Millionaire Challenge

Kayalana99

worth £400,000, with only a £22,000 mortgage. Our flat will be worth around £40,000, with a rental income capped at £277. This is where we are starting from, with equity of around £418,000.

How old are you? Seems like you are doing well for yourself but if I was in your position I would either sell the house and put the money into B2L's (buying yourself a 200k or so house in meantime) or I would re-mortgage and do same (give or take, you'd have to look at the figures)

You're sitting on everything you need to get into this properly...just my two cents anyway.

I've been thinking again about my 10 houses and I want to baby step them, think this is best way so I worked out I need 217k (based on 10 100k houses at 25% eq, but this is subject to change but it's a good starting point), first step I need the 17k...aim is three years for that. I realise 17k is a drop in the ocean but given my two children will be at school in three years (youngest won't go for 2 and half) I think if I can get this money together by 3 years then the next 25k should come a lot faster as I'll have a lot more time on my hands.


Just wanted to add this in, some woman has a blog on how to budget £10 for a child's lunch....yes £10 for one meal. It's BRILLIANT....all over facebook this link is getting shared as an outrage...what a way to make money!!! She obviously doing it on purpose. With a few of you writing blogs (I assume most are wanting the financial gain) it might get the cogs turning on how you can draw heads to your blog.

Thinking of you LL x

[Deleted User]

Thank you all for such a great welcome.

LL I'm really sorry to hear about your loss, my thoughts are with you and your family at this time.

Kayalana I picked up on this comment.

"With a few of you writing blogs (I assume most are wanting the financial gain) it might get the cogs turning on how you can draw heads to your blog"

Surprisingly I don't do it for financial gain directly as such (There's a first :rotfl:) I do it for a couple of reasons...

1. To connect with the financial community, it's not enough to comment on someone else's blog if they don't know your story or journey as such. From this I am able to seek advice on my own situation and ways in which it can be improved.

2. To document my journey and hopefully my children someday.

3. To take ownership of what I want to achieve. Many financial bloggers say by 'putting it out there' as such you feel responsible and more motivated to achieve.

There's a few more but I wont bore you :rotfl: Surprisingly many of the most successful financial bloggers don't have ads etc on there sites, I suppose the keyword is there successful, maybe the more unsuccessful (like myself :rotfl:) add the ads just to gain some reward from the amount of effort being dished out on the blog itself.

Spidy, were all subject to failure, it's what teaches us the most, dust yourself and get back out there. You've learnt your lesson and I'm sure you'll put it into practice when purchasing your next project. Just remember Steve Jobbs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, they've all failed at some point, luckily for us they got back up.

lessonlearned

Kay - I was thinking that about too how about how Spidey could speed things up a bit. I guess it all depends on whether or not selling the principal residence would be acceptable.

I am thinking about doing something along those lines myself this year.

One to renovate and then possibly one or even two to let out. I don't even have to live in the one we would be renovating because I can carrying on living with DS2 whilst we do the work, no,living on site in all the mess. Bliss.

I reckon I need roughly another £10k to buy 3 properties. Should be easy enough. I also want to give DS1 £5k as a wedding gift next May. Again I think this fine. So the plan is 2 properties this year, maybe 3 or maybe no 3 next year. Set up the cabinet at the antiques centre and then think about adding another string to my bow.

However, first things first, get mums funeral out of the way, sort out her estate and help dad get his finances and paperwork in order, then I can get cracking.

spidystrider

Thanks so much for the warm welcome and the advice, it's much appreciated
There's a good chance we will sell this house in the not too distant future. It was pretty run down when we bought it 5 and a half years ago and we are still working on it. I wouldn't sell it in the condition it is in, as the market is still slow here in Ayrshire, especially in this price range, so there would be no profit in it. When we do sell, we'll definitely buy a cheaper house and use the rest to either buy, renovate and sell on or buy rentals. We only ever buy run down properties, so we can add some value to them.
As for age, I am no longer a spring chicken at 47 and my hubby is 50, but we still have plenty of time to get on with it. More importantly, I would like to be able to help our 3 kids out and leave them plenty when we are no longer here. Neither myself or my husband had anything left to us, as our parents had nothing to leave, so in the early days, things were really tight for us. I still want my kids to work for what they want in life, but not to have to struggle as hard as we did.

Karmacat

lessonlearned wrote: »

I reckon I need roughly another £10k to buy 3 properties. Should be easy enough.

LL, I'm missing something, I must be .... how do you mean? :o:o

Spidy, N6, you're both doing great! I like that last sentence of yours, Spidy - wanting your kids to work but not struggle. That makes sense.

Karmacat

Deleted_User wrote: »

I urge anyone reading here, to read 1500days and Mr Money Moustache they inspired me to start this blog and completely changed my life. Regardless of your financial income, your situation, all you need is determination to achieve this financial independence.

