Finally in the BIG house!!

FacelessNumber

My fiance and I moved into our (hopefully) forever home on the 25th July. It is a four bed semi just outside a lovely little village with fields on three sides and a grand total of four houses on the other side.

It is most definitely a fixer upper, but we enjoy DIY and decorating so hopefully won't cost us too much money!!

Our mortgage is for £188790 at 3.34% fixed for two years.

Our monthly payments are £828.20 which we plan on upping to £1000 for the first two years. I was umming and ahhing over whether to invest this money instead of overpaying (I've been reading Mr Money Mustache's blog) but I decided that with an inevitable interest raise in the future it might be a good idea to reduce the balance as much as possible in order to keep future interest payments lower.

So that's all the figures! I don't want to make the first post too long so will post again later!

Miss_Moneysaver

Hi,


Sounds lovely. I love anywhere like that (village and fields).
I would pay extra too. You never know when the interest rates will rise.
Happy decorating!

Pushkin

Hi Faceless Number - congrats on new house and on the Overpaying attitude, something I have recently got the bug for too.

I agree totally that overpaying mortgage is better than saving, given the low interest rates around compared to the interest on mortgages it is better although its quite hard to get your head round isn't it?

I find the over payment calculators on this site really motivational.

Enjoy your new house.

pink_poppy

Happy New Forever Home & welcome to the MFW board

FacelessNumber

Hi Miss Moneysaver, I love the country, from my window right now I can see horses, sheep and fields .

Hi Pushkin, it's more that I was thinking about investing rather than saving, although the blog I've been reading is all about the US market so I need to look into the UK side of things a bit more!

Hi pink poppy, thanks for the welcome! I'm hoping a diary thread will help keep me focused on generally being MSE.

I have decided to analyse all my statements over the last 12 months, although I know for a fact that buying food is my biggest weakness! I am also keeping all of my receipts so that I can see exactly where my money is going!

I am about to become self employed so that will require a period of adjustment I'm sure!

Worked out today that our daily interest on this mortgage is £17.28!!!! So the first aim is to get that below £17 which will happen at a balance of £185778.44. Don't have the mortgage on the internet banking screen yet which will make it harder to follow but will be ringing the bank soon to sort that out!

Thrugelmir

FacelessNumber wrote: »

Our mortgage is for £188790 at 3.34% fixed for two years.

What's the follow on rate though? In 2 years you are hardly going to dent the mortgage balance.

FacelessNumber

Hi Thrugelmir. The follow on rate is variable depending on interest rates so didn't seem worth putting it on. At the moment it is 3.99%, but as the time comes we will switch to another fixed rate, depending on how things are going. By overpaying the planned amount for two years we will have a £4000 difference in the mortgage which will tip us into <80% LTV meaning we can get a better deal at that time, whereas with no OPs we would be >80% and stuck with the same options as we already have.

I just wanted to mention some of the MSE things we have done with moving so far:
-Moved out of our house and lived with family for two months between selling and buying completions - saved ~ £1500 in bills and mortgage payments (straight into the savings account).
-Decided not to go back to Sky Sports, and instead got BT - saving £40 per month, plus got £147 cashback, £75 Sainsburys voucher and £40 next voucher.
-Started meal planning again!

Not much I know but I am trying to stay focussed on money saving in whichever form I can!

FacelessNumber

Well I am heading to London today to work and coming back tomorrow and that is the end of this job! Then a week off to try and get the house a bit more sorted then I start the self employment route! Sub contracting 4 days a week so should be fairly steady.

Having to get a plasterer in to skim the bedroom we are in the middle of decorating which is an extra £235 we hadn't planned on spending but luckily we have money left over from selling our old house so don't need to magic the money from another budget or anything.

We also need to build a fence which is where a lot of expense will be - we can build it ourselves but buying all the wood will cost a bit as we have a big garden! Lots of spending happening but that's how it goes when you first move in I guess!

hanging_on_in_there...

Congratulations on your house move and good luck work your diy and decorating! Also much luck in your self employment ... 4x days
/week subcontracting is a great start

FacelessNumber

Well I have analysed my spending this year (just my sole bank account, the joint account gets the treatment next!) and I am pretty horrified. I have spent £408 on food outside of our grocery spending, this doesn't count a few meals out which were planned and budgeted for.

£408!!!!!

This needs to change. If my September total on this isn't down someone can come and punch me in the face as a reminder (phrase taken from Mr Money Mustache - he likes to threaten to punch people if they don't do as they should).

Next job is to analyse the joint spending!

Pushkin

Hi £408 over 8 months - £51 a month - you've got me thinking FN what ours would be as I never track it and do have a habit of under buying each week. Husband was at T£sco last night buying extras I hadn't got in our weekly shop - not even sure how much he spent.

Definitely food for thought - good pun huh :rotfl: