The End May Actually Be in Sight...

RoaringTwenties

Little_Miss_Winner wrote: »

Loving your diary !! keep up the good work. Have subscribed.

Paying our mortgage off is my next mission... cant wait!

Hi Little Miss Winner (love your username btw!) Thanks for popping in, glad you like my diary I'm enjoying keeping it up, just wish I had the time to post in lots of other people's too. Never occurred to me that people would lurk on mine as I'm lurking and trying to find time to post on theirs ha ha!

Good luck with your MF journey - do you have a diary for me to subscribe to? [Heads off to investigate]

RoaringTwenties

Welshlassie wrote: »

It cost us almost £5k to buy out and we still ended up breaking even because the rates stayed low. We took a chance that the rates would stay low and it paid off. It took a lot of discussion to decide to do that, but we are so glad we did.

Good for you! Glad it worked out. I think we did some calculations around 2008 & it would have cost us around £8000 to get out of ours, we were too much like scaredy cats at the time to go for it!

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

RoaringTwenties wrote: »

Hi Mrs RT, ouch that is a shocking rate - any way you can get out of it? We took out a 10 year fix when DS was due, we were absolutely brassic (famous story in our family about having £10 to our name & a new born baby :eek:) so we wanted maximum security on our big mortgage. It was 5.49% which was pretty good at the time (summer 2007) but we all know what happened the year after :mad:. We've only just managed to ditch it now, we're on 2.89% over 4 years. We have friends who have been paying 1% for 6 years lucky so-and-so's!

Thanks for dropping by

Hi roaring, unfortunately its fixed for 5 years (we only had a 10% deposit) and wanted to get on housing ladder before prices started rising. Planning on getting to 60%ltv at the end of the 5 years and I'm hoping that the base rate won't have risen too much and some deals will be about and can get a better rate than what we are on now if that makes sense.

RoaringTwenties

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa wrote: »

Hi roaring, unfortunately its fixed for 5 years (we only had a 10% deposit) and wanted to get on housing ladder before prices started rising. Planning on getting to 60%ltv at the end of the 5 years and I'm hoping that the base rate won't have risen too much and some deals will be about and can get a better rate than what we are on now if that makes sense.

Yes that makes sense The good thing is you know your rate won't go up! That can be really reassuring when you're just starting out especially. We've always had fixed rates, it's just the kind of people we are. We like to know where we stand and be able to plan. The LTV is so crucial, & it seems from the research I did when we switched recently that 60% is quite a critical figure, the deals improved significantly at that point. And house prices do seem to be generally on the up so that should help with LTV, you might well find when you get there you have even more equity as a result. Good luck!

RoaringTwenties

Just had a chat with my MIL & she confirmed she doesn't want any money from us to give to wider family, that will come out of the estate, so we have another £1000 to OP. If we add that to the usual mortgage payment & usual £209 OP, plus the £600 from not buying a bike store and the £400 I've saved from two months with no Council Tax, plus the eBay tights (;) ) that's £2,642 it's come down today :eek::p. Obviously it won't always be like this! But I just can't believe how quickly it's ticking down. I think it has a momentum all of its own now. Have updated signature :T

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

Cracking op congratulations. Chipping away and you will soon get there.

Yep your right, the certainty of payments was important to us and we felt that if we got a 2 year fix initially then we wouldn't have moved much on the ltv and rates would have risen.

RoaringTwenties

Well why do all my diary entries start with a "Well..." btw? Weeeellll...it's not been a very MSE time here at RT Towers . We've been deliberating getting a cleaner and/or gardener for a while, couldn't afford it before but now it is a real possibility. Wrt cleaning, it isn't the day-to-day cleaning of work surfaces etc that gets on top of us, it's the deep cleaning stuff like the inside of the fridge, oven, dishwasher seal, that I never get on with. My OH loves to garden but works long hours and we just about keep on top of the mowing and cutting back. It's just impossible with a toddler around [STRIKE]falling over rakes etc[/STRIKE] and my DS' Autism makes it hard to have him out there too as his risk assessment is worse than the baby's :rotfl:. I hate it when the garden is untidy, it really brings me down whinge moan etc

Anyway we think we've found a cleaner, recommended by a friend, £10 per hour and she'll do as little as we want - literally 1 hour per month if we just want the oven & fridge done. The gardener chap lives at the bottom of the road, he charges £15 per hour but he does a couple of our neighbours and their gardens look fab. I know it could be extra mortgage OPs but think it might be a good spend if it makes life easier and preserves our mental health so we are not completely :eek:

In the meantime I have made a whopping £2.22 on Fleabay :T Mind you that is before PayPal fees so it's more of a pre-tax profit really Still no sign of a free listing weekend for me, am hoping they haven't done away with them altogether...

Crumpets

I noticed that a lot of my post start with 'well' too:rotfl:

I think a cleaner can be a godsend, we had one for about 12 months when Ds was a baby as I really struggled to keep on top of everything. It sounds like it wouldn't be a weekly thing for you so I'd go for it! (I'm a bad influence, sorry;)) I'd love a gardener, I like gardening, but never get chance to get on with everything. I'm contemplating getting someone in to clean and stain my decking as I'm never going to get round it, sometimes having an easier life is worth having a lower op:cool:

WishIwasstill25

Our cleaner does a normal clean every week, the she usually does 1 deep clean job a week too. last week in was the fridge, I'm sure she has a routine/system, but I'm blowed if I can work it out.

She provides all her own cleaning materials too, even better.

I've never looked back and paying her is worth so much more than the amount I pay.

gallygirl

Well why do all my diary entries start with a "Well..." btw?

It's "So..... "with me :rotfl:

it isn't the day-to-day cleaning of work surfaces etc that gets on top of us, it's the deep cleaning stuff like the inside of the fridge, oven, dishwasher seal, that I never get on with.

Just buy self cleaning ones. That's what I've acted as if I've done :T. Seriously, there's squandering money and spending money to make your life easier. A cleaner is definitely in the latter. And so is a gardener. Sod it, I'm off to look for one as well :rotfl: