Mortgage Free by 01/01/11...so goes the plan

wynnvegas

Hi TYO,

Deeper, darker, colder and certainly wetter up here without a doubt! I'm all for moving to somewhere with decent weather but M isn't up for that at all. The fact that land is so expensive and building restrictions so tight here may yet see us shoot off to sunnier climes at some point but M is dead against that at the minute so we're still scheduled to spend our lives in Scotland.

Cheers,

Billy

LilacPixie

ooo Billy getting clser and closer. My MF date has went in the opposite way, we have had an offer on this place, accepted and offered on a bigger house which has also been accepted so our mortgage amount is doubling just need to work twice as hard

wynnvegas

Morning All,

OK - it's been a stupidly busy week so my apologies for not keeping up my diary in that time. The benefit (for me anyway) is that instead of a day passing and me having to rely on things like the news for something to comment on, loads of things have been happening so I won't have to mince about discussing spending cuts and the impending doom of the country!

Previously, on the Wynnvegas MSE diary, we were headed off to Dunfermline to get our kitchen mocked up, planning on speaking to an IFA or two, popping down south for a few days, trying to finish the Christmas shopping and thinking seriously about looking into kicking off the planning of the "forever" house we intend building.

Needless to say, some of that has not come off! We did pop through to Magnet to talk through the kitchen we want. Having it all mocked up in a few different ways, my overwhelming notion was that it didn't actually look a whole lot better than the kitchen we have at the moment. Certainly, it is very clear that the £15,000 Magnet were asking for wouldn't be even 50% recouped in terms of adding value to the house. They were very keen to look at reorganising the space and putting things where they aren't at the moment which means a lot of unnecessary mincing about so we've (hopefully sensibly) decided that the things that 100% do need replaced - namely the cooker, cooker hood and sink - will be replaced and we'll look at refacing the doors and putting new worktops onto the existing cupboards. We'll chat that through with the joiner in January when he's out doing a final survey for the boiler / bathroom project but I may need to lose the 900mm range cooker. Hopefully the big jacuzzi bath will make up for not having my kitchen toy!

I've only spoken to one IFA so far with two more recommended bods to come today. The old boy yesterday was very stuffy and kept "doing a BBC" on me. I would say something like "we can save £180,000 cash in the space of 5 years and I need help working out how best to get that to somewhere in the region of £250,000" to which he would reply "what you should maybe look at is saving £180,000 and finding the best way to turn that into £250,000." Whilst very agreeable, we were no further forward although he has committed to popping my requirements into his magic software package to see what his best plan of action is. When I said we were paying the mortgage off next Thursday, I swear he looked more miffed than anything else. I've had delight from most people on our behalf, nonplussed responses from some others (not many) but I've never had anyone seem annoyed at us for finally getting there - needless to say I'm holding out for better and hopefully the two people who have been recommended to me by friend and family respectively will do a better job of concealing their contempt!

I think I may need to try getting the train down the road when it is required. Driving is such a waste of time and it's knackering - even when M drove the whole way down to Aylesbury (around 420 miles). Because most of my visits are multi-stop then flying isn't that good an option although I haven't looked properly into car rental yet. I do think that when you're spending all the time in airports that is now required then renting a crappy car at the back end, it would be just about as quick to drive in relative comfort with my own stuff - that and I can take a few toiletries with me. The train would let me get some work done and I could pretty straightforwardly get to all the offices without being shattered at the back end of a week so I'll investigate that a bit further ahead of next week's jaunts. At the moment, the plan is to be in England on Tuesday and Wednesday then fire back up the road in full preparation for the delights of Thursday morning. We were fully intending to go out next Thursday but I've pulled that idea. Special occasion or not, I've had enough of restaurant food for a wee while and the extra 4 or 5 pounds I seem to have accumulated in the last few weeks haven't improved my mood any. A good bit of wii fit and walking is called for in the next week and M has decided that she'll do us an all new recipe 3 course meal with smaller portions to celebrate the mortgage going. We'll also do a bumper batch of baking to take into our respective workplaces to help them help us celebrate the mortgage going - on that menu so far are truffles, millionaire shortbread, bannoffee pie, walnut and white chocolate chip cookies and the ever reliable chocolate cornflake cakes - unfortunately, cadburys seem to have seen fit to discontinue dairy milk double choc so our melt in the middle muffins are off the menu until we can find a replacement ingredient! We've decided on getting presents that would be classed as being for us both instead to mark the occasion so, between birthday and christmas, I now need to think of something else - it's a hard life!!

Between all this, M did manage to take a few hours "off from the SOA" as she called it to do some shopping and get her watch fixed. Nearly £250 (and not that many presents) later, I began to realise that her intended shopping spree on November 6 could be quite expensive as she didn't even count that as real shopping. I do have a list to investigate of gift packs, selection boxes and toiletries to completely top off the christmas list but all the big ones have been ordered or received so much of the work there is done. M had a look round Dobbies yesterday for our new Christmas tree. She has decided on one that is 7ft and £150 but she'll be disappointed as I'm very nearly 100% sure that 6ft with a star on top is about all she'll manage to fit in the living room. The living room, incidentally, will recieve the christmas tree no problem (assuming the size is ok) as I've now finished part 3 of the jigsaw! Just Sydney to top the whole thing off which I've given myself between Boxing Day and April Fools Day to do.

