Bricks Not Books

The first day of a New Year seems like the best time to start this diary! I was on this board under another name for a number of years, but I felt like a change of name as well as a change of diary, so here I am!

Completed on new home with OH in December, we haven't even owned it for a month yet. But we have a mortgage of £160k and we both hate being in debt, so we've already made plans to start overpaying. OH isn't in the best paid job (Civil Service) and I'm on a temporary contract, albeit with a manager who is keen to keep me on, but I hate the uncertainty of it. So I'm definitely going to be job hunting, and he will be too in coming months.

Mr VH has never lived away from home before. I moved away at university, moved back after graduation, moved out a few years later and spent 4 years as a lodger in a flat in London with a lovely couple, and then moved back with parents again. I've spent over a year sleeping on a sofa there as what was meant to be "temporary while we look for a place to rent" turned in to "let's buy a house together". Had a bit of a nightmare with the purchase, and we're still not actually in the house properly as it needs some work done on it. We've got a 5 year fix from Halifax at 2.74%, with monthly payments that are affordable. As we've never owned property before and it's been years since I had to work out budgets for bills (been paying all-inclusive rent at London and with parents) we decided to err on the side of caution. We set ourselves a realistic amount for repaying the mortage each month, and the one we eventually got came in £30 under that amount. So we're already going to OP £30 as our budget allows us that flexibility.

But even though we're not under the roof yet we still have a mortgage to pay XD First payment comes out in 3 days time and then we're on the path to 29 years of a mortgage. I'm 31 and OH will be 30 in a few months, and this is our first home. Not a forever home, we don't have children yet but want them in the future and this place is just about big enough for small ones, but would be cramped for older children.

Our house is currently going through some work due to years of being a student let, the last owners were intent on bleeding the place dry and then dumping it. We're going to look after this place, but it's taken up a lot of our savings. I've factored rebuilding the savings in to our budget, and also set up a spreadsheet to see the impact our OPs will have on the term, daily and monthly interest.

So our targets to start with are;

• Build an emergency fund of £1000
• Match the budgeted £30 a month overpayment through wombling, discounts, roadkill, earning extra pennies, saving loose change, and Tilly Tidies, so we’ll aim to be OPing over £60 a month.
• Drop below the £155k mark by January 2017.
• Enjoy living in our new home together

Fun Numbers;
- Without overpaying we’ll go under £155k in May 2017.
- With £60 a month OPing we’ll go under £155k in February 2017 – only need a little extra stretch to remove that last month!
- Without overpaying we’ll drop under £11 daily interest in August 2020!
- With £60 a month OPing we’ll drop under £11 daily interest in February 2020.
- Without overpaying we’ll take 29 years to pay off the mortgage.
- With £60 a month OPing we’ll take 25 years to pay off the mortgage!
- In order to pay it off in 20 years we’d need to OP £200 a month.
- If we OP by the monthly interest (c. £320 a month) we’d pay it all off in…16 years!

I think we’ll stick with £60 for now XD

And as for the diary title - between me and OH we practically own a library :rotfl: Need to cut back on paper purchases in favour of paying off more of the house!