Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst · 11 October 2016 at 6:10AM

Morning all! Can't sleep this morning so am awake (& a little grumpy :mad: !)

Managed to sell my kindle on eBay, however forgot to wipe my amazon details out so the buyer bought books on my account this morning. Swiftly removed all saved payment info, changed passwords & requested a refund. Rookie mistake so kicking myself that I didn't sort it pre posting!

Thanks to F0xh0les diary I signed up to streetlife website a few weeks ago- what a fab website! So on Sunday I picked up two mahoosive bags of windfall apple so Sunday evening & again last night were spent peeling, coring and chopping 4.5kg of apples! Made a chundo (think I spelt that right)- a spiced apple chutney/sauce and have taken spare pots for friends to work, will pop one to the lady who donated the apples to say thank you! There's another 3kg of apples in freezer bags freezing away nicely too for apple pies, apple sauces, apple crumbles etc over winter too!

There's still loads left so gf's mum is going to offer to neighbours when they pop into the shop

share the love!

Tiler is working away at the house, awaiting a few more quotes for work and wardrobes. Hoping a chippy we know will undercut a big wardrobe firm but we will see, otherwise it's Ikea & DIY which is a little daunting

Finally bought some house things- pots & pans etc- at the weekend. We went to sa*nsburys as we have saved our monthly vouchers from work for over a year & also used the accumulated nectar points (£102.50!!) so practical stuff like duvets, pillows, saucepans, tv brackets for walls are purchased for no actual cash spent! Woop

Went to John Lewis to get our tv- ended up getting the more expensive one as it included the sound bar gf wanted free (the difference in cost was less to get bigger tv and the sound bar!) we also did pricematch so got £89 off it and again used accumulated gift vouchers so tv cost us under £300 cash Yay!!!

Booked a week off (31st Oct) to hopefully move in, hoping the floors will be done by then and we should start getting our furniture delivered a few weeks after that!

Car insurance sorted pre the 26th- did comparisons and then went direct to insurers (via quidc* :money: ) so got better rate & some cashback if/when it clears!

Lots of meals out last week (including one that was paid for as a thank you for four weeks of house sitting) which was lovely catching up with friends but this week we're just glad to be in a normal routine cooking lighter dinners & packing lunches. Had egg white & veggie omelettes yesterday lunch as pack-ups, today is leftover turkey & butternut squash chilli :drool:

Payday on Friday so can pay more towards flooring- guy is putting in vinyl flooring downstairs from next week, we're still deciding on the stairs/halls & two bedrooms.

Decided my silver smith room is going to remain untouched until Jan- give me some time to save a bit more money up and fully decide how to lay it out and what flooring is best to use. I use resin, and a small handheld torch (flame) so want something practical but not ugly...will ponder some more

misscousinitt · 11 October 2016 at 9:14AM

Late to the party - but happy new home!

It's all very exciting - enjoy!

MCI x

themadvix · 11 October 2016 at 2:10PM

Congratulations on the new home Kittenkirst - I've spent the last couple of days catching up on your diary. A new build sounds very exciting in terms of getting to choose exactly what you want (at a price)!

I saw your comment on ATB's diary about your GF's lunches when she's working away - if she's away overnight does the company not offer reimbursement for subsistence? I know my DH's does - something like £20 to cover lunch/breakfast/drinks (that's on top of the evening meal allowance). Might be worth checking out? DH has only recently discovered this, so it might be something that companies don't widely advertise? (I've no personal idea as I'm self-employed!).

*Subscribed*

Kittenkirst · 11 October 2016 at 9:59PM

Hi themadvix, welcome along for the ride

For the gf's lunches she gets an allowance for dinner but it has to be spent at dinner time- at one that she regularly stays at she often gets supper from the Starbucks within the hotel and buys yogurt & sandwich etc but it's not always the easiest.
She's pretty good with packing small tubs of nuts, cereal bars & crisps to try and keep the costs down though, and our work do free fruit if you are quick enough to nab it when it goes out

Thanks for the congrats MCI! The tiler finished today and the floor in the kitchen looks fab!

still awaiting the quote from our carpenter for the wardrobes, the two expensive firms have called to confirm if we want to go with them but one is £3700 for the two rooms, the other we negotiated to £2.5k but it's still far too much if I'm honest!

The electrician popped in tonight and is putting a socket into our larder cupboard (for the microwave), fitting two light fittings, sorting out the tv panel in the front room & putting 7 more spotlights in the hall and front room!

We have also decided to talk with our flooring guy re vinyl or laminate upstairs instead of carpets so he is popping over tomorrow with some samples & confirm timelines...so we really need the fitted wardrobes sorting!

Fingers crossed for good quotes tomorrow

Supper tonight was cheese on toast with the spicy apple chutney - simple yet fab

Got to nip to the lady who gave me the apples after work to drop off a jar of chutney to her to say thank you!

