Mortgage in Australia

originalmiscellany

Just reading up on your thread - never read yours before, but I like the fact that there's "history" in what you've said, e.g. over the last year you can see the positives to your position, mortgage lower, repayments made etc. It's great to see you posting on here more often too! To go from one post in a year to three in a month is a good sign too. I find posting here keeps me earthed and the support and encouragement from people a real incentive.

Keep posting hot copper, and as we're freezing in the UK enjoy the warm Christmas weather you're almost certainly going to get!

HotCopper

Hi,
An update. Our current mortgage is 352k dollars. It should be approx 300k by the end of the year, which is we can sell some investments to the tune of 100k then we can reduce it to 200k and then it will take 2 years to pay off.
Speccy shares are now worth only 23k - market is crashing. Other investment is still below purchase price. The market stinks at the moment. Ah well, c'est la vie. I'm still hopeful we can cash in at the end of the year to 100k.
We are doing quite well living of my salary alone. My husband's entire salary goes towards the mortgage, we don't even see it.
We have tranferred our credit card debt to a 0% card for the next year, and I will try and pay it off at 1k per month. I'll look for another card at the end of the year.
Unexpected expenses this year was returning to UK to be with my sister when she had her baby, and to visit Mum who was too ill to be there herself. 3k gone. Not that it matters and I am extrememely lucky to have that bandwidth in my financial situation. However, with me gone for two weeks husband went on shopping spree and put 2k on credit card (stuff for the kids that they don't need!). He just CANNOT 'self-monitor' !!!!!!
Having spent some time in UK recently, realise how exorbitant the cost of living has become here. $2.50 for ONE leek. I went to the butchers to get a leg of lamb and they were btwn $36 and $42 dollars. So, we have been cooking like my Mum, lots of mince, lentil soup with bacon bones (which the children love).... and I have been making homemade sausage rolls for the childrens lunchboxes for morning tea. I've also just rediscovered ebay and have bought some nice Boden clothes off there second hand.
My daughter starts secondary school next year. Husband wanted top private schools (there are loads where we live), I wanted local state school. The compromise has been the local private catholic girls school. It's 8k per year, plus uniform etc...... so I will have to start those bills soon. I will look to see if my daughter can get a general excellence scholarship to see if we can get fees reduced by half.
Money in, money out.
What more can I say other than things are tracking quite nicely.
Cheers

Sepa74

Was in Oz about 18 month ago. There is NO way I could move home... I don't particularly want to, but I still feel a little like an exile!

I hope things keep on going well for you.

Sepa .... originally from Darwin!!

Island77

Great thread Hotcopper - a really good read, keep it up.

HotCopper

Hi,
Posting to keep myself motivated. We are almost at the end of the year and we are on track with our mortgage overpayments. It will be 300k by Dec which means we will have paid 106k this year and reduced mortgage by 80k. I re-read my thread. I should have sold my speccy shares when they were 32k, as they are now only 12k! So, I am a loser - but I have learnt a lot about how NOT to invest! Our 90k investment is still only worth about 65k - still hoping it will bounce back. My brother in law sold the house my husband built, and is off travelling round Europe soon with the money - ah well, good luck to him, not holding a grudge.
My husband and I are still sharing a ride to work with each other, and we are both still bringing in lunches every day. He is now totally into having the mortgage paid off. We are no longer looking a for a bigger place. We are so blessed with a beautiful family, three wonderful children, we just want money to spend with them, rather than umming and ahhhing about whether we should spend money for takeaway on a Friday night.
My daughter did get a General Excellence Scholarship. However, because we both work and are quite well paid the school offered a 25% discount instead of the 50% I was hoping for. Still, it's a real achievement for my daughter to be recognised. Good for her.
My husband blew out on a mountain bike. It seems to be the Australian equivalent of a mid life crisis - all the guys are getting mountain bikes. Apparently it had to be carbon frame and god knows how much research into riding down a dirt track. After I got over the cost of it (4k) he's now wording me up for special bike shorts 180 and now some drop seat or something which is 300. Still if it keeps him healthy and in a good frame of mind then I can wear it.
I might post again at Christmas. I'm feeling really good that we are keeping on track. Only 2 more years to go if all goes well and to plan. I will be 45 by then and in need of a face lift (joking!)......
Hope this isn't too boring for people to read..... Australia is so expensive compared to England. I have felt I have been struggling uphill for a while financially, but feeling like I've reached the top, and should just slide down over the next two years.

