Hopes and dreams for a new home...

Iris_Blue

Another lovely day here and my second wash is whirling away in the machine. I think I'll make the most of todays weather and even put a 3rd one on so I don't have to do the whites tomorrow. :j

I feel a bit torn over money at the moment and I'm wondered what to do. It's all going about in my head but I made a decision yesterday on the child support money I'm suppose to get. I've decided to take the £300 out of my monthly budget , if I get it great and if I don't then I won't miss it and can either OP it or put it in the ISA. One payment has been missed this year already and it looks like the same for this month too.

We get rid of the CC debt completely this month so it is the best off that we have ever been. I think the time has come not to rely on that money any more.

Help!...I resisted the urge to sing the Beatles song here!

Can I ask for some advice please ? We're getting DH's bonus next week, may be around the £1800 mark after tax. The CC debt is £1300 so that'll be wiped out. I'm not sure on what to do £500 that's left.

* Do I op it ..my mortgage is 3.5% variable rate it would take me down to under 85k. I want to reduce my OPs from next month to £160ish so I can pay into the ISA "moving house" fund.

* Or pay the £500 this month into an empty 3.20% ISA ? From April I aim to pay worse case £500 a month. ( hopefully £700 may be more) into the ISA.

What would you do?

I have no funds to move house. I feel will be o.k though with this as we have a buyer but they haven't sold theirs yet. We don't want to move till June/July as the house we want is being rented out, so potentially 3/4 months of savings starting from April of at least £500 a month . Worse case if we haven't enough then put it on a interest free CC.

Sorry I know it's only £500 but I keep going from one decision to another on this one. Now I've just put it down into words my head/heart says OP as we should have £2k minimum towards moving/fees which will be just under what we need if we only do £500. I'm sure that I'll change my mind again soon.

Any thoughts appreciated

cha97michelle

I think i would hang onto it Iris for the time being. If you have no other funds for moving, you might not save enough in time if you get a good offer on yours. Don't leave yourself short. If you do manage to save what you need, you can overpay then.

I find things like this can have hidden costs that you haven't thought of, which i would rather have extra put away to cover it.

katsu

Iris,

I think your son has made the right choice of type of draughtsman, as it sounds like he would be more targetting the building trade/civils and could look to work in that area if he gets the right quals whilst he is serving.

Re the money - put it into the ISA and consider it a virtual OP fund (like in my sig) and track smaller savings as a virtual pot and then after the move, if you still have them left over, OP them?

Iris_Blue

Thanks for the comments. I think I will put it in the ISA.

I've been through money and now Op'd £391.20 for this month. Very pleased with that. I'm not doing any more now ( she says! ) except c/back money. I'm going to pay into the ISA instead.

I'm extremely pleased as I've done the double the difference promotion with Mr T/Mr A on the grabbit board and just got the results back, I spent £41.74 on shopping yesterday and got back........£33.64!:j:j The payment is in the form of a voucher but with no minimum spend or anything. I'll be doing a price check with that shopping too.

I bought: ( for £8.10 real money)
Sun tan oil £12 I got for free ! :j
washing gel
Easter eggs,
moisturiser ( I didn't need but I will use it when my other stash runs out ) This was priced at £10.20 and cost me 20p after double the difference kicked in!
bread
pasta bake
chicken tonight
some curry stir fry sauce
snickers


I wish I would have bought more now but when you're unsure of something you don't buy a lot do you ? Plus I didn't want to waste money if they pulled the promotion early.

3rd load of washing is on the line now :j

We're having duck with pancakes for tea which I bought from farm f00ds on offer earlier in the week - hope they are yummy as Im really looking forward to them.

Pinky15

Morning!! I would def look at saving towards the moving costs as they seem huge! I didnt realise how much everything was till I starting adding up. My mortgage is around £55000 at the mo but am hoping to buy out of my rate in summer onto a better one. I was overpaying by £100 per month but due to cuts in overtime we decided to overpay the credit cards and get rid of them first. However after seeing how much houses cost:eek: - I dont know if we will get much for our money lol.
You sound really focused anyway! x

Iris_Blue

Thanks Pinky. Your cc's have come down quite a bit. It won't be long until you join us here. ...I'll be here on the boards then ..I probably won't be mortgage free until I'm 92 years old at this rate! :eek:

I feel quite depressed after calculating the moving costs yesterday :

£398 solictors fees
£2291 estate agents ( how can they jusify that ! )
£2000 in stamp duty. ( if we move to the house we want to buy )

I've updated my signature so I can see how much I can save from now on towards these costs

I don't remember any actual cash being paid to the solicitor or EA when I moved here 10 years ago. I presume it was taken out of my deposit. Do people pay for these separately? Does anyone know how it works these day ?

