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

wynnvegas

Hi babyb,

I'm so pleased I went for it. For the sake of an exra couple of hundred quid (and the complaining from the guys that had to lift it up the stairs), it was well worth the effort. The only thing is that it takes an age to fill as it's that big but it's worth the wait!

The expenditures didn't come to fruition after all. The leak in the toilet was fixed and a good clean of the carpet and a further airing of the general area seems to have completely resolved the dampness in the carpet. The downstairs toilet has moved back down a wee bit in the list of priorities but we've decided that every room in the house needs doing so it will be attacked at some point. Most recently, we've decided we need to also look at the guttering and such as that's not in the best of states. Until things start falling down, I'm not all that keen on messing about with them but we'll get on the case with that soon. I'm afraid that I ended up not giving the money for the holiday. Had we not had the ongoing debt projects, I definitely would have but Moyra convinced me that shelling out on a £1,200 holiday was a luxury too far at the moment.

Cheers,

Billy

Froggy-G

wynnvegas wrote: »

Hi babyb,

I'm so pleased I went for it. For the sake of an exra couple of hundred quid (and the complaining from the guys that had to lift it up the stairs), it was well worth the effort. The only thing is that it takes an age to fill as it's that big but it's worth the wait!

The expenditures didn't come to fruition after all. The leak in the toilet was fixed and a good clean of the carpet and a further airing of the general area seems to have completely resolved the dampness in the carpet. The downstairs toilet has moved back down a wee bit in the list of priorities but we've decided that every room in the house needs doing so it will be attacked at some point. Most recently, we've decided we need to also look at the guttering and such as that's not in the best of states. Until things start falling down, I'm not all that keen on messing about with them but we'll get on the case with that soon. I'm afraid that I ended up not giving the money for the holiday. Had we not had the ongoing debt projects, I definitely would have but Moyra convinced me that shelling out on a £1,200 holiday was a luxury too far at the moment.

Cheers,

Billy



Cheers,

Billy

Billy :j

Am sure if you had left Moyra in charge, she would have ripped every room of the house and started from scratch.. I can see her with her hard hat in the middle of the construction site, directing an army of tradesmen!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: Your approach, room by room, sounds much more sensible...

I am with you when it comes to teaching some people a lesson in life.. It might hurt, but its for a good cause.. Down the line, they will come back to you and thank you for what you have done..As long as there is food on the table and a roof over their heads, anything else is a bonus...Sometimes you have to be harsh to be kind

Cheers
Froggy :cool:

wynnvegas

Morning All,

Where to start - it's been another stupidly busy week. If I can say one thing for life at the moment, it's never boring!

Let's start with the money. I ended up putting a bit more cash to the acquired debt project instead of sending my auntie and cousin on an all expenses holiday which I regret a wee bit but I'll make it up to them before long. The acquired debt, once the new payment has cleared, will be at £6,000 which means we've knocked off £8,000 in less than 4 months. More importantly, the massive pressure that was on Moyra's mum and dad has been almost completely lifted. Her dad was working 6 and 7 days a week to try and keep his head above water so taking the debt away has let him go back to a manageable workload and he's already seeing his health improve. He has a couple of interviews in the next couple of weeks to hopefully find the job that will take him through to retirement so here's hoping one or other come off for him.

Our credit card bounces up and down all the time - thank god for Tesco and their 0% on purchases to January 2012! I've every faith that we'll clear it before we go on holiday. We are, with the bathroom / boiler / spare room piece finished, back able to throw a decent amount of money at these things so if we clear our credit card over May and June, sort out our spending money in that period and drop the acquired debt down to £5,000, I'll be delighted. I've redone our SOA which I'll post as things are settling down and becoming a lot clearer.

As for the big house, things are progressing pretty slowly. We've identified the major issue being the size of plot we're looking for. We're after somewhere between 2 and 3 acres to build a good sized guest house / garage (which we'd stay in for cost and security purposes whilst the big house is being built) which would become a granny flat for Moyra's mum and dad and the big house itself. The trouble therein is that the plot size would probably fit somewhere in the region of 4-6 houses so people are pricing it on that basis. Effectively, anything that we're remotely interested in doesn't fit our budget and we're still early enough in the process to stick pig-headedly to our no compromise rule.

