It's a long and winding road

Kittenkirst

Fingers crossed on both fronts for you!! I imagine your both nervous & excited right now?

TwentySomethingGirl

I was...
We found out yesterday that they went for someone elses offer that was slightly higher than ours and they're a FTB. I swing between upset and angry, we'd really had our hearts set on it

We're still going ahead with the second viewing on the flat. We don't think these people are in any rush so if they put an offer in we'll keep looking (and quietly hoping the sale falls through on the house, I know that's an awful thing to want) and see where we go from there.

In mortgage news, I'd been delaying doing anything with the mortgage in case we moved but have now started the process to switch to a tracker deal at 1.64%. I've paid a chunk to the mortgage to get it below 60% LTV and the new rate should start from 1st January once I get it all sorted.

TwentySomethingGirl

Happy new year!

In house news, we've still not found anywhere we like. My husband wants to wait til the end of January to see if anything comes up and if not we're staying put which I'm quite happy with.

I sorted out the new mortgage rate, 2 year tracker at 1.54% so the monthly payment has gone down by about 80 quid and the S/O for the overpayment has gone up to counter that so we're still paying £700 a month. Savings are looking quite healthy at the mo, but the current account is suffering somewhat...the trials and tribulations of having moved in around Christmas, all the annual bills come due in the worst possible month!

mrsp1987

This may sound terrible but the festive period leads to quite a lot of broken relationships which has a knock on effect to the housing market. I hear that the end of January can see an increase in properties being put up for sale due to those relationship problems.
However whether these will be what you're after and in your area I can't say

TwentySomethingGirl

Well the wait goes on for a property. I had a call from the EA the other day "checking in" and telling me how they've had lots of valuations so are hopeful for lots of instructions and to look out for emails from them. Subsequent emails came from other branches because we've been put on a database and one of the properties was for offers overs £400k...our budget is up to £250k. I even don't like how they send the email, it's all in capitals, with bad grammar and even the emails seem pushy. They just annoy me.

I've decided to start doing tilly tidies, and will try to remember to do them daily. Something on the N/Wide website says they allocate any overpayments of over £1 the next day. I've never done one for less than a pound so not too sure what happens if the payment is for less than that. My plan is to round the account down and I'll do it by a pound and the pence.

January is going well so far, bar the annual bills that can't be avoided.

Found out my sister is pregnant so I'm knitting her a blanket and I got a sale list through from a cross stitch company I'm quite keen on so will try and resist buying [STRIKE]too much[/STRIKE] anything.

TwentySomethingGirl

Wow, I suck at this blogging thing!

To recap, we didn't get the house we wanted. Husband said "let's stay on the market another month and see if anything comes up"...

January became February became March became April. In April a house came up that we liked and after what would be a long story, we didn't get it. I told him I'm done with it and don't want to move which he duly reported to the EA who tried their best to get us to keep looking but I put my foot down (though they still have us on Rightmove!). We are now looking into remortgaging to incorporate the HTB loan later this year.

Overpayments are still happening, albeit not at great speed. We're filling up interest bearing current accounts first but once that's done we'll probably start OPing more.

The dog had to be treated for a poorly foot which turned out to be her being melodramatic with a bad itch for which the insurance will not pay out (she's had a foot infection before, and they're classing it as the same thing). Also had to have a new windscreen on my car which cost the £75 excess. That all meant savings in April, from March's payday, were non-existent but we seem to be back on track, and the husband's overtime made up for the month we didn't put anything aside.

Sister's baby is due in July and the blanket is not as far along as it should be!

That's about it, probably see you again in 4 months!

TwentySomethingGirl

So just shy of 2 months since my last update, I'm getting better! I read a lot on here but am hopeless at posting...

The dog's foot was fine in the end, though she then got a nasty ear infection. Luckily the insurance is going to pay out for that one less the £99 excess so not too bad, though she wasn't impressed with having her ear cleaned and drops put in it!

Sister's baby is due in 3 weeks so I'm checking every message from her as soon as it comes in in case it's the big announcement. Knitted blanket has not been growing that quickly so will definitely not be ready in time.

We decided to sack off looking to move. I was getting fed up of it all, I don't see why the whole process has to be such a palaver. We had a talk and agreed to stay put for at least 2 years and then see what's about. Shortly after this decision we found out we're having a baby! Little'un is due early December, husband is thrilled at a Christmas baby.

We then decided we would remortgage and pay off our HTB loan early. Our basic gross salary is about £48k and I was concerned about how much we'd be able to get once a financial dependent, childcare and potentially a lower salary for me if I don't go back full time were taken into account. We had the flat valued and it came back as £200k so we've made some extra overpayments so the new mortgage will be £150k :eek: That's all in the process of going through and the new mortgage will be with Santander. It seems they only let you overpay by £500 at a time so we'll have to save up and pay it in lump sums rather than how we do it now.

I'm only entitled to SMP so the overpayments will take a back seat next year. Any advice for getting by on one full salary and SMP??

SuperSecretSquirrel

Congratulations on the baby news!

Regards managing on SMP, we've found it to be much less of an issue in reality than we had originally anticipated. In our case SMP was about 47% of OHs full time net salary. Don't forget to add CB at £20.70pw (this took OH up to around 53% of full time net salary). Don't forget you'll drop some work related expenses too - can be substantial if you commute. We managed to still move forwards during maternity leave, just at a slower pace. We're now back for a second stint!

Of course, taking care of your baby will cost a fair bit, but probably less than you think. Your social lives will disappear for a while, so the savings there help offset the cost. Sounds like a crappy deal before the baby is here, but once they are here it's a deal you'd take any day of the week

I think dealing with the whole house buying and selling business while pregnant or with a tiny baby around would be nightmarish. The decision to drop the idea of moving for now seems to have come at the perfect time for you!

kirtsypoos

Congratulations, what lovely news!!

TwentySomethingGirl

Thank you for the congratulations!

It's also nice to know others have managed to keep up with overpaying on SMP. I think we'll be able to but it's annoying that Santander only accept £500 at a time, I might aim for £500 a quarter maybe.

After we found out about the baby I told my husband that I didn't want to even think about moving so all the Rightmove alerts were cancelled and we stopping window shopping. The plan now is to stay put for 2 years and by then I'll be back at work and we'll have a better idea of where we stand financially.

In mortgage news, our regular payment and SO op went out today and the balance will officially stay below £110k :j...at least until we add £40k to it Still, small victories!