Do I need a loan?

Coveredinbees!!!!

Get it fixed, tyres and brakes wear out on every car plus tyres and pads for a punto won't be much. You just got out of debt why would you want to go back there again if you don't need to?

mangle101

Abstain from entertainment for a month, this will free up £300, enough to fix your head gasket with £50 to go towards your brakepads, as for the honeymoon split it between visiting your new wifes family in Egypt & meeting your friend in Kent, I'll pitch my tent in my back garden & you can stay there for a week or so FOC, Margate is fantastic :-)

tlc678910

Hi,
I appreciate you are some way along the process of purchasing your own flat but is postponing buying for a year an option?

You mention the mortgage being around £800 so with your other bills you will be looking at around £1100 I would think. So even if you have committed fees of £1500- £2000 to your purchase you would recoup this in a month or two. (If your family were able to have you and your wife live with them for a bit of course).

I ask because you are a young couple starting out, your wife will be new in the country and it sounds like you would like to meet up with friends and enjoy yourselves a little (nothing wrong with that) but tight finances from all your commitments (flights, honeymoon, flat etc could put a real dampener on this) If you are able to live with your family for a short time (giving them some rent/expenses) you can save as well as socialise and your partner might have a job also which will help.

Personally I think the honeymoon is important, especially as your wife's family have carried all of the cost of the wedding. Although unspoken I think a honeymoon is your part of this. That's not to say it needs to be expensive a special week together in Egypt or the UK would perfect in my opinion.

At the very least it must be worth talking it through with your wife to be - would she prefer a honeymoon/ money to socialise and have weekends away while she looks for a job living with your family in the short term or to get straight into your own place even though this will mean sacrifices.

Good luck
Tlc

(Ps I don't agree with the suggestions about living in other countries etc I think it ignores the fact you have a well paid job right where you are)

Rossim1985

mangle101 wrote: »

Abstain from entertainment for a month, this will free up £300, enough to fix your head gasket with £50 to go towards your brakepads, as for the honeymoon split it between visiting your new wifes family in Egypt & meeting your friend in Kent, I'll pitch my tent in my back garden & you can stay there for a week or so FOC, Margate is fantastic :-)

Good idea re the entertainment / cat. Thanks for the offer!

Rossim1985

tlc678910 wrote: »

Hi,
I appreciate you are some way along the process of purchasing your own flat but is postponing buying for a year an option?

It would be very bad from a visa application point of view. When I spoke to an immigration lawyer several months ago she knew I was at home and told me to make sure I was out of my parents either renting or having bought somewhere before we do the application. Aside from that I really really love my new flat and can't wait to move in too!

tlc678910 wrote: »

Personally I think the honeymoon is important, especially as your wife's family have carried all of the cost of the wedding. Although unspoken I think a honeymoon is your part of this. That's not to say it needs to be expensive a special week together in Egypt or the UK would perfect in my opinion.

At the very least it must be worth talking it through with your wife to be - would she prefer a honeymoon/ money to socialise and have weekends away while she looks for a job living with your family in the short term or to get straight into your own place even though this will mean sacrifices.

I agree that the honeymoon is important especially because I will have to head back to the UK without her until all the visa stuff is done. My parents were going to spend some money on a UK 'reception' in early summer 2016 for friends and family that could not attend the wedding in Cairo. I might have a chat to them about cutting back on that and perhaps helping me out with the honeymoon instead.

tlc678910 wrote: »

(Ps I don't agree with the suggestions about living in other countries etc I think it ignores the fact you have a well paid job right where you are)

I appreciated the posts / idea as it was not something I had even thought of but I agree with you that it would be madness to leave my job. I changed jobs only 18 months ago and I'm now much much happier and also earning £9k more basic after a pay rise this month and that's a big difference (well to me anyway). The company has just cleaned up at an industry award ceremony and had it's best ever financial results so it would be silly to leave when the outlook is very good at the moment.

ViolaLass

Rossim1985 wrote: »

I agree that the honeymoon is important especially because I will have to head back to the UK without her until all the visa stuff is done. My parents were going to spend some money on a UK 'reception' in early summer 2016 for friends and family that could not attend the wedding in Cairo. I might have a chat to them about cutting back on that and perhaps helping me out with the honeymoon instead.

That's a great compromise for you, but not so great for the friends and family who can't make it to Cairo!

When_the_going_gets_tough

My understanding that obtaining a visa for your wife will be neither quick, cheap or easy. I would therefore hold off on all expenditure you can avoid until you have paid for all the visa application costs. I would have thought allowing 6 months for the application would be more realisitc. Could you take in a short term lodger until your wife arrives in this country?

Rossim1985

Just a quick update on this thread. Thank you to all for your advice.

The car was going to cost £300 to fix, however my mechanic offered me £250 for it as is. He was going to fix it and give it to his niece as a first car. I accepted his offer as I would have really hated spending that much on a car I already hated! So I'm going £500 banger shopping at the end of this month with £250 already in my pocket. Not too bad really.

I have also had a provisional ombudsman decision in my favour from a complaint I did against old loans I had in 2012. That could be a return of circa £2,000 which will go a long way with the visa so for now I am definitely going to be avoiding any loans which was what I wanted. I got lucky for a change I guess!

Thanks again to everyone.