All of this is fairly trifling in comparison to the house planning. We've gotten into it in a big way and I'm going to investigate it a bit further yet with some book and modelling software purchases in the next few weeks. We went along to see an ex-colleague of mine who has build a few houses - their latest (and last) one is absolutely amazing and it has confirmed without question that building a house is definitely for us. It will now either be staying where we are as a 3-bed semi is probably fine for 2 people who don't plan on having kids or shoot for the moon and go for the mansion! We've decided our big house would need just the two floors but downstairs would have a cribs-esque feel to it with a massive open plan living room / kitchen / dining room, a seperate 96" screen cinema / computer room, a (to all intents and purposes) wee pub with a bar, darts, snooker, pool and a big 3D plasma (probably old hat by the time we get round to it) and the eventual extension would house the swimming pool and sauna. Upstairs will be three bedrooms (only one en-suite wet room), a massive bathroom, a couple of walk-in wardrobes (a proper deal breaker for M) and a library / study. I would intend quickly and cheaply throwing up a garage / outhouse for us to live in whilst the big house was under construction in the same way that my friend has done - the minor issue being that the cost of the house as envisioned would be somewhere in the region of £400,000 including all the stuff we fancy in it (and probably excluding the pool extension at that point). Unfortunately, the major issue is with the price of land. The kind of site we'd need to do what we're planning was going for £60,000 8 years ago and is now on the market at closer to £150,000. If land keeps racing up, we'll struggle to ever get anywhere with the project unfortunately which may yet lead us abroad. Further investigation to be done for sure but, in talking to the couple that have done it, it would appear that the approved way to get there relatively profitably but safely is to go into the property business and rent out a few properties which, over the kind of timeframe we're looking at, would potentially give us the type of return we're looking for. This has, in a week, become a somewhat serious consideration and the IFA meetings today will inform us of our next steps on that front. Any experiences or advice would be most welcome - particularly the horror stories!!

I think that'll about do it for now. I shall report back (hopefully early) next week with the next grand plan!!

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Hi LP,

I noticed that on your signature as I haven't bee round to your diary in the last few days. Thast's brilliant news. Now definitely seems to be the best time to upscale with house prices stagnating and still dropping in places so I hope you got a great deal.

Cheers,

Billy

[Deleted User]

Billy
I think I could sort out the car rental problem for when you are down south...I could be on call as your personal chaufeer (all for the nominal fee of hmmm. £128000? :rotfl:) killing 2 birds (and one mortgage) with one stone?
let me know how that sounds? :rotfl:

seriously tho, well done on the achievements , am sure thurs will be great celebrations and the baking sounds yummy too!

house build sounds very exciting , I agree you need to find someone who is in tune with you and one some kind of similar wavelength to be trusting with your financial planning, and who can see what a great achievement you have made in paying the mortgage off this early!

good luck on the rest of the xmas shopping and reigning in the novemebr shopping spree

SmlSave

Corr you've been busy!

The jazucci bath sounds lovely

Poo to the IFA, he sounds horrible, hope the others are nicer.

wynnvegas

Thanks TYO,

An interesting number - surely the going rate for a couple of hours driving!!??

Thanks for the continued support. I just need Froggy to turn up with the nutty countdown statistics of the day to round it all off nicely!

Whilst being really excited about the house build, the land remains such an issue that I'm pretty sure all received wisdom will end up pointing to buying the land asap which would (shame!) potentially (no, no!!) lead to a new mortgage! It's difficult to even contemplate such a horror but I can just about see through the tears that it's sensible to buy the same something at £150,000 now instead of £250,000 in five years time. Any such mortgage would see me halfway suicidal for about a year!

How anyone pays off a house down in the south east I've no idea. We seen some fairly grotty wee terraced houses selling for upwards of £600,000 in Aylesbury and surrounding places. Greater Missenden for one had a fairly innocuous 3 bed semi for £675,000 - who the hell is paying that!?

No chance I'm afraid on the spree! She has opened the floodgates and I may just have to write November off completely on the saving front! I will admit to having to join in a wee bit as I'm off iphone shopping tomorrow - my phone broke yesterday with all of £4.20 in the PAYG sim which I'm taking as a sign!

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Thanks SmlSave,

I was 100% set on the fancy cooker and not all that fussed about the bath but, whilst not having turned completely the other way, the bath is now a more important addition now that I've seen it. The cooker is still on the wish list but it may not be doable - hopefully the joiner has a few bright ideas about how to fit it in.

Cheers,

Billy

Froggy-G

Greetings Billy :j

Your new countdown is as follows:
125 hours to go or as my nephew would say: 6 MORE SLEEPS TO GO!!

Well done, you are an inspiration to us all!!

Froggy

wynnvegas

Froggy-G wrote: »

Greetings Billy :j

Your new countdown is as follows:
125 hours to go or as my nephew would say: 6 MORE SLEEPS TO GO!!

Well done, you are an inspiration to us all!!

Froggy

If i got this level of service in all other aspects of my life, the world would be a happier place!!!

Cheers,

Billy