Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

pammyj74

ooh where are you going with hoseasons? We are going with park resorts through tesco points in july to lowestoft. Looking forward to it sort of but have been abroad the last three years of guaranteed sun and AI. oh well, should be grateful of any break!

newgirly

Hi Pammy, we are going to a caravan park on the Isle of Wight, my best friend has been a couple of times with her kids and said its great. Its our first time spending a whole week in a caravan though so fingers crossed.

I'm sure you will have a nice time at Lowestoft, we have been to the broads for the weekend and had a good time, you should have good weather in July for at least some of the time and you won't need to spend as much on suncream!

pammyj74

Always look on the bright side haha, and no waiting in airports or foreign people. can threaten the kids that we will go home etc. There always a light at the end of the tunnel!
I would like to go to the IOW and jersey/Geurnsey

newgirly

I've had the paperwork through for the extra 30k advance on the mortgage. Its a bit scary reading it through, the interest on that part will be 4.39 fixed for 2 years and It will run for the remainder of our mortgage (11 yr 4 months). Interest is £110.37 per month initially. In the past I would not have thought twice about extra borrowing, hence the huge mortgage now!

If we are very careful we will manage ok, no foreign holidays or designer clothes for a few years. However the thing that is holding me back from signing is DH's work

He took over running the firm when his boss became terminally ill, (who was also his best friend), most in the firm earn shares in the company and get a dividend at the end of the year, all are on a low wage, and this helps to make up for it. The firm has been running for over 100 years like this, when you leave you must sell back the shares at a low price to the staff that remain. However dh's bosses wife has decided that she would like to keep all her late husbands shares , and therefore about a third of the profit each year.

DH is very upset as he has one every single thing he could have to help during the last year and a half, visiting every day, paying full wages/overtime etc. also giving her regular cash on top from the business (hundreds a month, even though there will be no profit this year). He was told by his friend/boss that he wanted everything to remain as it was when he was gone.

So now we are in the position where we don't know what will happen, there are other staff who, like his new assistant manager who work very hard on a low wage with 2 young kids who deserves to be able to buy shares , so dh is going to put up a fight.

Its probably going to turn rather unpleasant, with the added complication that the lady also owns a chunk of the freehold of the building, which makes things even more complicated.

I'm just so shocked as dh was so close to them both, and we just were not expecting this, the irony is if she had come and asked for financial help for the future he would have given it anyway. They were quite well off with no dependants , but even so he would have helped.

Anyway, to cut this long story short, I'm getting nervous about borrowing more at the moment, dh says it may get to the point where he has to rent another building either taking the whole firm with him, or starting up from scratch with his best staff who want to come.:eek:

My heart is telling me to get the loft done for the family, but my head is telling me to wait. If we don't get it done now , we won't be able to borrow as much as dh is not paying any money out this year so we will be waiting another 2 1/2 years.

Sorry for the long post, my head is getting full to bursting with all that is going on at the moment and trying to decide what to do.

newgirly

I've been updating my spending figures this month. £5 left to spend this month. Plus I've used the extra buffer money, that was £100 so I need to do a lot better next month. I have also realised that if we do have to put the loft on hold due to dh's work problems that I will not be paying off the cc at such a fast rate, but saving the £1K cash, so basically there will be no buffer fund unless I reduce the cc payments from £200 ish to £100. Not sure what to do yet, am hoping feb will be a cheaper month.

CathT

Oh i can see why your head is frazzled. What a tricky situation over the shares. Is she not entitled to keep them though? I know you said if someone leaves they return the shares but obviously this case is different. Things get nasty when money is involved don't they. Is she majority shareholder then?

It a hard decision re: extra borrowing and i wish i had advice to give.

earthgirl

January always seems like the worst month! When we looked at extending the mortgage we did it when oh was still 'employed' they would have charged a lot more if he had just set up his own business... good luck!

newgirly

Hi cath, there have always been conditions to becoming a shareholder in the company, including having to be working a minimum of 3 days per week , and hopefully dh can supply all the legal paperwork needed to back this up, he currently has staff who have worked there for decades and have cut their days after retirement and had to sell their shares on to other staff, the said ladies late husband also enforced this rule, she does not hold the majority of the shares, but a fair chunk. When her late husband took over the previous manager at the time also tried to hold onto his shares but was not able to. So if she does manage to get them it will be the first time in over 100 years.

CathT

It doesn't look like she will be able to then. I hope it gets sorted and you can carry on making plans without all this worry.

Grayzee

My husband and I decided we wanted to be MF as soon as possible. We have been overpaying and converted a chunk of our mortgage to Capital and Interest. So far so good we have £24k to go and should be finished by the end of 2013. Can't wait:j