Goodbye Mortgage - the beginning of the end!

Beckyy

I was working a late shift last night, but Scottish Gas are supposed to be fitting a new electricity smart meter between 9am-2pm today so am up early to get ready for that. I hope the phone beforehand and dont just turn up at 1.59pm!

I need to change my mobile phone contract. I took out a SIM only plan on the basis that when prices changed I could switch it easily... 3 years later and I havent changed it! So Im paying a little more than I should.

Beckyy

I was kidding when I said I hope they don't leave it til 1.59pm to turn up... seems they weren't though! Have phoned them and they're apparently going to phone me back, that was the best part of an hour ago. Am gonna give it another 10 minutes then phone ago, Ive already stayed in for 5 hours wasting my day off waiting for them!

ETA: Had to phone them again on my mobile, chargeable to 0800 and was on there for 20 minutes! Apparently they tried to contact me this morning to cancel due to engineer sickness but I never had a message or missed call. They creditted £22 off our next bill as a gesture of goodwill and rearranged the appointment. This will be the 4th appointment I've had for this smart meter, I don't think I'm destined to have one!

Beckyy

Remortgage is complete, wooo

Just need to find out when our first payment will come out as accidently gave them the DD details for our grocery account so will need to switch it after first payment.

Will have to make an updated OP plan and SOA when I get a spare few hours.

Hoping to bid on some BNWT jeans on eBay. £42 new but they're so not worth that much so will hopefully get them for a reasonable amount!

Beckyy

My MSE addiction has been suffered with the downtime!

Ive had a busy week at work, but it'll be a welcome boost on payday.

OH has his new car - it's going to be a lot more to run than were used to, the cost of 1 new tyre for it is the same as a full set for my car!! I need to recalcualte how much to pay into the car maintenance fund each month.

I'd also like to save for a new car myself with teh aim of getting one in around 3 years. Mine has 6 figures on the clock and I think it will be coming towards the end of it's financially viable lifespan by then. The only thing is I will need to put a good chunk away each month. I think Ill start but have the option to dip into it for next BTL if we need to because that's the priority at the moment and we want to have it by the end of the year.

I've decided to put my organic food obsession on hold for a while. None of the big firms deliver here and local availability is limted so I've been paying an absolute fortune for some things, and it's getting a bit ridiculous. I haven't been able to stick to our food budget at the moment and am embarassed to even say how much I've been spending. For now I will stick with organic milk and a handful of other items and will shop around for the rest, buying organic only when there's spare in the budget or it's reasonably priced.

Beckyy

I've done a new SOA. I think it's included everything. I've added in average overtime to income as although it's not guaranteed it's very rare that I dont get it.

Grocery shopping is high at £300, but that's come down already... I was spending a lot more.

The cash assets are high as it's the deposit for our next BTL, just waiting to add a bit more and find the right house.

Apparently there's over £1000 spare each month but I don't know where it goes! We've had a lto of big expenses lately so I think we'll start to notice it now that they're over. I think our going out section is well under what we spend as we go out for lunch and dinner quite a lot...

Any helpful thoughts?


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 600
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1700
Overtime (average)...................... 400
Rental Income........................... 375
Total monthly income.................... 3075

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 554
BLT Mortgage1........................... 152
Council tax............................. 99
Electricity............................. 41
Telephone (land line)................... 15
Mobile phone............................ 40.5
TV Licence.............................. 14
Internet Services....................... 19.99
Groceries etc. ......................... 300
Clothing................................ 25
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Car parking............................. 2
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 5
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 24
Buildings/Cont insurance................ 12
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50
Haircuts................................ 15
Entertainment........................... 135
Holiday................................. 50
Solid Fuel.............................. 30
Car Maintenance (inc. MOT/Ins/Tax) ..... 250
Pet Food................................ 90
Total monthly expenses.................. 2023.49

Assets
Cash.................................... 31500
House value (Gross)..................... 125000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 16000
BTL1.................................... 75000
Total Assets............................ 216500

Secured & HP Debts
Description...................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage..................... 96700....(554)......4.28
BTL Mortgage..................46250....(152)......3.99
Total secured & HP debts..... 142950....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,075
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,023.49
Available for debt repayments........... 1,051.51
Amount left after debt repayments....... 1,051.51

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 247,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -142,950
Total Unsecured debt.................... -0
Net Assets.............................. 104,550

Peonie

Like you said, your food bill is high, especially if you include the pet food. Your mortgage interest rates look high. Other than that I think your costs are quite low.

Beckyy

Thanks Peonie, v.helpful to get another view on it. There's not much give on the petfood as suppliers are few and far between for the dog food where we are and we've got a giant breed dog, the 2 cats food isn't too bad though.

Will definitley work on our own food budget, it's my weakness.

Our fix is up next year, so I really need to get myself in gear to OP as I'd love to have 40% equity by then for a better rate. We only had an 82% LTV with this mortgage so it will make a big difference!

I_want_a_baby

Hi,

A quick thank you for the comment on my blog & I have just written an update x

Definitely worth trying to get the LTV down. I would love to have the loan to value at 60% for our remortgage when our fix is up. We have a little while to achieve this though as we have another 4 years in our fix :-)

Stacey x

Beckyy

Glad you're still about Stacey, will come and have a nosey over at your diary x

Beckyy

Current plan/aims -

- Continue building BTL deposit until the right house comes up, or we can afford the current one of interest with a 60% LTV.

I would like to purchase by the end of the year, so would be willing to go to a 70% LTV if we couldn't meet a 60% one comfortably by then.

- After purchase of next BTL, ensure safety fund is in place then OP all extra money to our own mortgage in the hope of getting LTV down for our fix ending next May. We would have to OP by around £1000 per month from Jan 2014 to get a 60%LTV for remortgage, which isn't very realistic however we'll readdress that after next BTL is purchased and make a plan of action accordingly!

- Save for a new car for myself. Possibly after we have remortgaged next year. Mine only has a couple more years in it until it will likely stop being financially viable to keep, but I'd need to put quite a few hundred pounds away each month to have enough to buy a half decent one as I will likely just get scrap value for mine by then.