Mortgage Free - so good they'll do it twice! Wynnvegas aiming for the big house

wynnvegas

Thanks for dropping by ATT,

I know - I've been shocking in the last wee while about updating. Plenty going on at work which is keeping me busy at all hours at the moment and I'm running hard ust to try and stay still. Today alone was a progress meeting with the Chairman, the management of 4 placement students, firefighting a stupid situation that has arisen up north, finalising a few restructuring issues down south, dealing with clearances and development plans in the centre, trying to get things ready in the call centre for the incoming Ops Manager, recruiting Couriers in London and Network Engineers in Dundee, sorting out an accident at work in our Garage, drawing up new contracts for one of our other companies, attempting to revise the transport policy across the group, sort the fiasco that has befallen the restaurant because of a daft decision to forget about an agency fee and then try to arrange a couple of days off in mid-February before I end up doing something stupid like falling asleep whilst driving.

Aside from that, I'll update the positives presently....

I'm in full agreement. The more the very much merrier in my book. The gospel according to Martin's merry mob is being spread far and wide. I keep an eye on the debt free and mortgage free boards and some of the stories are absolutely awe-inspiring. I've even been tempted to write a couple of small cheques to help some people out (not just to round up anyone's mortgage to an even number either!!).

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Thanks again Katsu,

I'll get back on the case then as the boy was absolutely adamant that it was higher rate taxpayers (after the personal allowance had been taken away from the salary) that qualified. Well worth fighting the good fight here!!

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning Folks,

Wow - what a fortnight. It's been absolutely manic at work which has left me with no time to update this diary, keep an eye on the money saving musings of Martin, sort out anything at home and even begin thinking about looking at land. I can't believe we're more than three months into being mortgage free and that we still haven't viewed even one piece of land!

The flipside of this constant activity is that it hasn't given any opportunity to spend much money. For the first time ever, we have a couple of months salary sitting in the bank with nothing to specifically apportion it to. I think that, by the time we get to the end of the year, we'll be well on course to have the desired £10k sitting as a buffer / play fund. From next year, we're going to go big on saving to try and hit a saving pot of £30k per year but we're going to take 2011 relatively easy so as not to stop the enjoyment of being mortgage free. My plan is still to get myself my ipad in the next couple of weeks. We've pretty much decided not to bother with the xbox kinect thingy and we've opted for joining the gym instead. We've got out first 1-1 inductions on Wednesday night which we're looking forward to. I haven't been to the gym in a good few months and haven't really done much in the way of exercise in the last few weeks so it'll be good to get back into it. My plan is to get aay to some swimming most afternoons with a visit to the gym 5 nights a week and then to play a couple of games of badminton with Moyra at the weekend. That should take care of the fitness piece of the new year resolutions. Not a great deal of progress to date on the Mandarin or the drawing and I've not gotten past the basic business planning piece of the consultancy. I really need to get myself organised over the next month or so as 2011 is already threatening to run away from me!

Cheers,

Billy

[Deleted User]

Hey Billy
Good to hear from you and your plans look like theyre progressing well despite the manic run at work!!
Reading some of the amazing stories on these boards definitely puts things in perspective for me and reminds me of how lucky I am now.... and great too to see the influx of people getting the message and taking control of finances!
sounds like it i all in place for a healthy 2011 - I think joining the gym again would be one of my first things when we are a bit more solvent- we do have equipment at home but there is something motivating in having somewhere to go i think! plus we were at a really nice one with a pool and sauna which was lush!!! may have to do some calculations to see if that would be within budget again....or maybe a MSE version :rotfl:
hope work settles down to a more manageable pace soon..
ps how goes moyra's plans for her walk in wardrobe-rooms....she has definitely inspired me for what I want when we get a house! :rotfl:

wynnvegas

Morning TYO,

I can write some rubbish whilst my head is spinning! Hopefully the worst of what was being done is over and things can return to a semblance of normality!! If I can clear everything that I need to by the end of the month, I'll be delighted.

The plans are going pretty well financially but we know that it's likely that we need to find our plot in the next 12-18 months or it is likely to be a long way off until we get the big house. When house prices start rising again, the land will likely run away from us. That may yet not be the worst thing ever as we can then look to do the whole project on a mortgage free basis and we can really go to town on the current house. I don't see an intermediary step (a 5-bed detatched was discussed as an option) being in the picture as it would be more than what we've got but not particularly worth all the effort when we'd be looking to jump again in a few years. If we can get our plot relatively soon, we can then set about paying the cost of the land off completely as we're pretty sure the sale of our house will finance the vast majority of the build. All things being equal, we'll be in by 2015. Otherwise, we might be closer to 2022. If it were the latter, I'd push pretty hard to get it all done and paid off by my 40th birthday (not something worth contemplating just now as I'm not particularly comfortable with the approach of 30!)

The wardrobes (or potentially 12x24ft wardrobe) are here to stay. What was initially a gross overestimate has now been laid down in stone as an absolute, immovable requirement. The Big House v.4 is on the table at the minute for further discussion as we're trying to cut down a lot of the dead space in the two halls. That being said, we keep seeing the massive expansive spaces in the big American houses which would be amazing to walk into every day.