We've just been talking about if we can actually afford to move or not as we have at absolute worse case scenario ( I always work out this way ) 35k deposit...I just wish we had more! That's my fault for taking money out of the house twice due to debts when I was in trouble and naive about finances.

It's a good job I started overpaying in August as at least we've knocked 5k of the mortgage by doing this.

I really don't want to stay here though even for another 2 years..it's time to go, new start and all that.

Oh well what will be...!

cha97michelle

If it is meant to be, then all the effort will mean that it will happen. That is what i was saying about always having unexpected costs. We had solicitors fees 7 years ago, but not EA as we rented before here.

Do you have anything else to sell if you needed to? Can you make a superhuman effort at anything that can add to the pot? Sarahevie said she got to £50 on dooyoo after only one month. I reckon i am doing £25 at least per month on there.

Could you take out a loan from somewhere like Zopa if need be? Cheaper rates and can pay back in large lumps without penalty.

You are resourceful Iris. Something will happen.

MyMFDream

well up here the EA's are all solicitors so all was under the one roof. The money paid to the solictor was enough to cover their fees and the deposit requirments for house/mortgage deal and stamp duty if required. We therefor kept overpaying and only saved for actual moving costs like the van and the costs of other things like changing the locks etc.

Personally I would keep hold of the £500 for now, interest saved on the mortgage will be quite small between now and July

Iris_Blue

cha97michelle wrote: »

Do you have anything else to sell if you needed to? Can you make a superhuman effort at anything that can add to the pot? Sarahevie said she got to £50 on dooyoo after only one month. I reckon i am doing £25 at least per month on there.

Could you take out a loan from somewhere like Zopa if need be? Cheaper rates and can pay back in large lumps without penalty.

Thanks. I wouldn't want to get a loan as we have a good credit score and since we've got rid of the debt I've closed all the old accounts down. We don't want any debt except the mortgage ( and we don't really want that! ) I think I'm quite good with money now but that's because I keep things tight. I don't think I can find any money from anywhere else. We've sold gold, cd,s etc as it is. I do tend to have minimun £50 coming in pm though from c/back, surveys etc so that's some good I suppose. I should look at Dooyoo again, I did look but it seemed so boring...do you get anything for referring? You can refer me if you do / if you'd like and I'll take a look.

How's the money paid , is it cash ?


Thanks MMFD . I wouldn't mind so much if we had more equity, the house we want is £225 but I wanted to offer £199k. We couldn't afford the 225. It's a great house though , I want it, it's a lot of house for the money.

£500 gets the mortgage down quite a bit though as we pay £601 as it is. That's why I was torn between saving or overpaying. We need another £14k off the top of my head to get to 75% ltv which isn't going to happen.

cha97michelle

The dooyoo - payout is at £20 for amazon vouchers, or you can save up to £50 as a cheque which is sent in the post, and takes a few weeks after you request it. I would get 50p when you write your first review if you sign up, and i would need you to Pm me your email address.

Basically, you can write on whatever you want, and the different categories are worth 60p, 30p or 10p for your review, and then you get 3,2 or 1p on each person who reads it and rates. There is 2 ways of taking it. Write a lot of reviews to get your cash that don't necessarily get a lot of rates, or write less reviews and get more people to rate. Best reviews can also be awarded a crown from dooyoo, which is an extra £1.50.

60p reviews are things like kitchen appliances, lawnmowers, outside kids toys (this month), 30p reviews are most other kids toys, 100 points is DVDs, books and food items.

Some reviews like recipes, and discussion on parenting or football is no points for the review, and points for being rated.

I tend to do a mix of the 3 types of review, and try to write one per day, and then spend some time reading rating when i am at the computer.

Up to you if you fancy it. I know Katsu and rlc are enjoying it there, but Pammy gave it up as too time consuming. People like it or hate it.

In each review i try to describe something and then give some opinion on whether it is any good. Eg. a toy, i might say how we play with it, if it lasts to robust play, where you can buy it cheap.

If you do it, best to read a few reviews before you start to get a feel for what is good and not so good, as if you write poorly they don't pay.

I still love it there, so i might be biassed, but i think it is money for not a lot. We have so many toys and stuff here i am never short of something to natter about, and i am quick at reading and typing too.

If you send me a PM i will sort out a link.