Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

newgirly

Been looking at the accounts today - I have reduced the monthly amount by a bit for spending on the cc and am already £6 over this months limit whch should last until 1st July :eek:

I will take dds travel season ticket out of the 50k from my parents, I had intended on squeezing the budget for this , but 1).monthly its a lot dearer and 2). It's loads of money so unrealistic.

Dd is insisting on paying for it but it would be her whole wage gone (plus we want to pay as its for uni travel) she even wants to pay rent bless her so it's about £1652 per year I think, I can't really save for next years monthly now as it is a lot on a tight budget. So I guess I will see what happens in the next year, we will most likely do the same and potentially set back the mortgage by one month , if I can save through the year then I will. The third year we may well be mf

I have stopped her £20 pm oyster top up and ds2s phone will be sim only from now on saving £5pm.

I have taken a look at what I've been spending on lately , I seem to be good at doing grocery challenges and then spending money on treats.
It seems sensible to allocate seperate budgets for everything , not just groceries and everything else.

So for the next couple of years it will be a zero accounting system still, a monthly amount after bills, mortgage and cc repayments of £700 plus pocket money for me of £100 cash.

So cc spending :

£700 total

£400 groceries (5 plus pets)
£65 petrol (dhs work van is electric so free )
£100 clothes /college/uni bits
£135 misc. treats plus hopefully some savings

£100 cash - used to be my pocket money

£40 towards college lunches and drinks (they still get pocket money- although I am also trying to get them to work!)
£60 my pocket money (nails £18 a time incl tip, try to stretch from two weeks to three between visits, the rest coffees with friends

It's all just a guideline, sometimes you need more food money, sometimes something else, I think I just need to be more aware of where it's all going.

Xmas and birthdays are covered in with the main bills, holidays are not included and will be paid for by selling stuff and chipping away whenever possible.

This month I luckily had a bit of surplus cash, so that should see us through until I can use the cc's again, it's about £80 I think.

AlexLK

I'll have a look later. Magenta is a love or hate it colour and in my mind not a very "safe" choice for investment. Though it does sound like it's a good price. Personally, I don't see the problem with buying a good classic, enjoying and selling on for a few extra ££££s but would be reluctant if I didn't really know what to look for and couldn't do general maintenance.

My TR is a really nice car, has been used a lot by me so no reliability issues. Would be tempted with offers upwards of £14k.

I'd be very weary of using the money to pay for your daughter's travel, couldn't she /you pay monthly? It seems very expensive for public transport.

newgirly

I would be tempted if we were looking at a longer term for the mortgage, but it's more of a risk over the shorter term, plus dh would probably not want to sell it!

Dd could and wants to pay for her own travel, but she would have no money to live on at all, it's close to £40 pm dearer for a monthly pass and actually for a zone 1-6 in London it's not bad at all, she gets a 30% discount. To put into perspective , for her to live in halls onsite it would be £2600 per month :eek:

Good luck selling the car, will you be replacing it with another one?

Ds1 is off to watch England play round mum and days tonight with my little brother - his footy watching buddy, pizza provided lucky him

Saw mum today who thinks we should treat ourselves with some of the money and book a 7 night cruise and leave the kids to fend for themselves, dh seems to be of the same opinion. They boys are not exactly keen to even do the minimum of tidying up at the moment, I've already been in shouty mum mode today and it's only day one! - i did get the required result though

I do have £1k in a savings account this month as we have effectively taken a one month break due to reaching the op limit (and having enough to make up the difference with the extra money we were given) some of it has gone on the Alton towers Addams family outing :rotfl: but in theory I could book us a cheap mini cruise for the end of the year, but not a seven nighter yet!

newgirly

No worries for dinner still this week, dh will be bbqing every night until the meat has either run or out gone off. Work today, little brother is going to Glastonbury so I will be doing the booze run on the way home from work with him - he takes a fold up trolley for his beer when he goes :rotfl:

Payday Friday, nothing much happening but it is personal spends day shoes and shirts need buying for prom next week, don't want to spend much on shoes as they wont being wearing them really now they have left school.

newgirly

We have some promising looking news business wise - the accountant rang (still doing the accounts mind) and it looks like we may be in a profit :eek: it will be like a few £1000 or so profit , but a profit :T

That's two years in a row on paper (first year we sold our old factory and on paper had money before we bought the new one)

This means 2 things -

1). Much better chance of getting a commercial mortgage for the factory than the current loan :T

2). It means dhs wages can be taken into account when we get a mortgage for us

So not sure what to do now! We have gone from no mortgage to being able to borrow about 200k :eek:

There has been a house up for sale nearby that I have been looking at for weeks, it's partially renovated (in a basic way) but is a semi with side extension upstairs and down, still in our area (1/2 a mile away). It's in for offers over 500k, the only other house that would be that price are 3 beds with a box room.

Plus points are :

No box room for ds1, proper bedroom
Downstairs double the size of ours
Bigger garden (not that fussed !)
Parking for more an two cars- could be handy in the future as we are about to get parking restrictions outside ours.
New kitchens/bathrooms and it has a downstairs toilet and utility
Freshly painted and new floors
Will probably still go up in value as seems cheap.

Bad points:

Bigger mortgage probably 50-90k ish more
Needs the outside tarting up
Not as close to the bus to station
I love my current bedroom and bathroom so much :rotfl:
I also love my new garden
The thought of movng brings me out in a cold sweat

It's already got other viewings booked but we are going to see it tonight. If it's a no go then that's the end of it , as we don't want to move further away and everything else is way over budget. I am hoping it will just put to bed any notion of moving just because we can, and make me even more content with our current house!

My friend at work has just sold his for 7k over the asking price at the weekend - up for two days and had five offers of asking or above £307 for a small 2 bed ex council terrace in a town 10 mins away by car which has always been a much cheaper area than where we are, it was valued 2 years ago at 185k amd he has had no work done :eek:

Anyway I feel it's worth a look at that price now our circumstances allow a mortgage. It would add 5 years odd onto the mortgage which is tantalisingly close to the end, it would need to be a very good reason to do it!

In other less exciting news, the storm has broken the gazebo in the garden and we temporarily lost the dog- found in ds2's room after breaking out of the kitchen in the night poor thing.

gallygirl

Don't be crazy NG - what if the expected business doesn't materialise? You're just in a position where you can see an end to your financial issues - don't put yourself and your hubby back under pressure.

Muser1

I was hoping someone would come along and knock some sense into you! You've worked so hard to get on an even level keep going! X

newgirly

Yes GG you are right, I have no defence!

Having money in the bank is a massive risk factor for me (as you may know ) but I looked at expensive holidays and cars and resisted. If I can resist a house, then I may be cured of stupid spending

On the plus side, we can hopefully get a mortgage on the factory and save a fortune every month

newgirly

House viewed tonight!

It's bigger than ours, has almost double the downstairs space, much bigger (messy ) garden, 3 smaller bedrooms and one larger. Extra loo and utility. Agent guesses ours will be about 450k ish (know the road/house from outside and I told him it needs work inside)

So it ticks all the boxes. But it didn't feel right, don't know why at all as I fully expected to love it, dh feels the same. After all these years it seems I do love my house a lot more than I thought either that or I am too sentimental as the kids have grown up here, bit worried I will never want to leave now......

Glad I went and looked though, if that one was no good then that's us staying, anything else would be horrendously expensive anyway.

AlexLK

Every time I read about house prices in the South East / London, I am always shocked just how little you can buy for your money. My place is worth quite a lot less than yours: it's a 3 bedroom detached set in 3/4 acre with one farmer neighbour in the Peak District. Personally, I think it's absolute madness living in a terraced house worth £450,000... it's not that grim up north. The value of your house would buy a very nice smallholding in a lot of the country.