KolaKubes Crazy Rags to Riches Mortgage Challenge! Part One - Saving a deposit!

KolaKube

Hello all!!

Long time no see - things have been a bit hectic here with the wedding, honeymoon etc - I'm proud to announce that I'm now a married woman! Back from honeymoon and ready to jump back on the bandwagon with both feet - house is the next big step! :j

Some updates: savings now stand at £5500 - our rate of saving up took a bit of a knock with the wedding and my new lower wage, and also I bought myself a little car (outright, brilliant deal and needed one really), which is going very well indeed!

OH didn't lose his job - it was a close shave, he was supposed to be going, but 3 people took voluntary redundancy so his position was saved - until March 2012.

Will be hopefully moving back nearer home before the end of the year, which will be lovely - going to aim to move somewhere slightly cheaper to aid the saving up.

Still on for target!

How is everyone else getting on in 2011?

Kola xx

linz

Congratulations!

Just read some of your diary and I must say I think it's brilliant that you have managed to get married and buy a car outright and still have savings!

I'm sure you'll do really well with your MFW journey too,

all the best!

museumworker

linz wrote: »

Congratulations!

Just read some of your diary and I must say I think it's brilliant that you have managed to get married and buy a car outright and still have savings!

I'm sure you'll do really well with your MFW journey too,

all the best!

Everything linz just said :D

Sepa74

Hi Kola, congratulations! I'm enjoying your diary, but second what everyone else here has said about needed £ - 7K extra to cover all the unexpected things! I bought lots of second hand furniture from a local charity shop and have slowly replaced it with nicer stuff over the last few years. I'm nearly done - just have a wardrobe and drawers for my bedroom to go. I'm focusing on renovating the kitchen and bathroom first, though.

I'm so impressed at your 'nesting' skills. You sound like a very creative person and I'm sure all your 'designer' friends are secretly jealous of your lovely home!

KolaKube

Thank you for the kind words everybody

Re: the wedding, we did have quite a bit of help from parents, and also we saved up a fair bit ourselves too, so that money was sat in another account and nothing to do with current savings OH did me a brilliant excel spreadsheet to keep track of it all, we bought nothing at full price and got loads thrown in by the hotel, so we managed to come in bang on budget (even with a few extras!).

OH and I are no strangers to second hand so I think charity shop furniture and slowly replacing it will be the way forward for us too!

So, something exciting is happening (exciting in a sad MSE way!) - OH is surrendering financial control to yours truly now we're married

Updated my wardrobe yesterday using a £20 M&S voucher we got for the wedding... they had the end of their sale on, all in a size 14 for once, and all reduced to £3 - got over £200 of lovely new clothes without spending a penny. Happy!

Need to do a bit of meal planning today, laundry, wash the car and put in some petrol. Back to work tomorrow so need to get the place in order!

Hope everyone has a lovely sunday!

Kola x

loumac

Welcome back Kola, nice to catch up on all that's been going on in your world.

And well done on the gain of control. Do you think things will move even more quickly now?

Hope you've had a good Sunday. xx

KolaKube

Loumac.. things might speed up a little, but gaining control / sharing money has revealed a few little problems too... OH had casually built up an £800 overdraft without mentioning it, so that'll need paying off, and also he's 'discovered' the savings (he knew we had some savings, but I don't think he thought it was more than a grand or so) so has been planning ways to chip it away today after months thinking we were broke, (frustratingly nothing I can really argue with) as only OHs can - car needs a service / new tyres, he needs some new work clothes, he dropped his fancy camera which needs sending away for repairs etc etc (photography is his one hobby so I'm loathed to tell him no) - just as I was doing so well!!!! The trade off is that I plan to remove a set amount of money for savings from his wage every month, come rain or shine, so I guess it will all work out in the end :cool: His payday is tuesday so we'll see how that goes :rotfl:

Anyone else have much experience of sharing money?

Radish72

I keep my money and try my hardest to share BF's money

I bugged him this morning to O/P his mortgage as he wasn't going to be spending any huge amounts of money in Feb

cha97michelle

I have complete control in our house. DH asks me before anything gets spent, and he doesn't ask for a lot. So far this year, a couple of new jumpers for work, and his car being fixed. He knows if i say no it is because we don't have it.

He also reigns me in if i get too giddy and get my want head on. We are pretty frugal really.

The only bit that i am less keen on is he never looks at any figures. It is good that he trusts me, but i would like to share things with him. He was in shock when he saw we had reduced the mortgage balance by nearly £6k as it was the 1st time all year he had seen a statement.

sarahevie

We strictly have our own money OH has his wage. I control our T/C, child benefit, rent from 'my' house. He has £1000 a month, I have £1000 a month

We split all bills, shopping, mortgage and just pay our share. Even when we buy the kids things we pay 50/50. It is strange but it does work for us.

I'd love it of OH would surrender all money to me, but he won't and I couldn't bear my 50% to go on his 'treats.' All our overpayments have come from my side because I am A LOT better with money than him. Although he is improving slowly.

He only has £250 a month after all bills, food, mortgage, petrol, essentials. He has to manage his phone contract, social life on that which isn't too bad for someone who previously was a spendaholic:DHe used to !!!! the whole £1000 up the wall