Forever Home Fund

katep23

I've been thinking about my goals for this year:

• Reduce mortgage to 320s in September 2016
• Reduce mortgage to 325 by December 2016 (more ambitious)
• Save £1,500 each month split between renovations, emergency fund and BTL fund
• Set up separate account and save £600 each month for annual bills then use this money instead of savings
• Weight - lose 42 lb
• Complete current study level (4 exams) and start next level (sit 1 exam this year)
• Declutter 1 room each month - ebay, FB or charity shop
• Hit target of £1,800 OP before end of March
• OP £1,350 between April and December
• Resit CBT and get bike back on road
• Take time out during annual leave and relax!
• Get roof fixed, office done, multi-fuel stove installed, guttering fixed
• Maybe get kitchen done?
• Lay floor in utility and decorate

Hmm, so quiet year then!


Emergency fund
We currently have £5K, plan to increase this to £10K by December 2016


BTL
The plan is to do this as soon as possible so it can cover its own costs and start to reduce the amount owed. Need to research this thoroughly this year.


Renovations
The plans on the house will impact how much of the savings we have at year end. At the very least I want the roof sorted as this is causing damp issues.

Stove - we have the chap coming round tomorrow to check he can get a liner down the chimney then we will get a quote so this could be done within a month or so.

Office - this will give us our "9th square" as all OH's IT equipment can then go in there, freeing up the spare room.

Kitchen - would be lovely to do this as we spend so much time in here but funds may mean this is a 2017 project as not a priority compared to roof.


Decluttering

We have so much stuff - we moved from a 3-bed to a 4-bed and have managed to fill it! It is so hard to clean as there is stuff everywhere. One room a month is manageable and hopefully we can ebay / FB some stuff to create OPs - win win

katep23

Just called mortgage company to find out about annual statement, should be here by the end of next week.

They put us on a static payment last year, I thought it was due to be amended after a year but it is still in place. We pay £1,742, the revised payment taking into account OPs would be £1,725. Not a huge difference but £17 we are OPing each month without doing anything!

Sat exam today, so glad that is out of way.

£500 vet bills for 2 of our cats Should be able to claim for this but got £75 excess for 1 cat and £50 plus 20% for the other.

OH needed to order a new laptop for work which they reimburse him for, have ordered via £co and on cashback card, could be £123 back if it all tracks properly (tracked at lower cost and lower % so far)

Muser1

I'm exhausted just reading! Good work.

katep23

December 2014
Mortgage £346,545.00
Mortgage free date 2044
LTV 86.64%

2nd February 2016
Mortgage £335,576.92
Total paid off capital in last month £865.93
Total paid off capital £11,018.18

OP 01/04/15 to date: £1,484.91 / £1,800
Total OP to date: £1,862.05
MOS: £10,089.45

LTV: 83.89%

Amount to Mortgage Neutral - £325,487.47

So MOS has decreased and ATMN has increased again but had big expenses on car which have come out of savings. OH gets a payrise this month and I have some expenses due in so we should hold our own this month.

Good news is we have paid over £800 off the capital this month.

Total monthly interest is £1,006.52 which is an improvement .

katep23

£35 OPd from TCB plus £5ish from interest / blue rewards thingy. £65 scheduled for pay day - this is cashback from my credit card.

Fish tank and slow cooker offered on freegle - slow cooker being collected tonight and fish tank on Saturday hopefully (not entirely convinced by this person but only had one person interested!) Need to list fridge freezer from garage as well (better check it works first).

Small fish tank promised to parents and box of candle making stuff promised to sister - I will declutter this year :T

Am home sick - very MSE as I saved fuel money

Been looking at remortgaging but we are only 1 year into 5 year fix and the ERP is high. It would be more than offset by savings over 5 years but would take us over the LTV threshold and we don't have the money available to pay it up front

Plus our credit reports are affected by our stoozing at the moment so we would need to wait 6 months for them to recover.

Am definitely keeping an eye though - the deal I found would reduce our interest rate from 4.44% to 2.89% and allow us to knock 7 years off the term for the same payment.

Petal88

I'm on 4.44% as well so I know your pain

I didn't realise stoozing affected credit reports! What do you use stoozing for if you don't mind me asking?

katep23

It's partly the credit searches and partly the affect of utilising so much credit.

We have an offset mortgage so have borrowed money from credit cards using money transfers and then put it in the offset to reduce the amount we pay interest on.

The fee has been anywhere between 1.9% and 2.99% and the 0% term is anywhere from 18 to 32 months. We've got about £50K stoozed which means we're OPing about £200 month.

On Noddle my "score" (which I know doesn't mean much) is now 3/5 whereas it was 5/5 before we did this.

When we know we are in a position to remortgage, we will pay everything off and leave it a couple of months for the credit files to update before we apply and hopefully all should be good Just means we need to plan it more.

katep23

Woo hoo the fish tank has gone!

Have also blanked off a mobile phone ready to send off on Monday, £3 cashback and £45 for the phone.

Just need to download everything off my other phone ready to send that off. I have sent a referral link to OH for TCB so I'll get £10, he gets £5 amazon voucher, he'll get £3 cashback as well and the phone is worth £12 Got to make the most of it :rotfl:

Got the paperwork to get OH on the cashback credit card, need to fill that in and send off.

katep23

katep23 wrote: »

• Reduce mortgage to 320s in September 2016
• Reduce mortgage to 325 by December 2016 (more ambitious)
• Save £1,500 each month split between renovations, emergency fund and BTL fund
• Set up separate account and save £600 each month for annual bills then use this money instead of savings
• Weight - lose 42 lb
• Complete current study level (4 exams) and start next level (sit 1 exam this year)
• Declutter 1 room each month - ebay, FB or charity shop
• Hit target of £1,800 OP before end of March
• OP £1,350 between April and December
• Resit CBT and get bike back on road
• Take time out during annual leave and relax!
• Get roof fixed, office done, multi-fuel stove installed, guttering fixed
• Maybe get kitchen done?
• Lay floor in utility and decorate

Decluttering has started and weight loss is going well - lost 6lb so far.

Not sure if we will hit OP target by end of March but should be close.

On track to get into 320s in September.

Got big bill for car this month so no savings likely. But hopefully that will be car fixed then.

Also managed to get away for 5 days when we were on leave last week - went to Budapest which was lovely. Need to factor in "down time" otherwise we will start to resent this house for taking up all our time.

Sat at desk with cat on my lap but my tea is downstairs - dilemma!

katep23

December 2014
Mortgage £346,545.00
Mortgage free date 2044
LTV 86.64%

2nd March 2016
Mortgage £334,689.30
Total paid off capital in last month: £887.62
Total paid off capital £11,905.70

OP 01/04/15 to date: £1,604.06 / £1,800
Total OP to date: £1,981.20
MOS: £9,623.34

LTV: 83.67%

Amount to Mortgage Neutral - £325,065.96

So MOS has decreased slightly due to work on car, however ATMN has also decreased so that's good news.