Mouche’s adventures with her first mortgage (while coping with her first baby)

gallygirl

BlueMoo wrote: »

:rotfl:

I'm sure you are a secret cleaning ninja!

em yes.... So secret I hide it from myself :cool:

mouche

gallygirl wrote: »

What is this cleaning oven/fridge/cupboards of which you speak

Are you supposed to be cleaning these?! We dropped half a tin of tomatoes down the back of the fridge (inside the fridge but behind the trays, if you know what I mean?) ooooh....a month ago? LO loves opening the fridge to look at it. He calls it 'mess'! I am teaching him to call it 'art' instead. :beer:

mouche

Thanks for dropping in BlueMoo and gallygirl…I’m afraid I very much a Sloblady as opposed to a Flylady. The only reason I’m making a push to tidy the house is because we’ve invited new friends round in two weeks and I’d prefer they didn’t trip over the junk in the hall! Also, they will expect a tour of the house (it’s an Indian thing) so the WHOLE house has to be respectable. Eeeep. Still, baby steps.

I actually did manage to do most of the sorting and filing of paperwork last night though I had to really push myself to finish the last pile. I just have two small piles to file (they have been sorted) and the ‘action to be taken’ pile to work through. I also did a load of laundry and a dishwasher load (OH does dishes normally but poor lad fell asleep on the sofa watching cartoons with LO so I felt sorry for him) so quite a productive evening. It helped that OH was home in time to pick LO up (£5 saved). In fact that means yesterday was a NSD – not had one of those in a while!

Today, sadly is a spend day. No packed lunch so bought £2.83 worth from the station. Plus, going out with friend tonight so will spend on a pub meal and drinks. She’s skint as well so at least it’s a cheap night out. Did you hear that? Night out!! Haven’t had one of those n a very long while! (Though I’ll probably be tucked up in bed by 11 – I don’t last long these days!)

By the way, did I mention I sold a book on Amazon recently? Got about £18 for it – only spent about a tenner on it three years ago! Waiting for it to arrive in my account and then it will be squirreled away.

ShanShan_2

Hi mouche, just wanted to say that I stopped by and read your whole diary today and it was a really good read so have now subscribed. It's very interesting to read from the point of view of someone who is a working mother as I hope that will be me in some years time.

Good luck with your money saving

mouche

ShanShan wrote: »

Hi mouche, just wanted to say that I stopped by and read your whole diary today and it was a really good read so have now subscribed. It's very interesting to read from the point of view of someone who is a working mother as I hope that will be me in some years time.

Good luck with your money saving

Goodness Shanshan! It's scary to think of someone reading my ramblings all in one go - are you okay? Pulse still going? Thank you for subscribing - and I hope some of what I say helps you when you decide to embark on motherhood. Do you have a diary? Let me go hunt...

mouche

Had a lovely night out yesterday though probably spent too much. I’m not sure how much I did spend actually but it was in the region on £25 so I will take it as that for accounting purposes. Was home by 10.30 though and did a load of washing and filed the day’s post before bed. This tidiness streak isn’t going to last long methinks!

OH did the weekly shopping without me last night. I gave him £30 – he spent £49. Grrrrr. Still, at least he didn’t by any rubbish and I’ve said no more shopping till the weekend of the 21st when we can use our £50 M&S Christmas card for Christmas food. I still think we’re going over budget for groceries this month though.

I’m thinking of signing up to the Make £10 a day challenge from January in the hopes that it spurs me on to list things on ebay. I was in this challenge for a long time pre-baby and made a lot of money towards holidays/ house deposit etc. so it’s definitely a good thing. The only thing is right now I have so little time after work, LO and the house that I wonder if I’d get disheartened due to lack of progress.

I was looking at mortgage rates today and am in a dilemma. Currently we are on a lifetime tracker at 2.99% with unlimited overpayments. Our LTV is enough now to move to another tracker at 2.49%. However, another option is to move to a 5 year fixed rate at 2.99%. Do I think rates are going to go up by more than 0.5% in the next 5 years? I’m no expert but I think they will and the fixed rate will give us some security – and it’s no more than we are already used to paying. It doesn’t allow unlimited OPs but it does allow up to 20% of the normal monthly payment – but only if the standard DD is increased by the OP amount – can’t schlop across a few pence every few days as I have been doing so far.

I have been playing with the numbers and if we reduce the term to 20 years, the monthly standard payment will be about the same as our current standard payment + budgeted OP. If we reduce it to 16 years (which is our target), the standard payment will be £150 more than our current standard payment + budgeted OP. While I don’t think committing to that would be wise given the number of variables in our income and expenditure – but it isn’t completely un-doable and that makes it tempting for me! I need to remember there are two other people in the family who may object to living on stone soup! I think perhaps the best solution would be the fixed mortgage with a term of 20 years – with a 15% overpayment in the direct debit. Then my challenge will be to find that 15% every month – and if I find it too difficult or our circumstances change, I can reduce it back down as much as necessary. Does that sound sensible?

gallygirl

Sounds sensible to me - is there a fee you need to take into consideration?

