Countdown to Freedom

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

Morning Tilly,

It's weekend eve today!

I'd like to do more foraging... we only seem to manage it if we're camping.

cotswoldaccountant

The blackberry and apple pie sounds delicious. My boys went blackberry picking the other day and came back with a very tiny handful each - but it was lovely in a crumble with a couple of Bramleys! I'm sad that we will have no fruit crop this year -usually, we get loads of apples on our really old apple trees, but I think the weather has got to them this year and there are none at all

I agree it's nice having a couple of lodgers for the more-frequent payments - ours pay monthly but once our new lodger moves in, the payments will be a fortnight apart, so I'm looking forward to making the extra OP each month!

Enjoy your takeaway!

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Morning CA, I insist on weekly lodger payments, as it's an extra month over a year :). All adds up.

Goodness I sound so very mercenary today. I am working from home and off to make a cup of tea now. I only use a tea bag once, in case people think I am becoming too frugal xxxxx

cotswoldaccountant

An extra month a year does sound good! Might have to adopt that approach in future. I do remember you once writing about having to stop getting lodgers in once you exceeded the rent a room allowance threshold - you know there are a couple of tax options once you exceed that threshold? We have been over the threshold once or twice, and chose to use "method A" where you work out your profit in the normal way for a rental business - the lodger rooms' proportion of our mortgage interest was so high at the time that it completely offset the lodger income and we paid no tax. Let me know if you need any more info on this.

I must go and be productive now - I have lots of work to do today, and I have already had a friend pop round for coffee (lovely but unexpected) and been somewhat distracted catching up with all of these diaries. My plans to pay off the mortgage could go somewhat awry if I spend all of my working hours browsing MSE rather than earning any money

CA

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi CA, definitely interested to hear more about offsetting lodger income. I will PM you. Thanks, Tilly

Maybe I can have lodgers all year round - right now I have used the limit to give us a period of time as a family again, but really I prefer having a house full. Plus I agree with you, it does change behaviours.

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

Hi Tilly,
Have you found it easy to get short-term lodgers? Or do you just not tell them? We're discussing getting a lodger when OH is away for 6 months... partly to keep me company, partly to test it out and partly for some serious OP funding! We weren't sure if 6 months was long enough to get anyone's interest.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi MRN, unbelievably easy, even with us only accepting Mon-Fri lodgers. I draw the line at having full time as I want the family back at the weekends

I will PM a site

Tiliy x

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

I hadn't thought about Mon-Fri only but this would certainly suit better. Thanks for the PM... I checked the site and I was surprised at how much people were charging for similar to what we have available in our area! I'll work on MrMRN this evening!

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi MRN, it's certainly an easy way to OP - mentally I offset lodger income against interest. I apply the same logic to all the small OPs as mentally it helps me to think that our mortgage payment is true capital repayment. I pay the mortgage payment plus big chunk of OP in one go, hence the actual payment is virtually all capital payment - tired now so not sure I am making sense :)

Just gives me something else to do with my brain

Good luck with your OH. As the guys who commute weekly, often travel as well, we sometimes have a week without a lodger, or they are away for a night in the week anyway.

Edited to add: I also cook in the evening for everyone and charge £3.50 for the meal. Normally two courses. Squash is always made up and tea/coffee maker is available as I buy coffee beans abroad in bulk, so very cheap, and tea bags in bulk. I don't believe anyone staying could buy the same type of meal for that price outside, so it does them a good turn and doesn't cost us anything really. I can't say that I feel I cook more food now, maybe we just eat less :)

All helps
Tilly x

cotswoldaccountant

I've found you very quickly get used to an extra person in the house, although the first couple of weeks can seem a bit odd while you all get used to one another. Our lodgers are generally full-time (we don't specify Mon-Fri) but often they are away at the weekend. I think it is quite important that you have enough space to be separate from each other from time to time - we have a TV in our kitchen and our lodger usually watches TV in there in the evening - quite often we are in the kitchen too, but we have our own space in the living room if we need it.

Lodger money is brilliant because there are so few additional running costs associated with having an extra person in the house - maybe a slightly higher heating / electricity / water bill, but not by a lot! And if you cook for the lodger too (we don't) you can make money on meals too. Effectively it's money for nothing, once you get used to having extra people around the house!

CA