MFW Baby steps

Petal88

So I was just thinking about my grocery budget and batch cooking and bla bla bla when I realised that sure, if I don't plan my meals like this I probably spend around £20/week on lunches. But since I'm on my own Mon-Thur dinner wise every week and I don't have the motivation to cook a proper meal for myself, I can't be spending more than £15 on 4 nights' worth of dinners as they nearly always end up just being a salad or toast or a simple spaghetti and tomato sauce.

HOWEVER - then OH comes back on the Friday evening and every weekend ends up with nearly the same spending habits; we reward ourselves with good food on the Friday evening (e.g. steak and wine), perhaps a lunch out on the Saturday (or cinema in the evening with popcorn and nachos) and finish it off with a take away on the Sunday to make our last evening together special. Before you know it I guess we must spend close to £100 most Fri-Sun? :eek: Here I thought I needed to learn about couponing when simple curbing of our extravagant weekend spending would save us plenty of £££. Granted, we don't do all of that EVERY weekend (no takeaway or cinema this weekend past for instance, but spent £65 at a friend's birthday dinner instead) but clearly it's still too much for comfort.

It would help explain my ever expanding waistline as well :rotfl:

Petal88

Two things to say this morning:
- 123 interest this month was nearly £19 after my higher rate tax tax and £5 monthly fee! :beer:
- When you remortgage at the end of a fixed period, where does property value amount come from to calculate the LTV? I presume it's not based on the original value of the property but likewise I've seen nothing to indicate that the banks revalue it, so can someone please shed some light on this?

Can you tell I'm getting super excited about the prospect of changing our mortgage deal at the end of the fixed period next year? I know I've mentioned it before but we'd finally be able to change the term from 40 years down to 25 and cut over 200k in interest over the term of the loan! :T

shangaijimmy

The mortgage company will arrange a valuation. Ours was a super quick desktop one and back within an hour!

hiddenshadow

FD did ours over the phone, took about 3 minutes on hold for them to crunch whatever numbers they crunch.

If you're changing lenders they'll most likely want to send someone out to see the property. They'll use your property (including any potential upgrades you've done since purchase) and nearby/similar property prices to figure out the new house value.

Petal88

Perfect, thank you! I can always count on this forum

katep23

Petal88 wrote: »

I know I've mentioned it before but we'd finally be able to change the term from 40 years down to 25 and cut over 200k in interest over the term of the loan! :T

Wow, that is a huge difference!

Is it possible to remortgagte before your fix ends though? Would the ERP be less than the difference you would pay in interest?

The only reason I ask is that I have been looking and there are some really good 5 year fixes around at the moment for 85% LTV and who knows what the market will be like next year?

Petal88

katep23 wrote: »

Wow, that is a huge difference!

Is it possible to remortgagte before your fix ends though? Would the ERP be less than the difference you would pay in interest?

The only reason I ask is that I have been looking and there are some really good 5 year fixes around at the moment for 85% LTV and who knows what the market will be like next year?

I'm afraid the ERP is at 3% right now or 2% as of May so I'd have to pay either +9k or +6k.respectively. Even if I did the maths and it was worth it in the long term, that's just too big of a fee for me to be comfortable with paying in one go - not to mention I can't afford with a big wedding to plan!

Petal88

So a few things to report on; firstly I am definitely not going to pay for YNAB once the trial is over as I've already fallen off that wagon... I did download Toshl today though to give that another go.


Today is not only an NSD day (brought lunch in and dinner consists of cupboard/freezer stuff) but a colleague of mine is taking me with her to her fancy gym tonight so I'll spend the evening doing a class of body pump, using the cardio section of the gym and using their spa area for free - I can't wait!


Got an update from the recruiter about the offer my potential new employer is working on getting signed off for me - and it would be a 15k increase from what I've got now! :j Fingers crossed they manage to push it through as I would be a VERY happy camper on that salary .

hiddenshadow

Let me know what you think of Toshi - it looks weird/quirky but I haven't really investigated much.

Very nice with the new salary!

Watty1

nice new salary !
This year I have tried doing all my cooking for the month over 2 days. Its been working really well and we are eating so much better than before with lots more fresh stuff - and yet - our spend has gone down. (Still huge by board standards but about 1/3rd to 1/2 being saved).