Cazmanian_minx's MFi3 diary

Kaz2904

Hope you have a lovely time caz.
Catshark, well done on your sale. I hope you get many more.

cazmanian_minx

Just a quick fly-by as I'm tidying up the flat and packing - I got my green star on eBay overnight for 5000 unique positives! That's a nice extra Christmas present

taka

:rudolf: Merry Xmas!:rudolf:

cazmanian_minx

Quick review of 2007:

Mortgage balance 5th Jan 2007: £37,399.85
Mortgage balance 5th Jan 2008: £27,451.25

Total paid off in 2007: £9,948.60

Which is pretty damn good, but it isn't going to get me MFi3. I need to start thinking bigger in 2008 - watch this space...

Christmas was good, the weather in Thurso was fantastic and I spent quite a bit of time out and about with the camera. Best of the 100+ photos I took are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22544094@N00/tags/caithness/
if anyone fancies a look. Astonishingly we've NOT fallen in love with a house this time, despite going to look at about 10 on our 'possibles' list!


My New Year's Resolutions are:
1. Get fitter (I invested £7.99 in a copy of Running Made Easy yesterday and already have some good running trainers. I start on Monday, wish me luck!)
2. Write more (more than the 2 short stories I managed last year, anyway).
3. Answer at least 5 AQA questions a day (every £1.50 makes a difference).
4. Have a photo published in a magazine (even if it gets ripped apart in a critique spot in one of the photo mags!)
5. Drink more water.

Next week I'm going to give myself an annual appraisal and will set myself some bead-related goals then.

2008 is going to be a good year. I should be able to draw a line under my divorce finances once and for all (currently knee-deep in old bank statements!) and then I'll know exactly where I am.

Caz

setmefree2

£10k - well done:T:T:T:T:T:money:

catshark88

Gorgeous pics Caz. I particularly like the Port Vasco landscape and the line of kings. Good for you!

cazmanian_minx

Yes, it's finally come - after 2 years of the relative ease of a base rate tracker, I'm now on if.com's Standard Offset Variable Rate of (wait for it....) 7.25% :eek::eek::eek:

My payments have gone up from £164.99 to £193.29, so it's not really that bad. I've been checking through their site and they do have a remortgage that might suit, an offset tracker that's BoE+0.74% for two years with no arrangement fee, free legals and no penalties for redemption after the two years are up, but I can't do anything about it until my solicitor sends me a copy of my decree absolute and I get the home rights order removed.

Scary to see that the deals nearer the one I was on (BoE+0.44%) now have arrangement fees of between £999 and £1499. Worth it if you've got a six-figure mortgage, I suppose, but that's about 5% of my outstanding loan!

Caz

cazmanian_minx

Just up the road from me is a terraced house in poor condition. There was an old lady living there alone for many years, but over the summer she had a fall, was taken to hospital and the house went on the market shortly afterwards. I was interested, but didn't even have a chance to go and see it before the FOR SALE sign turned to SOLD (SSTC). The sign eventually disappeared and we all expected to see scaffolding go up and skips appear, but nothing happened.

I walked past it today and noticed that the same agent had a new FOR SALE sign up outside it. 'Oooh,' I thought. 'The sale must have fallen through.' So as I was heading into town anyway, I took a detour via the estate agent to have a look in their window.

It wasn't displayed in the window, so I went inside (dangerous!) and spoke to a lady who, at first, wasn't sure which house I was talking about. I gave her what I thought was the name of the road (I've only lived here 9 years...), said that they'd had it on the market over the summer for about £270k and it now appeared to be re-available again. Eventually I managed to described it well enough for her to know which one I was babbling about.

'Oh yes,' she said. 'It was the price that threw me, it's not £270k, it's £370k!' And she handed me the particulars. I thanked her, said I'd discuss it with OH and would be in touch and walked out, thinking I must have mis-remembered the price.

So when I got home I looked it up on Nethouseprices, just to check. Nope. Sold in July 2007 for £279,000. Its new owners haven't done a thing to it other than obtain planning permission for it to be split into three flats (which would be a shame, because it's a big 4-bed house with a huge attic and 30ft garden and lots of original period features).

I wish, wish, WISH I'd been able to have a look at it over the summer, because it's got the potential to be such a wonderful house - OH has been itching for a project to get his teeth into and this would have been perfect for us to buy, live in for a couple of years, do up and then sell on - a nicely done 4 bed with two schools within walking distance would sell like a shot. Unfortunately it's now well out of our price bracket.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-16592455.rsp?pa_n=4&tr_t=buy

(it's the one on the left and the price is wrong!)

I'll talk to OH. If it hasn't shifted by the summer, I might try offering £285k

Oh, and OH emailed me this morning to say the house in Lybster that we nearly bought has had its price lowered by £10k. We've agreed that if they drop it a further £10k we'll put another offer in, so all may not be lost there either

Caz (wannabe property tycoon today!)

robp

Hi Caz,

Would you recommend the OU course then? I'm getting into photography more as a hobby this year and have been looking for local courses, which seem to be thin on the ground.

How long does it take to complete the course?

Thanks for any advice and enjoyed the photos!

Rob

cazmanian_minx

robp wrote: »

Hi Caz,

Would you recommend the OU course then? I'm getting into photography more as a hobby this year and have been looking for local courses, which seem to be thin on the ground.

How long does it take to complete the course?

Thanks for any advice and enjoyed the photos!

Rob

Hi Rob,

It's a 10-week course and I wouldn't really recommend it unless they make some big changes. There is absolutely no tutor input into your work during the whole course, it's all peer-review until the end of course assessment, which is assessed by the university. My Mum has been doing the Open College of the Arts photography courses and I've been really impressed with those - but they last a year and are 3 times the price of the OU ones. However, you get a personal tutor, lots of assignments which are all marked and sent back, and the option of having an end of course assessment for which you can get points which count towards a degree (as do the OU ones, to be fair).

Caz