of them again in another year.

As has been said, there was no mention of tax on extra income.

Channel & time?

I only saw part of the programme, but I assumed the figure given as savings was net of income tax. It would defeat the purpose if some of the money they are counting as being available to pay off their mortgage is owed to the taxman.

Neb

Its excruciating awful but like all of these types of reality TV programmes very watchable just to moan and sigh.

In the first programme the couple have a mortgage of 85,000 on an house valued 165,000 which is 48.5% equity but when Rene Carayol explains this to the couple this is represented as about a third.

What the programme highlights is that it is manufactured. It is obvious that the producers are making it happen by opening doors that wouldn't normally be open. 'Out of the blue' the woman is nominated for slimmer of the year, he appears on local radio to promote his hypnotism show. He quits his job in a bank and the bank begs him back part-time.

The programme is repeated late Wednesday and is also available on Telewest Teleport for anyone who missed it.

Not to mention that in the first year of the two years they don't seem to have paid off much extra. In addition the 'savings' have been added up to pay off the mortgage but it's not clear where the extra expenditure (on courses and such) has come from.

Yes, I wondered about the last thing (bank asking him back part time) in particular. That bank is getting lots of free publicity as their shopfront was featured several times.

In message , Tumbleweed writes

8pm-9pm bbc2

...Thursday...clashes with Liz Hurley thank god for Sky+

Mortgage £85,000 House value £165,000

at which point I lost interest because no one suggested trading down. Serious sacrifices ?! my arse.

Daytona

I didn't watch it, but would recommend that everyone planned to pay off their mortgage in 10 years if they can do it.

After a couple of years on a 25 yo repayment mortgage, I switched to a 15 yo mortgage (the extra payments were about 20 a month). After another couple of years I switched to 10 years and also paid larger sums into the mortgage account. After 10 years from the original mortgage, I don't have a mortgage and have saved a fortune compared to a 25 y mortgage.

And be able to buy a flash car...

And did they have kids? No mention of babysitting costs etc, loss of spending quality time with the kids, and very little mention of the fact they were spending less time together as a couple.

It depends on the size of the mortgage and your income how easy it is to do but I did notice that taking out a mortgage of 17 years rather than 25 years doesn't add much to the monthly payments compared to paying for half as long again.