London Dreams

MoneyQueen

Thanks MiddyMum and good luck to you.

I have been looking at the rental rates in London and it looks like renting is too expensive there so buying makes sense. Though I think, we may have to rent initially for few months before we buy our own place.

I am planning not to include, the ISAs in my challenge for the time being as don't want to loose the tax free status (DH is in the 40% bracket and I am just a few thousands behind). So I will not be including them in the calculations as of now.

Here are the figures for the challenge:

Deposit Required for the new house: £200,000 (at least)
Fixed savings: £15,156.85
Regular Saver Accounts – Total: £7,414.42
Mortgage £69,292.49
Outstanding Credit Card debt – Total: £717.95
Net Cash: - £47,439.17 in cash.
House price: £170,000
Net Worth at the moment (excluding the ISAs) = £122,560.83
Difference: £77,439.17

If we save £4,185 every month, that should take us 18 months but since this is a challenge, I want to do it in 15 months. (I am assuming that any holidays/ day outs/yearly one off expenses) will be covered by any bonus we get this year and hope the interest rates don't rise soon. Fingers crossed.

But still need to find ways to earn/ save enough to do this in 15 months :eek:

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

MoneyQueen wrote: »

MRN, I find Wholefoods good for fresh fruit and veg but I have been informed on the OS Board that the prices are quite bad for meat etc.

MQ

Thanks for the info. I buy my meat and fish in bulk from Costco - big outlay but totally worth it if you have a large freezer. Fruit and veg I get from the local market (walkable distance), cheap, good quality, no packaging, lasts much longer than the supermarket stuff. Perhaps not suitable for the odd bits I do get from a supermarket.

MoneyQueen

MRN,

I would love to go to a local market for all fruit and veg but there is none where I live.

I am trying to declutter the house for the move and this weekend removed some stuff from the attic which I am going to freecycle. I also need to find some stuff that I can sell on EBay when they have the free listing weekend. I also looked at Matched Betting last night. I did it for few months when we were trying to pay off the mortgage for the previous house and earned quite well from it but have already done most of the easy bookies so it's going to be much difficult/ risky this time.

There isn't much happening otherwise on the financial side and just waiting for the pay day. Though I had two NSDs in a row so well chuffed about this.:j

MQ

MoneyQueen

An overall good week. Grocery challenge going well. I only spent £1.45 on groceries this week and didn' spend anything else at all. We also washed and vacuumed the car ourselves saving us £4 and felt so good (and tired). I have also looked at the cash ISA that we have with Northern Rock and calculated that If I transfer it to the 3.4% santander ISA, it would be and extra £80 in interest for both of us till August next year so thats what I am doing next week.

MQ

ferox666

Well done so far! I'm also in Scotland and used to love the idea of moving to London but after several frequent visits the "buzz" disappeared for me! But good luck to your dream.

If you don't mind me asking, what specialised fields are you in that there are no jobs in London area? If medical that would surprise me.

MoneyQueen

Hi ferox666,

Welcome to my diary and thanks for visiting.

I know what you mean by all the buzz disappearing. But I don't have any family apart from my parents and sister so it doesn't really make any sense to stay here when they have all moved there.

We both work in IT. I have a generic role but DH has a specialised role.

MQ

MoneyQueen

DH has finally opened the 6% HSBC Regular Saver after declaring that I am a nagging wife!! I already hold a 4% account with four months to go so will open the 6% one once the current one finishes.

I have also transferred £1000 into DH's Cash ISA for this year today. We still have to fill in the ISA accounts for this year so after all the bills have been paid, I will be transferring all the money to the Cash ISAs for the next few months and then think about opening more accounts once we have used up the yearly cash ISA allowance.

MQ

MoneyQueen

I have transferred another £1000 to DH's ISA today now that I have also been paid. Mortgage monthly payment has also gone through and I have also paid £0.07 to the mortgage to make it a nice whole number. Mortgage currently stands at £68,490. I have also done the balances for this month. Some bills have still to go but I have already included them in the calculations below

Cash ISAs – Total: £58,429.53

Newcastle BS Five Year fixed ISA 5% till July 2014 - £7,962.03
Newcastle BS Five Year fixed ISA 5% till July 2014 - £ 10,589.00
Northern Rock Fixed rate Cash ISA 4.5% till Dec 2012- £4,012.81
Northern Rock Easy Access ISA 3.05% - £13,581.54
Northern Rock Easy Access ISA 3.05% - £9,202.71
Santander Easy Access ISA 3.4% until Aug 2013 – £7,540.80
Santander Easy Access ISA 3.4% until Aug 2013 – £ 5,540.64

Other Fixed savings – Total: £15,156.85

AA Five Year Fixed account 5.15% till Nov 2014 - £3,360.70
AA Five Year Fixed account 5.15% till Nov 2014 - £3,631.73
KRBS One Year Bond 3.6% till Oct 2012 - £3,000.00
Newcastle BS bond 4.4% until April 2016 - £5,164.42

Regular Saver Accounts – Total: £8,914.42

Coventry BS 4.5% Regular Savings - £923.00
Coventry BS 4.5% Regular Savings - £923.00
HSBC 4% Regular Savings – £2000
HSBC 6% Regular Savings – £250
Monmouthshire 4% Regular Savings till Jan 2013 – £818.42
Skipton BS 5% Regular Savings – £2000
Skipton BS 5% Regular Savings – £2000

Current Accounts - Total: £415.42

Mortgage

£68,490 at 1.29%

Outstanding Credit Card debt – Total: £124.83

My Credit card 1: £0
My Credit card 2: £0 (To be closed)
DH’s Credit card 1: £0 (To be closed)
DH’s Credit card 2: £ 124.83 (0% till Dec 2013 so will only make minimum payments till then)


MQ

MoneyQueen

I am still not able to decide how I want to track the progress in my signature for my diary as I am now adding money to Cash ISA so will want to include them in the calculations and to keep things simple. In addition, I also don't want to go too fast as do want to enjoy this journey and don't want to make a hasty decision that we later regret so for now, we have decided not to set a date for the move.

I think, this is how I am going to track this

All savings(excluding the value of the house): £82,916.22
All debts (including mortgage): £68,614.83
Current Net Savings: £14,301.39
Target Net Savings: £100,000

MoneyQueen

I phoned the broadband company yesterday and haggled for a better deal. We were paying 22.50 for a 10 MB line but have managed to bag 30MB broadband with a phoneline with free weekend calls for £20. We were also paying £18.99 to Vonage as DH phones his parents in India almost daily. We are going to get this cancelled as he took an IPad for them when we visited them earlier this year so we have been using Facetime to speak to them nowadays. This is going to save us £21.49 every month. I also need to phone Scottish Power to enquire about fixing the energy prices till 2014. We currently have a fix until 2013 but I think we should really fix till 2014 as energy prices may rise soon.

MQ