We seen a bungalow locally that has a good bit of land behind it with no permissions and they are looking to sell for around the £700k mark which we just can't manage. I've pretty much made up my mind that we should narrow down our prefered areas and look to buy land without permissions (the significantly more risky but financially feasible option) from a local farmer or whoever. The cost differential is scary. For a serviced plot with outline permission, the size of plot we're after is normally well off the beaten track and costs somewhere in the region of £200,000. For a piece of land of the same dimensions without permission or services, the cost is around £20,000. We'll do all the necessary due diligence and planning that is possible before jumping in and buying a plot of course but, on the basis that option 1 is out as we'd need to spend the better part of 3 years raising the finance to buy the land alone, I'm happy to take the calculated risk of doing it my way. So far, a couple of the local councils have been very helpful in their approach and have offered us all kind of support from their planning offices so if we get the relevant authority on board with our project early doors, that should hopefully smooth a lot over. From a financial perspective, it would mean that we could effectively buy the land outright, pay the costs of the planning and necessary drawings etc as we went along, continue to save during that period and, when it came to actually kicking off the building process, any mortgage we get could be significantly reduced. With a planned expenditure of roughly £500,000, the lesser the eventual mortgage we're landed with, the better! At the moment, compromising is out and we're still 100% set on this course.

As for the family, where do I even start! The wedding was, for the most part, an unqualified success. The purple skirts weren't quite as garish when they were all combined and it turns out that looking stupid isn't half as difficult to cope with when you're in a group of stupid looking people. I'm sticking with my black skirt to be sure - speaking of which, I'm picking up the last bit of the jacobean stylee outfit today (the engraved leather belt). I'll get the traditional kit (shirt, waistcoat, jacket and cufflinks) at some point but I'm not in any great hurry for it at the moment. Apparently, some of the people that turned up to the wedding have mounted a facebook campaign against the bride so there's been a good bit of fallout from that and my two big brothers are at loggerheads. I'll play peacemaker there as they likely just need their heads banged together but I'm not ruling out seeing the lot of them on Jeremy Kyle yet! The venue was really nice, the weather held for them for the most part, the dinner and party were both decent and, pleasingly for me, I got to spend a lot of the day with my two nieces and my nephew - almost (but not quite) enough to fancy parenthood as they're all brilliant.

As for work (and I think I may be venturing into record breaking length of wittering now), everything is going pretty much according to plan. In essence, I work for 7 different companies so there's a lot of call on my time and I've finally got everything stable enough to get to my planned one week in every eight down in England as we've got a number of companies down that way. I've been busy setting corporate strategies with them all so we're all pointed in a fairly coherent and unanimously understood direction so that's looking pretty promising. My full intention is to leave this role within the next 18 months and retain the group as the key client in my consultancy but then I said a similar thing a year ago and haven't yet set the thing up properly. A good friend of mine has set up his business management consultancy and I'll dip my toe in the water with him in the first instance during 2011 to further convince myself that this is the road for me. Unfortunately, The Apprentice, one of Moyra's favourites, is back on the telly so I have to suffer through the latest crowd of idiots who have a ridiculously high opinion of themselves for another 12 weeks. The more I see of it, the more convinced I am that I should wander down and wipe the floor with the lot of them (and tell the crook Sugar what a muppet he is in the process naturally). I'd probably end up shooting them all though so it might not be the best move!

The rain has just started teeming down which tells me that I should have went for my lunchtime walk an hour ago! Hope everyone in MSE land is having a ball. I'm off to do some lunchtime research on what's new in Vegas ahead of our next visit. On that topic, any ideas people have for a few days holiday in October would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Ola Froggy,

I think I'd be an amazing Project Manager (see apprentice-rant above!) but there's no doubt Moyra would be an exceptional foreman. I can absolutely see her in amongst hulking tradesmen twice her size calling all the shots of the day. Even I don't start with her when she's in teacher mode! I'm sure they teach the "one more word from you and I'm going for my gun" look in the third year of an education degree!

