Diary of a Property Dreamer

MandM90

cb4fwh wrote: »

Hiya,

Your first tax bill will be due early 2016 for the 2014/15 tax year. I'm self-employed as well, and have just recently moved house & my current provider did require 3 years of accounts.

However, I know that there are reputable contractor / self-employed sites offering mortgage products to contractors without 3 years accounts, so it may be worth starting there e.g. http://www.contractoruk.com/money/contractor_mortgages.html

Good luck!

Unfortunately I'm not a contractor but thanks

I can't stay away from right move lately - I think I'm obsessed. I've been trying to focus on the fact we live in a nice house now. I know I'll definitely miss my neighbours and gardens this long as becoming rare to find. I keep having chicken related chats over the fence to either side. I'd quite like to stay in this area (which is very possible) as we love the pub so much :rotfl:

I think my enthusiasm has rubbed off on DD (aged 6) too much as she happily watches Location with me and garbles on about getting "a house of our own". Not sure what excuse I'll have not to get a puppy when we move :eek:

I've promised myself this will be the week I reorganise my money!!

Current total stands at about 36k/60k. I feel like I'm getting closer, which feels good :j

cb4fwh

MandM90 wrote: »

Unfortunately I'm not a contractor but thanks

I'm confused. How are you paid? Through PAYE i.e. tax deducted before it hits your bank account? Do you complete a self assessment tax return, and pay any taxes due in January?

MandM90

cb4fwh wrote: »

I'm confused. How are you paid? Through PAYE i.e. tax deducted before it hits your bank account? Do you complete a self assessment tax return, and pay any taxes due in January?

I (well, my accountant) completes a self assessment.

After so long absent, an update.

Due to unforseen expenses (long story) the deposit fund is still just under 40k.

Last night we went to OHs family friend who is not only a fantastic financial and mortgage advisor (his son now covers the mortgage bit and he deals with the pensions etc, so his son will be holding our hand, so to speak).

It was really really positive meeting. A family member has offered us 15k, which brings our deposit to 55k, and OHs parents are looking into a small remortgage (they have around 700k equity in their house) in order to further bolster our deposit. My mum said she is also happy to look into it but only has 300k equity in hers and is 58. They will guarantee us, as my first year of accounts ends in July. Taking all this into account, the mortgage advisor reckons we're looking in the 300-320k range...which is much more than we thought we could afford :beer:

Things I need to do:

Email the accountant to arrange a few things the advisor suggested.

Follow some work leads

Draw up a proper budget (again)

Spend less time on RightMove!!!

MandM90

Now reached 47.5k

Can't buy until July and still no mortgage, so no idea where we stand. Excited and scared.

MandM90

Well, here I am, with a mortgage of £217,191.23, and counting.

Monthly payments are £927.25 (fixed at 3.39 for two years from 9/15)

We moved in in October and had lots of unexpected expenses, as well as changes in career. I'm finally ready to sit down and start attacking this thing!

First things first...find a mortgage spreadsheet that works and that I can make sense of. My ERC is 3%. I'm going to be honest...I don't know what that means...but I'd better work it out! :rotfl:

MandM90

We feel very feel off our goal, so I think the way I'm going to approach this is to do something every day to help us keep costs down/make a few pennies to chip away at this thing.

Today I aim to:

Make a meal plan for the next week
Find a mortgage spreadsheet that works for me
Go to the allotment (free entertainment and hopefully lots of fresh cheap veggies this year)
Sell some Michael Kors boots I've never got round to wearing

I also need to work out whether or not it's worth upping my payments with the 3% overpayment fee. There doesn't seem to be any anything about a free 10% or yearly lump sum, so on the face of it it's worth chucking whatever we have at it.

Take home pay between us is currently in the region of £3600 and we use YNAB, the budgeting software to track every penny. We are paying off a loan from my mum but she's not at all keen to have it back anytime soon and would rather we pay our mortgage off, so I'm thinking of splitting anything we have spare between her and the mortgage each month.

I also need to see if there is any way of bringing in extra money. My degree was in chemistry so I could potentially tutor but if I'm honest leaving the house at 7 and getting back at 7 in the evening, on top of cooking and housework leaves me battered!

On a more exciting note, we are having our wedding rings commissioned today! Mum is paying for them. I did say that she could just knock £1k off our debt to her but she is keen that we hurry up and get married already and wants to get us a proper wedding present. Once this is done we can see what dates the registry office have available and if it's OK for the local pub to shut for us (we were planning a small sit down meal to keep costs down but in laws won't hear of it and said they will pay to decorate and put money behind the bar at a small pub in Marlow)

MandM90

Still haven't sold the blummin' boots.


I've been using YNAB (You Need a Budget software) to track our expenditure and today our money hit an age of 21 days which is fab. We did get hit by an accountants bill too though


I'm going to aim to get my money to 31 days old (i.e. I've got enough money to pay for the next month, rather than each pay cheque paying for this months expenses) then let the overpaying begin!

MandM90

I'm really, REALLY loving YNAB.

This month we're having a meal out, and DDs birthday party.

This summer we have a big family wedding (involving a stay at a hotel and a John Lewis gift lift :eek:), a camping trip and potentially our own wedding planned.

I don't need to freak out about it because it's all budgeted and planned for

Last night we went and picked up a two seater sofa (thank goodness for the Tiguan) that a lady kindly offered us on freecycle. It's in fab condition and really comfy. She threw in the footstool too. It's nice to be able to use the living room we pay interest on daily :rotfl:

Next on our hitlist is an armchair and an undercounter freezer (we only 'inherited' a tiny half size freezer with this house and could do with one for freezing yellow sticker foods and leftovers), so I'm scanning freecycle, gumtree and ebay daily in the hope I'll get lucky!

MandM90

Last night we had 40p veggie curry (recipe) for dinner, sat on our free sofa watching movies snuggled up together. Lovely.






This morning I shoved a couple of potatoes in the oven whilst we got ready for work, so I will heat those up tonight and have them with a tin of beans. Not very fancy, but not a bad supper for 30p each. I find towards the end of the week if I don't have something ready I'm more likely to go 'off piste' budget-wise.

We had a heart to heart yesterday and Mr MandM is feeling a bit blue as I'm always saying 'we can't afford this'. Firstly, I should stop saying this as I usually mean 'that's not our priority right now', but also we need to make sure we enjoy our youth as well as securing our future.

To that end we are eschewing a night with a screen and are having OHs best friend over on Saturday. The initial plan was to go to the pub, but we've decided instead we will stock up on booze at Lidl and I'm going to make some falafels, homemade pizza or a selection of curries and we will just chat, listen to music, maybe play some silly games instead. It'll be yucky enough waking up with a hangover on Sunday, so I'm pleased we'll be avoiding budget related guilt on top of that!

MandM90

Ok, rang mortgage provider who said minimum payment is £500, they charge £75 admin fee + 3% ERC so if I want to reduct my mortgage by £1000 I'd need to pay £1120.

We have various 'pots' of money in our budget for car repairs, home improvements, pets etc, and are also trying to 'age' our money more, so I need to think about how we will OP reasonably without dipping into buffer funds.

Right now our budget (incl. all savings pots) is comfortably covered by our salaries. As previously mentioned we've both decreased our salaries in what we hope will be a sensible career move, so I'm thinking that I will have to overpay with outside funds e.g. selling things, airbnb. Also considering tutoring Chemistry but need to look up insurance and tax implications too.

Lots to think about, but I'm feeling excited and ready to kick this mortgages a***!