Preparing for the biggest move of our life

bellevie

I made the payment to clear the car loan today.... Going forwards every penny to the house!!!

RosaBernicia

I've found L&C really helpful and straightforward every time I've spoken to them, definitely recommend for a free decision in principle even if you then go with someone else.  I used a local broker for my first mortgage as I felt more comfortable knowing there was a real person I could go to with any problems, but used L&C for the remortgage.  This time I spoke with a recommended local broker but found him a bit pushy and he 'forgot' to tell me about his £400 fee until he'd already done quite a bit of work - I did wonder, but his deal was as good as elsewhere and I figured he couldn't make me pay as I hadn't signed anything!  Funnily enough he offered to 'waive' the fee once I pointed out I hadn't volunteered to pay it.  I thought it was worth checking out my options so just ran the L&C online tool this time, it gives me a bit of leverage to ask questions of other brokers and an idea to compare with my bank's options. 

bellevie

Thanks Rosa, I hadn't heard of L&C before - I looked them up will definitely use their tool to get a quote. I finished my car loan, so will check when my credit file marks it off as complete. I like the idea of saving money, the broker we were going to approach charges £500, I wasn't looking forward to parting with that!

bellevie

I paid off a small outstanding balance I had with Next, with car loan also gone I am hoping it'll be easier to save to get towards our goal for October.
We are keeping an eye locally and we have seen a few houses drop lower, some of these hardly need any work and we would have the deposit by Christmas...decided whilst the house in our road is our ideal location wise, if there's anything locally for a similar price that doesn't need as much work we may need to rethink. Having said that I really do want to stay here if we can.

Still cant quite believe we may well have our own house before the year is out!!

Few days off now, although I have been working from home, its nice to switch off from work and recharge before my new role starts on Monday. I'll be office based for initial training on systems then I expect working from home most of the time. It'll be a very strange start to a new job, but a start I'll never forget!!

The scraps I planted during lockdown, potatoes, green onions, tomatoes are growing so well its unreal. I need to think up a protection for strawberry plants however, birds have taken a liking to them

RosaBernicia

Hurrah for clearing the car loan! 

I found L&C via the mortgage advice info on MSE, they used to support the FTB guide.  Lots and lots of info and tools on here for playing with mortgage plans.  I find I am also debating somewhere in a lovely spot that needs lots of work vs somewhere already sorted in a bit less appealing place.  Holding out for something perfect popping up at the end of lockdown! 

Re growing stuff, if you are getting into it have a look at this company - very much recommended. 

Rosa xx

bellevie

Thanks Rosa, will take a look.
Xx

bellevie

Bit of an expensive week, I'm hoping to complete a degree apprenticeship through work, they said I need to have my exam certs from 20 + years ago.... I don't have a single one! I found old school notes but my exam certs I expect were lost in one of my very many housemoves when younger.

My shock was the cost of certs being £47 per exam board and per exam series. My school used 3 boards for GCSEs and I think only 1 for AS levels but not entirely sure which. It's likely to cost just shy of £300 to get them all!!!!
Really am kicking myself right now. 

I've ordered from two boards to start see what comes back then approach the rest, I only need English and maths from gcses so there's a slim chance I may get them by luck before spending £150!

For sure it's a mistake I won't make again..... Grrrrr

RosaBernicia

Eek!  Fingers crossed you get them first go. 

It's bonkers what some places ask for.  The interview process for my current job insisted we bring degree certs, copies of current job description and passport, despite them knowing that only 1 in 3 of us would get the job and they'd have to shred 2/3 of what they'd collected a week down the line! 

bellevie

It is bonkers Rosa! One of the boards confirmed certs on their way - they haven't told me which so will wait and see with baited breath!

bellevie

The week has flown past, few more work visits that couldn't wait post lock down so I think that helped.

We've made a few changes at home, trying to make positive changes. We have a compost bin on the way to us we ordered it ages though money has just been taken from my account so hopefully not long now....it has crossed my mind if we move in the next few months it might be better to wait before using intensively. I am really keen to reduce our waste though. Local council is planning food waste collections from October which will help. 
We've switched to milk delivery a little more expensive but the cost had been increasing anyway with me becoming increasingly fussy on milk over recent years. And now, I figured less plastic in our bins, and local employment has to be a win win... I am a little wary our last delivery didn't arrive until 8 - ordinarily I would have already left the house at that point that would have sat on the step for 7+ hours. Previous deliveries have all been around 6am. Hopefully just a blip and will work ok....

I've toyed around with savings plan for pay day, in the end decided instead of splitting left right and centre, I will put the most I can in LISA to get the top up asap.
Although I will need to top up my emergency fund for possible childcare during summer hols and new school uniform....no idea what's going to happen at the minute. I don't really like the idea of DD mixing with children from different schools in the sports centre open to the public. 

We drove around to have a look at the area one house is in that we've seen - its close to a local park that we often go to but I've never been down that road - that was cheaper than next door and bigger but the shock we had when we pulled up and saw the parking....it was quite chaotic I wouldn't confidently park there, and DH would be stuck for space with his van. Its good to know we can rule that area out - a lot of properties in that section of town are of the same design. 


We have a few more houses we are keen on really looking forward to we can actually start viewing and offering!!