Forever Home Fund

katep23

Didn't get to bank but will make an over-payment of £44 (when I find my bank card which is in the house somewhere) which is the above plus £8-ish which I'm drawing down from TCB

Cold and grey here today - walked to the library and back (about 2.5 miles in total). As I've just signed up I got a free DVD rental so picked up something with Jason Statham in which we will watch tonight

No wine tonight so that's a saving right there

OH managed to fix leaking cold water feed to washing machine and plumb in dishwasher (finally!) without having to go out and buy any parts so that's good news.

Finally unpacked the estate car from our last trip over to the old house (4 weeks ago!) Well I don't like to rush these things...

katep23

Work from home day today. Courier booked to pick up old satnav to go to my sister - used the Parcel2go offer so cost less than £1

15 eggs this morning :eek: What am I going to do with them? Got half a dozen out at the gate, we seem to have a couple of regular customers but they only buy about 2 dozen a week between them.

We really need to have less ducks but we buy 2 or 3 new birds each year in the hope they will lay through the winter (which usually works) - we just never take into account the fact that the flock is increasing every year - 20 at the last count

OH and I did money shuffle at the weekend, we now have £5,900 in the offset which is £5,000 of emergency fund and £900 towards the work we need to start.

We also did his expenses for the last 3 months To be fair, since moving it has been manic and we didn't have the scanner up and running but at least he's on top of it now and had all his receipts. Once that is paid, that money can go into the offset too :T

Just need to get him to use a cashback credit card and we'll we laughing.

Got turned down for M&S card, need to give them a call. There's a few reasons I can think of: I was running the JLP card quite high because of cat treatment, heating oil etc. which probably looked as though I was utilising too much credit.

Also when we registered for the electoral register, they put the wrong postcode on so it may not have shown up on credit file. Will get my Experian report to check there are no errors.

Will wait a while anyway before I apply for anything else as I have credit check from mortgage, JLP card and now M&S card on my file.

Have paid a huge chunk off credit card so there is only about £600 left on it. Will get this cleared in next few months before the 0% ends.

Total over-payments off about £250 so far. Will keep chipping away with money I earn and anything saved goes into the offset so it all helps. Current mortgage term is 30 years (we wanted to keep payments low in order to save up to do work) but I would really like to be paid off in 17 years.

I need to set some targets - one of the biggest things for us is equity. The work we are doing will hopefully increase the value of the house so when our fix ends (January 2020) we hope to have a much better LTV. But in the meantime, by offsetting and overpaying I'm hoping to increase our equity even if the value doesn't increase. Need to have a play with some figures and see what is possible

katep23

Had a look and if we OP by £250 per month, we would get our equity to 25% by the end of our five year fix even if the house value stays the same. Just need to work out how to divert that from savings / make / earn / sell enough to do that :rotfl:

I seem to have a regular egg customer; the courier who came last Wednesday bought 2 and a half dozen eggs. He came back today and bought 2 and a half dozen more £6 towards the OPs :T

Well, we bought the ducks a very nice house, it seems only fair they should reciprocate

Went to college last night, instead of getting a subway, I stopped at Sainsbugs and got a YS prawn salad. Didn't go to B&M which saved at least £10. Did go to Pets in Rome and got YS cat biscuits which the sales assistant promptly emptied on the counter so they got me an undamaged box but still gave me the discount :T

katep23

Quiet day to myself today - OH is going to some house builders thing at the NEC with his friend (free tickets ) so will be home alone.

Up since 5.55 - no wine plus early night = awake at crack of wotsit On second cup of tea and the ducks are out - might let them free range a bit today.

Courier egg customer was back for another 2 dozen eggs :T

Have requested £15 from Topcashback which will go to OP the mortgage

Need to raid OH's account as he has been paid his expenses - as he has already paid off his CC, that money is ear-marked for the MOS as well

£150 left in my current account on payday so that will go to MOS.

Unlikely to save very much this month as [STRIKE]Rusty [/STRIKE] Trusty Diesel is booked in for some work, estimate is £235 but I will save that in a few months compared to driving Girl Racer car 100 miles every day - difference is about 15 miles to the gallon so will claw that back quite quickly!

I really must try and eBay / FB some stuff today

Only 4 working days to go then 10 days off :T Booked the 4 days after Easter off, boy do I need a break Not going away, just having some time at home so hopefully we can get quotes to start getting work done round here.

We bought a range cooker on Gumtree (brand new, never been used but less than half the price). As it's natural gas, we got someone round to quote for converting / installing it. Heard back from them that they couldn't source the injectors to convert it so they don't think it can be done but looking at the manufacturer's website it does say it can be converted.

Called the manufacturer yesterday and they are sending out the conversion kit - should be here within 4 working days :T And it was free!

Fingers crossed it is all okay - now need to get some quotes to install it (OH wants the original company to quote as he struggled to find anyone who does conversions but I am not keen if they can't even phone the bluddy manufacturer - it took me two phone calls and 15 minutes for hecks sake!)

v1ckyt

You need to do a signature so we can watch the progress. x

katep23

Not much progress to watch yet but it would be good to track the numbers. Will do it here for now, not sure I am ready to announce it in my signature!


Below is based on today's numbers, next mortgage payment is due on Wednesday so will update again then.

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



28th March 2015
Mortgage £344,573.33
OP to date: £373.62
MOS: £6,091.21
LTV: 86.14%


So we have increased our equity by over 0.5% so far!


Load of leeks chopped up to freeze, have tidied office so futon is now set up in here. Not sure about the lay out but can always change it later.


Need to clean out duck house but it's been raining. Seems dry now so off to do it.

katep23

Crazy courier man has been for his two dozen eggs - another fiver into the fund

Brallaqueen

Just popping in to say you have come so far and done so much in a short space of time! How amazing x

katep23

Ah thank you!

Only one more get up until we've got a week off, sooo looking forward to it! And I'm working from home tomorrow so a bit of lie in and still an early start

katep23

Had a look at all the accounts this morning, not much going to be doing in the way of saving this month. Once credit cards are paid and the cheque clears for the work to my diesel, I have about £200 for the month.

Will sweep whatever is left on payday over but probably only looking at £100 max. Still, better than nothing.

Will save about £80 a month by using the diesel over [STRIKE]Boy[/STRIKE] Girl Racer Car so the work I had done should pay for itself within 4 months.

Did OP 51p which was the interest in the Lloyds account :T

Got a quote to convert our range cooker to LPG - £520 :eek:

This did include two gas bottles, will see if I can get them cheaper myself but other than that the company probably need to supply all the parts and labour is £180 of that. Seems very expensive

Will get some other quotes this week but I really need this installed and working so might just have to bite the bullet

Had the parkray going properly last night and it really did heat the room up well, the chimney breast was still warm this morning and the embers were still going so I'm trying to rekindle it to keep it going and dry out the chimney breast upstairs