Kittenkirst · 12 October 2016 at 10:29PM

Evening! :waves:

Spent this evening whizzing round &getting things sorted. The tiler has finished and all looking good, however he has stacked all the waste on some sample tiles that we need to take back to a showroom

Quote from our flooring guy was fab and we've chosen our carpets for the landing & stairs, the vinyl with border for the lounge, hall & wc, and the laminate for the two bedrooms!

The downstairs will be done by the end of next week which is exciting, we just need to sort wardrobes so we can line it all up.

Our chippy came back with a quote £1k more than one of the glossy firms (for the same materials!!!) so, looks like we're going to ikea this weekend....

Heard whispers at work that we should have news by Friday about redundancies....I'm not sure whether I'm hoping to be safe or hoping to be at risk. The redundancy payout would be substantial & it could be the push I've been needing to try something new...but, finding a new job isn't that easy and my whole package (pension, voucher scheme) is pretty nice.

Took the chutney round to the lady who gave me the apples and she seemed really touched which brightened my day somewhat! :beer:

Payday on Friday...mortgage first goes out on the 20th. First mortgage payment is pretty exciting....

themadvix · 13 October 2016 at 7:32AM

Cheese on toast and apple chutney sounds yummy - my standard is mango chutney (sometimes ends up being almost as much chutney as cheese!), so if I get given some more apples I might have to give chutney a go.

I hope the redundancies go the way that's right for you. It can't be nice having that having over your head

Enjoy making first mortgage payment on Friday!

misscousinitt · 13 October 2016 at 10:05AM

Fingers crossed on the job front.

Love apple chutney - we have had a shortage of apples this year so haven't been able to make any as yet.

Lovely when small things are appreciated.

All going well for you - glad you got the tiling done quickly - new build, so not as awkward as our 1920s house!

All coming together nicely. it's really exciting. Hold that thought.

MCI

Kittenkirst · 13 October 2016 at 7:19PM

NSD today, and discovered if I can prove I left my old flat in March time I may get a partial refund on my home contents (I didn't realise they did that!) I shall be sorting through paperwork tonight for that

Some bad news is the buyer for gf's flat fell through

essentially there have been issues with the roof in the hall leading to the flat that the managing agent people should have resolved. They stopped the roof leaking but didn't really repair the inside of the ceiling in the hall.
The buyers surveyor provided estimation of 15k lower than what the gf's surveyor did which is all very odd.

We shall be doing some internet searches & maybe visit CAB about her rights in making the managing agents fix the roofing issue outside the flat door, so grumpy faces all round today!

Meeting first thing in the morning re our re-org at work, so hopefully things will be clear then. I've worked here over ten years so maybe it's time for a change of scenery!

Chippy has come back to us and knocked £700 off the total, so wardrobes and all the shelving etc for £2800, I'm not sure as we could get a well known firm with 10 year guarantee in for that cost, it'd just delay moving in until end November....think if tomorrow goes ok we'lol pop to IKEA and look at options for DIY wardrobes instead

Kittenkirst · 14 October 2016 at 11:30PM

Sooooooo after all the build up today was a bit of a non-starter. Announcements were made But we are no clearer unfortunately.

This helped force our decision re wardrobes so once the gf came home from Manchester we popped to Notts to Ikea for wardrobes! We decided if we could get similar to what we wanted from the glossy firms (lowest quote £2.5k if you remember!) then that made more sense and to save the money for other things/starting up our emergency fund again. A Lovely lady called Cally helped us loads and we have purchased our wardrobes with delivery for £1k. A lot of money, but £1.5k cheaper than all our other quotes!

Our TV from John Lewis is arriving tomorrow and wardrobes on Sunday, the electricians in on Monday for sockets in the larder cupboard, adding multiple spotlights into areas and sorting other stuffs, them the lounge, hall and etc being done by our floor guy weds-fri....however We need to clear the rubbish from the lounge the tiler naughtily left!! Grrrr

Will message our lovely flooring guy to let him know that he can do the upstairs now whenever he is free

so excited!!!

Kittenkirst · 15 October 2016 at 5:51AM

misscousinitt wrote: »

Fingers crossed on the job front.

All going well for you - glad you got the tiling done quickly - new build, so not as awkward as our 1920s house!

MCI

MCI, how long did your tiling take?
The area for our tiling was fairly straight forward, the only more difficult bit was tiling in the understairs larder (which is in the kitchen/diner).

I'm struggling to sleep past 5am at the moment, so am updating our accounts app :money: we got the wardrobes on 0% finance so we'll now have a monthly DD for wardrobes & one for the sofas &dinkng tables & chairs all to come out of our joint bills account.

Pay day yesterday and my (now closed) regular saver funds are also in my current account making it look crazily healthy...debating moving some funds to my (low interest) savings account until we need to pay the different tradespeople over the next month....thinking this will help ensure it doesn't get frittered away unintentionally

Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

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