Have you tried adding lentils to the stone soup to make it go further? Also, you'll find gravel works out cheaper as you can get away with less. Add a few different herbs (dandelions? grass? clover?) and it will be like a totally different meal each time :T.

mouche

OH and I discussed the remortgage options and decided to stay on our tracker for about 6 months more. Though I think our house has risen in value and thus taken us to 30% equity, OH suggested we wait till we are at or almost at 30% equity of our purchase price. And until we are, try to overpay based on what we are planning to overpay once we go on the fixed rate-shorter term. That way we’ll get to 30% faster and also get a more realistic idea of whether we really can manage to overpay by that much. I don’t think the rates are going up in the next 6 months so that’s what we are going to do.

OH was able to get home in time to pick LO up last night so another fiver saved. He has also got me £50 in fivers from the bank which will make those taxi journeys a tad easier. Nothing spent yesterday so an NSD. Also, OH wanted to switch the oven on to heat up his leftover kebab and chips from the night before. I soon put a stop to that. Bad enough that he bought a kebab without wasting gas on reheating it!

I have a very sore back today thanks to having to stand for 40 minutes in the train into work yesterday. So am working from home and was able to receive the steam mop I got for OH. I got a relatively cheap model – if he uses it and it’s any good, I may consider a better model in the future.

Did a TT of £1.66 and put my bank details into my Amazon Seller account. Hopefully my £18 will turn up soon. Also got £1.26 interest on my new Easy Access account which is more than I’ve got from that money all year! What else? OnePoll is up to £26.80 so maybe a payout by April? At least it doesn’t screen me out of everything.

On the tidy home front, I wrapped two Christmas gifts for friends children but need to get a card to go into one before I can post it. This is the last weekend for 2nd class pre-Christmas delivery so need to get a card from the overpriced shop at work. Or I suppose I could go into town a bit early when collecting LO and buy from there….hmmm…good idea. Have done all the laundry so tonight after LO sleeps I need to do some ironing. Four of LOs jumpers are on the line outside – I don’t like drying jumpers indoors because they drip water but it’s so cold outside I hope they dry instead of freezing.

Mid week review of my mini goals:

1. 1. Keep on top of ironing – if I do the ironing tonight I will consider this a success
2. 2. File all paperwork - need to do the last bits though I have filed all new post
3. 3. Take photos for ebay – this may yet get done but if it doesn’t, I will consider it a success if I manage to get all Xmas gifts wrapped and cards bought, written and addressed.

LO moment of the day - on Sunday due to catering breakdown we were all eating pot noodle for lunch. It was very very spicy (I couldn't finish mine) and LO was huffing and puffing as he ate his 'patta'. Eventually, he asked for juice so I gave him some and tried to take his noodles away as I though they were too spicy for him. 'NO! MINE!' he says. He drank three glasses of juice but he finished the whole plate of noodles!

BlueMoo

Sounds like a good idea mouche. As long as you have thought about it, then seems like it is the decision for you.

Sweet little LO! Fiery stuff!

I can't wait to get off my fix!! Just think if I had fixed this year, I could have got about 2% :mad: Oh well, we live and learn. And tbh, it was the right decision at the time as we needed the certainity of fixed payments.

mouche

BlueMoo wrote: »

And tbh, it was the right decision at the time as we needed the certainity of fixed payments.

That's the best we can do isn't it? I think the downside of these forums and of the internet in general is that there is too much information and too little time for our poor brains to process it all. We just make the best decision we can at the time and if time shows we could have done better...well...too bad. At least we made a decision instead of dithering.

Righto, today's updates! Yesterday was an NSD thanks to working from home and the dear OH managing to leave work early for the fourth day this week. He *has* to work late tonight but he's saved me £20 on taxis and a lot of aggro so :happyhear

Boiler serviced this morning – all he seemed to do was hoover up some dust but at least I have peace of mind now. He said it’s a good boiler in good condition but the life of a boiler is usually 12-15 years and mine is about 10-15 years. I have £280 in my boiler fund which means I can replace it in 9 years. Hmmm…have to up the boiler savings methinks.

Have done my mid-month review of the accounts and everything looks ok so far. Need to be careful on the food front but we have a the big ‘free’ Christmas shop coming up so I think we may just make it – unless I send OH shopping on his own again.

Oh wait…no not NSD yesterday as OH braved the shopping crowd with LO and bought some Xmas cards – 30 for £1.99. Bargain! We’ll have some leftover for next year – plus am thinking of making some next year too. Relieve some of my crafting juices in a way less exacting than my current cross stitch – this one. I simply don’t have the time or energy to get on with that!

On the tidy house front:
1. Ironing done last night. Will be another set to do on Saturday as need to wash another load of clothes but should be ok. I am limited by the amount of drying space I have – must get more airers.
2. Remaining post filed – YAY!
3. Christmas cards all written – two need to be addressed as have texted friends for address.

So tonight, it looks like I have a relatively free evening! I think having one of those is a motivation to work hard at the beginning of the week so I won’t add any more goals. Maybe I’ll get on with my cross stitch after all.