I've been inhaling MMM recently, but not come across 1500 days before - sounds really good :j:j:j thanks N6

[Deleted User]

Karmacat wrote: »

I've been inhaling MMM recently, but not come across 1500 days before - sounds really good :j:j:j thanks N6

I did it the opposite way. Found 1500 days and that led me to MMM and about 100 other frugal blogs. Each one has a similar end result but the journeys all vary so much.

What's interesting is that none of these people are earning bucket loads of money there middle class or lower earners who make their money work for them. Which surely proves anyone can achieve financial freedom

There's hope for us all yet

lessonlearned

Karmacat wrote: »

LL, I'm missing something, I must be .... how do you mean? :o:o

Spidy, N6, you're both doing great! I like that last sentence of yours, Spidy - wanting your kids to work but not struggle. That makes sense.

I have a lump sum of capital. I want to make it work for me.

I have met my target to help my sons on the property ladder, with deposits and a renovation budget each. Renovations on DS2s house are almost complete, DS1s house is still ongoing.

I have enough money left to buy a nice property outright for my own personal use and can properly retire now or I can carry on living with DS2 for another year or so and speculate a bit. I have decided to go for the second option. There's is where the extra £10k bit comes into play. Basically it's just a second contingency fund., a sort of very cautious belt and braces approach.

I have decided I will use most of the lump sum to buy a cheaper property, a fixer upper and a couple of BTLS. I will either then make the fixer upper my own permanent residence or I might flip it. Rinse and repeat.:rotfl: it all depends on whether I will want to finally settle somewhere or whether I am happy to keep moving house every so often.

I have spoken to a broker and plan to take out a couple of BTL mortgages on the rentals, it's more tax efficient and it gives me the leverage needed to buy more properties. A small mortgage on the fixer upper, so that I can keep some cash back for the renovations and some as a cushion just in case. I will most likely buy dads cottage as the fixer upper. It needs a complete refurb but it's very cute and is in a good location. It has the potential to be a really pretty cottage.

The surplus rental income (after mortgage payments) increases my passive income and will easily cover the mortgage payments on the fixer upper. This way I don't have to use my normal income to service the mortgage.

I have sufficient pension income not to actually need the rental income to live off. iIn fact, whilst living with DS2 I have a nice monthly surplus. so I can continue saving.

DS2 has decided he is not going to flip his property but will hold for a while, possibly letting it out next year when I'm ready to move out.

We might continue living together for a while - it all depends on whether or not he meets Miss Right so he might move in with me whilst he renovates his next house.

Sounds more convoluted than it is. Basically it's like a game of musical houses, we get to live somewhere clean and finished whilst renovating the next one. Neither DS2 nor I like living on a building site, DS1 doesn't seem to mind.

Living together works very well for us. We get on well and enjoy each other's company. It reduces our outgoings giving us both more money to save for further investments. And he gets his meals cooked and regular visits from the shirt fairy.:rotfl:

Actually on a more serious note, living with DS2 has been great for me, it has helped me through the grieving process, following my husband's death. Obviously if he met someone special and wanted to set up home with them then I would move out.

I plan to be less hands on with the actual renovation work from now on, I will take on more of a project management role, sourcing materials, managing budgets etc.

I still plan to resurrect my antique dealing but again less hands on, appointing intermediaries to do the actual retail selling.

I shall be 64 this year. I am very happy to,keep going but I would also like to spend time on some personal projects, perhaps even travel a bit.

DS1 gets married next year, there might even be the patter of tiny feet in a couple of years. I hope to be busy playing with my future grandchildren......

It's all starting to come together quite nicely now. ok I might not make the magic £1m but I'm starting to feel more comfortable, I'm debt free and financially independent now. I can set my own agenda and can go at my own pace. The hard work and thrifty living of the last few years is starting to pay off.

I've been reading MMM too - very enjoyable and a lot of good advice on there.

I might have mentioned this before but my sister and I have half shares in some land, near to dads house.. It's large enough to build two properties. I am going to start applying for planning permission. I doubt that we will get it yet but perhaps we will in years to come.

In the meantime I have decided to plant it up as an orchard. DS1 fancies having a go at making cider as a sideline business at some point. I won't do it yet though, because the saplings would need a bit of TLC to start with, so I will wait until I start on dads house because I will be on site most days or I can get the builders to do the wAtering if necessary.

It's all fun stuff.....

I still miss my OH and of course I going to miss mum but keeping busy will help.

Karmacat

Musical houses with belt and braces, gotcha

You're juggling things so well! Of course, as you say, underneath there's your grief for your OH, and your mum's just gone ... I guess the houses will give you a lot to keep you going, as well as your lovely boys.

A cider orchard! That sounds wonderful

spidystrider

Oh dear, I had to come and search for this thread today, as I have it in subscribed and just gone through that. How on earth do you find your subcribed to threads now? Could they have made this site look any worse? As for these silly round avatars, my pictures been lost! Sorry for the rant