MFWW - Cinny Gets Serious

Dinah93

Gorgeous kitchen mini-makeover.

Do you mean mortgage would be higher than rent? If I'm not being too basic, your current house is stable, there is no danger of you ever being kicked out of it correct? So save your deposit for as long as humanly possible, if you can get to 25% 50% of the total house value, do it, you'll set yourself up for life. Nothing to be gained by moving quicker in your case surely?

Is your sister okay? Hope the move back is positive. It's always strengthening to be around your family.

Cinny91

Oh no, you're right Dinah! We rent from family so have no worries of being evicted, and the buying offer is never going to be off the table. My main concern (and correct me if I'm wrong!) is that our town is becoming a more "up and coming" area, and the house prices are starting to rise again. So the sooner we can buy, the more we'll stand to gain on the property value if/when we move? (although, I think if we buy we'll live here for long enough to see us MF!)

Houses around here are fairly cheap, so our deposit goal is 25% of the current house value :beer:

My Sister moving home isn't totally positive. Everything is tickety-boo Visa wise, it's more a situation her husband got them into. Won't go into it massively (mostly because it confuses me) but her husband started dealing with the wrong types of people, in attempt to turn a quick buck to get their lives together off the ground, when they first got married. And it's just got to the stage now where my Sister doesn't believe they'll be left alone unless they completely move out of the state, and (in her words) "If we're being forced to move away, we might as well move home" *waves union jack around*

She's also really struggling with the culture change, says she's sick of having to drive everywhere and wants to eat food that isn't 99% chemicals :rotfl:

gallygirl

Cinny91 wrote: »

says she's sick of having to drive everywhere and wants to eat food that isn't 99% chemicals :rotfl:

Ah, in the USA then :rotfl:.

Dinah93

House prices, have a look here. My area has risen nearly 2% in the last year, but only 4% over the last 5 years, and has actually been dropping in the last 6 months. If you're in an area with a high number of sales that's risen 10% in the last 2 years its a very different situation, but for me that 2% gain in the last year = £280 a month rise in value in my house so it would be worth buying in theory if the mortgage was £280 or less more than rent... in reality I've spent about £3000 a year on maintenance on this house, not counting doing it up, so no it probably wouldn't be worth buying, it would be better to save for longer. For a lower value home obviously you'd need a greater % rise to balance the numbers.

Cinny91

We have to pay for all the maintenance anyways! Our rent is so low because, as it's my Dad and Uncle who own the place, we take on the responsibilities as if we owned it. Luckily I grew up around builders, plumbers and have a gas engineer as a Brother so manage to do a lot of stuff myself/very cheaply.

Looks like my area has risen 8.79% in the last 2 years, 10.47% in the last 3? The kind of house we'd be buying has gone up by £1,231 in 12 months vs the £2232 we'd save on a mortgage by renting.

So renting, for now, makes us just over £1k a year better off?

A morning of work accounts followed by looking at all those graphs has well and truly melted whatever brain cells I had left. Still, we're planning on saving until next year anyways! Will take us that long to reach our target savings

gallygirl wrote: »

Ah, in the USA then :rotfl:.

What possibly gave it away?!

Cinny91

Afternoon!

Spoke to OH last night about everything, and we've decided from next month we're going to choose a date and set aside half of the difference each (£94, but we're rounding up to £100) We're going to open an ISA with whoever's bank offers the better rate, pop it in there and pretend it no longer exists! There are two bonuses to this; first being we can figure out how comfortable we are with a mortgage payment and the second will be that when we do buy a house we have an extra little pot of money so our savings aren't completely wiped.

Requested some eggs from my parents chickens this morning, will save 97p at the shop Although I did split an order of nakd bars with a friend at work and need to pay her £11 tomorrow for my share. Will bring our total food spend this month to so far to £53, £97 still left in the budget! Toying with the idea of getting a takeaway on Saturday night, my (MSE) mind is telling me no. But my body, my boooody is telling me yeeees.

Could not resist. I'm only a tiny little bit sorry.

Sent off for a new debit card yesterday Also started the ball rolling for our holiday!! Booked our two free nights in a cabin from our Christmas voucher in Somerset, then we're staying for a week in a cottage down in Cornwall straight after. Cheeky 9 day holiday :j It's working out fairly MSE too as we go the week after high season so the cottages are a few hundred cheaper and the weather is still generally lovely at that time of year. Hoping we can get a nice cottage for £350-400ish. I'm mostly just excited because it's our first holiday with Ryder!

gallygirl

Cinny91 wrote: »

Requested some eggs from my parents chickens this morning

Do they lay to order ? Can I have five golden and one chocolate please? On second thoughts, five chocolate and one golden :j.

Birdie85

Wow, it certainly sounds like your sister and her hubby coming home is for the best! Hope they get settled quickly and it's not too ardous a process for him to get his indefinite leave thingy so he can work!

Your holiday sounds lovely! We quite fancy some time away in a little cottage but all spare money must go to the Florida Fund! Ah well, sucks to be us, eh?!

Hope you have a fab weekend and enjoy your cheeky takeaway!

Cinny91

Morning everyone!

Weekend update as I'm at work so can type properly

Was payday yesterday so I made the most of the extra this week and put plenty to one side for bills later on in the month. Aiming to only spend £35 during the week. £15 on fuel, £20 on groceries. Ideally I'd like to have a £100 "float" in my current account and £200 to one side at aaaallll times for bills before I start saving. Although I did do a TT of £5.38 into an everyday saver to start my squirreling

Found some amazing blogs last night, mostly about decluttering your life and being more organised. One rule which I found quite interesting was this 20/20 rule. Which is basically the idea that all the things you keep "just in case" could be attained for under £20 or within 20 minutes if you ever did need them. Which I found quite interesting! In all fairness, I'm fairly ruthless with getting rid of things when I finally get around to it, but we do have an awful lot of stuff. Might do some kind of March Spring Clean/De-clutter challenge off the back of it.

Two nights ago we opened the terramundi pot as we couldn't get any more in. £495 :beer: We're going to bag it up and get it all changed over the next few weeks and put it straight into the house deposit at the end of the month/when we make a payment after OH gets paid. OH wants to get the bigger pot next, but they're £50+ and considering we filled a small one up in 7 weeks.. seems like an expensive way to save. BUT the novelty seems to spur OH on, so maybe it's worth it?

Decided to say hell-no to the takeaway and cook something together instead. Will save us £20 and probably be generally nicer anyways Plus we're meeting OH's parents tomorrow for.. caravans and carvery! :cool: They're taking theirs for a service so we said we'd go and have a butchers at some homes on wheels. Not that we're in the market to buy or even wanting one, it's just kind of like looking at houses you can't afford/in areas too far away. Carvery will just be our treat to them as it was their birthdays this month Did get OH's stepdad a iTunes voucher but I think OH is enjoying earning more and being able to spoil them.

Dinah93

Any blog recommendations? I need some very very serious streamlining, I feel very bogged down by life atm.

If you're happy to have any old sealed pot, not nessesarily a terramundi you can get Pot Of Dreams ones for under a tenner, or about £12 for the giant ones. Or terramundi on ebay are a lot less than on the high street (and you could pay innectar points?).