In fairness, it wasn't an issue other than my Auntie being a bit disappointed. Won't cause a problem for anyone other than me who would like to do everything for everyone!

Cheers,

Billy

Froggy-G

You are too kind to all your family Billy...

On the subject above, my Dad bought his plot of land, 2.5 acres in France, with no plans attached for € 3000.00 He has had no regrets since.. He built a 3 bedroom bungalow, and has a river at the back of the house and woodlands too.. I do think this is the way to go.. It might be risky, however even if you make a mistake with the first plot you go for, it won't crush you future plans...

Cheers
Froggy

LilacPixie

Oi how can you hate the apprentice?? Easy seeing i'm scottish as it took me a few moment to wonder what TYO was on about.

Do you go to the self build show in Ingliston?? we missed it as away for the weekend. I am seriosly considering remortgageig to an offset mortgage so we have the cash sitting to buy soe land outright then plan and save for house. I really wish I was brave enough to take a gamble on some land without PP and then try get the relevent permissions

wynnvegas

Hi LP,

It took me a couple of shots at it as well! Must try harder for the foreign audience!!

Every year it's a nonsense and every year it gets worse. Nick is about the only person that makes it worth watching. I think the ineptitude of nearly everyone in the programme is the bit that annoys me. Giving Dara the gig on the You're Fired programme was an inspired choice. I can't be doing with Lord Sir Alan or whatever he's calling himself these days. I suppose that when your main comparator is Trump, you can't come off too badly mind!

I never even realised it was on. I'll blame Moyra for that as she passes Ingliston every day in life so she should have pointed it out. I'm not sure if my plan is a complete non starter but I'm banking on the idea that we have plenty of time to fight through the permissions piece and, even if it took four years, we'd still have no debt and we'd be in a pretty healthy position to kick the building off as soon as everything was signed and sealed - ever the optimist!

Cheers,

Billy

[Deleted User]

Hi Billy
No bathroom pics yet Im afraid as its not finished!....
No comments on the apprentice Im afraid- that side of the business world is a mystery to me and would rather it stayed that way! :rotfl:
Life sounds busy your way for sure - and you are very good to family, sounds like Moyras dad will be able to relax and recoup without the added pressure for a bit thanks to you guys...
sounds like the big house plan may have a few hiccups but I would guess the risk of buying land much cheaper outright would much outweigh that of having an enormous mortgage!
sounds like the purple-wedding was fun! :rotfl:

wynnvegas

Hi TYO,

How long have you got to go on the bathroom? I think we lucked out in getting it done in just over a week although that meant a small army being involved!

The Apprentice fails on nearly every count to represent any sort of business reality which is why it annoys me. The people who go on it are smarmy, egotistical and useless in equal measure. You may find me on it yet teaching them some manners and maybe a wee bit of strategic thinking!

I'm pleased for Moyra's mum and dad as it does seem to have lifted a weight in the last wee while. We'll probably look to ensure that they don't go down the road of expensive car loans again as that's a major drain. They're very appreciative and keen to pay us back asap so I don't mind helping out at all. It would be ridiculous for us to sit looking on as they struggled whilst building up a pot of cash for a stupidly extravagant house project.

I'm definitely for the more risky yet less financially nutty route. If we can save anything close to £100,000, we'll stick that in a tarting up the inside fund. Bribing Moyra with shopping has always worked before! The wedding has had further repurcussions. Both my big brothers are now equally livid with each other for reasons passing my understanding. I'm seeing one on Sunday and another on Monday so I'll mediate appropriately.

Cheers,

Billy

Ayeshalush

LilacPixie wrote: »

Easy seeing i'm scottish as it took me a few moment to wonder what TYO was on about.

I'm Scottish (well, I consider myself Scottish, I was actually born in Coventry but spent all but the first 2 years, of my 41, in Scotland so maybe that explains things ) and I had to read the post again as I speed read it the first time and 'wee' and 'jacuzzi' made me pause and go read it again, lol!!

A
xx