Joining the gym is the easy part. Thankfully our gym is relatively reasonable (£63p/m for us both) and lets us use any of the gyms, pools and fitness classes in the area which is ideal as we live a 15-minute walk from one and I work not far from another. The kicker is that there is no contract with it so it's only a 30 day notice thing which is useful as we might not need it all year. Moyra will get her money's worth on the classes alone as she goes to a minimum of three a week. My intention, starting tomorrow, is to go swimming every day at lunchtime (also including the 20 minute walk to and from the gym) for about 30 minutes, hit the gym in the early evening 5 days a week and play badminton a couple of times at the weekend with Moyra. With snooker on a Monday night, football and darts on a Thursday night and weekend visiting, we may well have to revise our TV priorities as we'll never be in to watch all the rubbish we sky+.

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning Folks,

Today is a very good day and we've only just begun! All the bills are off for the month (no council tax this month and next happily) and we're left with just over £5k in the bank. Most of that is apportioned to the bathroom and boiler being fitted and finished appropriately so it's not really our money but I've never been as well off as this in my life. The mortgage free dream is well worth striving toward!

Better than that though, I somehow managed to run and row off 4 pounds in the last few days which led me to meeting my Wii Fit goal of 23.40 BMI this morning. I was out playing darts last night (won the singles, drew the doubles, checked 107 and the team won the match) and nearly went for one of the pies the team brought out but I'm so glad I didn't now. To celebrate hitting the interim goal (22.75 is the real target), I'm off to Champanay's today and tomorrow where I will most lkely fail in my intention to avoid the fish and chips. As someone who has had a far bit of fish and chips, I have never tasted anything as good as the food in this place. I'll just need to hit the gym and pool that bit harder in the next wee while to work off the celebration.

We are going on our first ever official plot-hunting expedition tomorrow. We've got 4 plots lined up to see and the four of us who are looking to buy a big enough plot to stick a couple of grandio houses on will take the first tentative steps toward that project - exciting times! Got the prospect of a business identified as well so there's movement on that front too. If I can get around to finishing off my meeting minutes, organising the next round of consultation meetings, get things sorted for my new Ops Manager coming in on Tuesday, finally draw the horses head that I've been meaning to and complete the module on my speaky chinese app, today should be just about as good as it gets!

Hope everyone is in fine fettle and that the inglorious gales haven't blown anyone or anything dear away...

Cheers,

Billy

gallygirl

你好比利，你怎么样？How could I miss this diary?

Hope the trip goes well tomorrow.

gg

wynnvegas

Thanks Gally,

Really looking forward to it now. I've confirmed that two lots of fish and chips in two days just won't be feasible. I'll be lucky if I'm ready to eat again before lunchtime tomorrow!!

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning All,

Well, I have to admit to being not at all surprised and just a wee bit disappointed in how that went! We turned up to what were essentially three seperate fields, all miles off the beaten track and with no real reference as to what was on offer. I presume the logical thing to do would be to actually arrange to meet with the god forsaken estate agent types who are selling the land but the long haul to the first two sites pretty much rules them out before we even get to the next stage. In the winter, I'm fairly sure anything like the snow we've had this year would render the main roads impassable. When you're a further three miles up the long and winding hill which constitutes a single track road with only one passing place, it doesn't bear a great deal of consideration.

Only somewhat deterred, we then trekked on to look at a few of the nicer houses for sale which had additional land attached. One is absolutely stunning but the price tag of £785,000 (although it does come with a stunning big house, approval for a new big house and an additional 6 acres to play with) put paid to that notion quite early.

The annoying thing of the whole process was that we passed some absolutely stunning places to build a house so one of my jobs this week is to find out how best to identify who owns which piece of land, identify the ideal place to build and then approach the current owner to gauge their feeling on selling it to me. I'm sure this entirely logical approach will fall down somewhere early on but nothing ventured...

On a seperate note, I've thankfully got my last necessary trip to the dentist today (5 of 5!) so that will be me rid of him until I decide to go and get the fancy whitening treatment I had promised myself for when the mortgage is paid off. Might leave that a few months as me and the chair, for all our recent acquaintance, still don't get on. Off to the gym afterward then a late meeting tonight but there is now definitely light at the end of the tunnel on the work front - just the 34 things on my to do list now!

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning Folks,

Another avenue gone! I had gotten in touch with a few folk in various local authorities yesterday to investigate the possibility of taking on something like an old school or factory, knocking the thing down and then building the big house. Unfortunately, it would appear that there are any number of hurdles to jump through and they ordinarily only deal with professional housebuilders. Shockingly, despite all my intentions, visio drawings and extrapolated size estimates pulled from the snooker table in the pub, I don't qualify as a professional housebuilder yet. No wonder the public sector needs a good bit of attacking with that level of disrespect. In fairness, the woman who got back to me has pointed me in a few different directions so, tangentially, I'm off to the races again!!

Unfortunately, my visit to the dentist was somewhat unsuccessful. Instead of the treatment I was supposed to get, the dentist spotted an infection which had come from him cutting my gum apart in visit 4. As such, visit 6 will now be the last in a while on the 1st of March. I'll be glad when that's all over and, come what may, I won't ever avoid the dentist again.

On the money front, we might struggle with buying land now anyway. I'm taking on a couple of debts from Moyra's parents to help them out as they're getting hammered with interest left right and centre just now. Us taking their debts and paying them off will give them a good bit of breathing space as the alternative would be them struggling until retirement which isn't any good.

Cheers,

Billy