I dream of a mortgage free existence

saver03

My future MIL has just rang and, for reasons best known to herself, she is giving us £1000 on the proviso that it goes off our mortgage :j I told her that she is crazy and she doesn't have to give us any money but she says that she is planning on retiring next year so we may as well have the money whilst she still has it! This means that we will smash our target for OPs this year and hopefully motivate us to be good MFWs!

Today I have/will

• Speak to SP as fixed rate runs out soon so need best deal
• Work 5-10pm
• Look on swagbuscks
• Meal plan for next week
• Look for jobs on Directgov
• List at least 4 things on ebay

saver03

Ok so my planned list from the other day kind of feel apart as the boss had changed the rota and I hadn't seen it so I was in at 2 and not 5!

So today I have/will:

• Work 2-10pm
• Look on swagbucks
• Meal plan for next week
• Schedule at least 4 things on ebay
• Look on Directgov for jobs
• Check online banking

I will be a good MFWer

saver03

Well, I sold my old car yesterday, got £300 which is better than nothing! This will go towards what I owe my mum as the sooner that I pay her back the sooner I can up my OPs and be MF a hell of a lot sooner.

Today I have/will

• Check the lottery :rotfl:
• Start the budget for December
• Check swagbucks
• Schedule 5 things for ebay
• Work 5-10pm

I will be a good MFWer :A

saver03

So our OP target for this year was £1500 and as of yesterday we have OPed £2160 :j

I wish I could take all the credit for this but the MIL gave us £1000 as long as we used it on the mortgage

I love playing around with the OP calculator and it's frightening how much interest you can save just OPing even small amounts. This really spurs me on to know how much money we could save if we make small sacrifices.

I need to really crack down in the New Year and pay my mum back ASAP and then we can really be MF sooner

saver03

Ok so my job, well the company, is looking very precarious at the moment and I need to start planning for when it closes, sooner rather than later at the rate :mad: I have been looking and applying for many crappy jobs over the last few months but it is so disheartening as no one bothers to reply, oh I am lying of course as I couldn't even get an interview for seasonal staff at a Tesco Express I am not sure which is actually worse, hearing nothing or being emailed to be rejected! Anyway, we have always decided that property is a very good investment over the longterm and we want to get a 2nd property to let out. This was always a pipe dream as we would need about £25,000 for a deposit and fees, not that we actually have £25,000 now but we have more of an incentive to actually get the ball rolling. My mum has been let go from work due to being ill :mad: (a whole story in itself that I can rant on!) Anyway,she lives in another town and is thinking of moving back to where we live as it is cheaper and she would need to rent. Now our main reason for being a but wary of buying to let was tenants but my mother would be the perfect tenant. So the perfect solution would be us to buy another property and rent it out to my mum. Now back to the tiny problem of the deposit and fees! As we didn't win the lottery I will have to source the cash elsewhere, i.e. family members, savings, equity in our home.

I am sure it will be worth the risk but I am willing to listen to people's advise on the situation as I would hate for us to get in over our heads.

Spiggle

Hi saver03,

I just happened upon your diary and I will congratulate you again on here for smahing your MFW2012 target.

I'm not sure of the detail but you may need to check out which mortgage providers will lend on a BTL mortgage if the tenant is to be a family member. You could post a question on the mortgage and endowments board. There are a lot of knowledgeable, friendly and helpful contributors on there (DaveHam, hollyhobby, et al) who can advise.

Hope that is of some use and I wish you all the very best on being 'good'!

Take care,
Spigs

gallygirl

I would think very carefully about buying a second property at all at the moment with your employment being precarious.

Will your mum be on benefits? If so she will not be able to get housing benefit I believe as it will be seen as a contrived tenancy.

If you don't let to your mum btl is not easy. There are a lot of legal requirements to meet and the tenant has a lot of protection. Could you afford to cover the mortgage indefinitely while you took court action for non-payment of rent?

If I was you I would concentrate on getting settled with a new job and then think again.

Good luck :T.

Spiggle

gallygirl wrote: »

I would think very carefully about buying a second property at all at the moment with your employment being precarious.

Will your mum be on benefits? If so she will not be able to get housing benefit I believe as it will be seen as a contrived tenancy.

If you don't let to your mum btl is not easy. There are a lot of legal requirements to meet and the tenant has a lot of protection. Could you afford to cover the mortgage indefinitely while you took court action for non-payment of rent?

If I was you I would concentrate on getting settled with a new job and then think again.

Good luck :T.

Sound advice gallygirl, I hadn't thought about it that way and just remembered something about btle with family member as tenant!

All the best,
Spiggle

saver03

Thank you for the advice, I have posted a question on the other board

My employment is only part time so even if we were closed down we could still manage on the OH's wage, especially as my hours are very up and down, usually down :mad:

Not sure if my mum can claim housing benefit as she has worked hard and saved so that goes against her :mad:

I am very wary of doing a BTL without a tenant that I know as you never know who you are getting and if they will pay and if they don't how you can evict them and actually get them to leave. Also, if they are going to look after the house. And would ideally get someone in to manage it if it wasn't rented out to someone I know so that would cost even more.

Maybe becoming a property mogul is still just a pipe dream

saver03

We got our revised payment notice today for our new fixed rate and as of the 30th November our balance is £70,550.11 :eek:

We are now on a fixed rate for 5 years and I by the time that is up I want to be under £50,000 and with a little play on the calculator that can be done if we only overpay £150 a month. :j

So once I have paid my mum back I want to really got to work on my OPs and maybe we can get under £40,000 by 2017

I have had a quite a productive day today, well for me;)

1. Checked the lottery :rotfl:
2. Did swagbucks
3. Fine tuned the budget
4. Listed 13 things on Amazon
5. Extreme job hunting
6. Applied for 4 jobs