HotCopper

So Christmas has been and gone. We have had non stop guests since before Christmas - first my brother and his wife, now my Mum fir 6 weeks, then at Easter my sister and her young family (3 kids under 5) are coming to stay for 3 weeks.
Entertaining guests has blown hole in our meagre little envelope system, and our credit cards have been hammered. So, we are taking a 6 week reprieve from paying the mortgage to clear down our credit cards. I am dark about that, but no point saving in a mortgage to be paying big fees on the credit cards. We need to get to zero on the cards, and then go hell for leather again at the mortgage.
The mortgage is currently 288k and I envisage it will stay at that for a few more months till we work out the cc debt.
I am going to try for a promotion this year, and hopefully will get a payrise with that. My eldest has started high school and I expecting the first set of fees imminently.
so brief update, still KIND of on track, but need to take a pause.

dktreesea

Hi Hotcopper,

Good luck with all of this. I've lived in Melbourne. Very expensive, both to buy a house and educate children. I too baulked at the state schools and sent my children private when we lived there.

It's expensive compared to here to buy food in the supermarkets and the like, but cheap to eat out compared to here.

Just in case you find the austerity that seems to come hand in hand with paying off the mortgage a bit too much, here's some great food places I can recommend, that won't stretch the budget and would give you a decent feed:

- Tiamos, in Carlton. They have great Weiner Schitzel and chocolate mousse. There's two of these, next door to each other on Lygon Street. I prefer the older, more traditional one (on a corner, with the door to the left side of the shop from memory) which is cheaper than the other one.

- Yum cha at Golden Dragon palace in Doncaster. I can't say I miss melbourne, but I definitely miss the food

- meat pizzas at the A1 bakery, Sydney Road, Brunswick. I hope it's still the best lebanese bakery in Melbourne. When we lived there, they cost $2.50 each.

- wood fired pizza at Blue Train, on the south side of the Yarra, in the city.

The Malaysian food in Melbourne is pretty good. I like hawker food. There's a place in the city, in the Eating World food court, called Singapore Shiok. I hope it's still there :-). Their char kway teow is ...too delicious to think of a word just now to describe it. Likewise their Hainanese chicken rice. It was under $10 a dish when we lived there. Might have gone up now.

You're doing really well getting your mortgage paid down. Having school fees and a mortgage,as I remember that particular nightmare, is a hard slog, so it's good you are getting the mortgage sorted.

Kodagirl

Hi,Hotcopper!!!

Loving your diary,your doing great,keep up the good work,and be proud of what you have achieved so far!!! :-)

Almo

Hi hotcopper,

We've just moved back to the UK after 6 years in Melbourne - we had a house and renovated it before selling in October 2011 and going back to rented. Our mortgage was a fair bit lower than yours but then so was our income judging by some of what you've said.

Do you have an Entertainment Book? That's a good way of keeping 'day out' costs down, might be worth looking into before your visitors come for Easter, although it is not the best time of year to buy one as they run out in June.

Both before and after we bought our house we lived pretty much in the CBD and used to do the bulk of our shopping at Vic Market. Is that an option for you? Sometimes Coles had slightly cheaper prices when things were on special but overall I think we did better at Vic Market.

HotCopper

Hi! Thankyou to all the replies!
I will try out the meat pizza and Thiamos - sound great. Glad to know I'm not the oly one who finds Melbourne so very expensive. We live bayside south east and the supermarkets and restaurants are dearer here than north of the city.... so we do try and go there when we can. I started doing Vic market recently, but by the time I drove there, parked, and then battled through the crowds it just wasn't worth it. I have found a good greengrocer near me.
I have written down a menu plan for when my sister comes over with her family, and will buy/make as much as possible in advance.
We took my mum to a free sydney myer music bowl classical concert, and she loved it! so we are looking at finding more free things to do in the city.
This week I have to write my million page essay (yes, the company required a zillion pieces of evidence for every corporate behaviour) for my promotion.
Anyway, that's all folks for now, thankyou for the replies, I really appreciate them! Mazwegian