Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst

It did sound lush didn’t it South Coast
Thanks for the well wishes DFOD, and Sandy Shores- I think it will definitely be worth it over the long term

Last night we went to the Redrow development and reserved the dream house!!!!!! We did our research online and had already agreed all the upgrades that we wanted to see what they would include for free- after lots of discussions and negotiations they added it all- all £12,090 worth Craziness!

We don’t want their flooring so will sort that out ourselves, but we now have a new home that will be ready at the end of the year. So, we are starting to get ourselves prepped to move in with girlfriends parents and put our things into storage so that we can sell our current house, and then be ready for the new place. This will also give us some time to save a little bit more money as storage and paying the parents wont be anywhere near the bills we currently pay!  
It definitely feels that this year is coming good for us, after a tough old 2020 (like for many, just in different ways).

We’ve not yet heard about Oscar so I’m calling the vets shortly to try and find out about the tests from Monday. He’s still sulking and is feeling sorry for himself with his dodgy buzz cut!

SandyShores

Good negotiating Kittenkirst!!  You'll be in your lovely new home for New Year 2022 

Hope Oscar feels better soon.

CathT

Wow kittenkirst, so many changes happening but all sounding so positive. You're going to see out this year in style!

Kittenkirst

We were so pleased to get everything off our wish list included- amazing, especially when we think when we bought our current home we didn’t negotiate for anything (naivety of being FTB).

We have our mortgage appointment this afternoon as we have a mortgage approval in principle but will be applying fully this afternoon. 

We have our choices for the house on Saturday morning, and have contacted the lovely tradesman who put in our amtico flooring for this house with the floor plans and what we’d like, so we can get indicative numbers. We’ve also asked for him to quote with and without underfloor heating in the kitchen/family room. Fingers crossed its a lot cheaper than Redrow’s £9800 to floor the house (and that’s not giving us the options we want in the bedrooms and is getting the cheaper items!!!)

The vets been in contact about Oscar- he has FIC which is essentially intermittent cystitis. Waiting to hear further back about treatments and what best to try. Ive been reading up on it so far with the link the vet sent us and will chat with them on Monday. Fingers crossed we can have him feeling more comfortable very soon. The good thing is he really likes the Rheumocam painkiller he has in the evening so giving him the syringe of that daily isn’t causing too much stress for either him or us!

Kittenkirst

Mortgage broker session all completed and numbers finalised.

New mortgage will be at 2.2% with Leeds Building Society fixed for 5 years. This is better than what I had found online and also better than another mortgage broker advised us to take, so we are pleased with it.

That means our current mortgage payment of just under £690 will increase to £1170 per month which sounds like a huge increase (and it is) but my salary is going up by £375 a month and the girlfriends salary went up by £400 a month last year so more than covers the difference.

With moving into the girlfriends parents, we will have removal costs, storage costs and then unpacking costs to cover off, however we currently put £800- £850 into our joint bills account so we should be able to save a bit extra until we move into the new house.

Dinner tonight is leftover Chinese from last night- we treated ourselves as a celebration of selling our house, reserving the new one and for me leaving my workplace!! Felt like a good reason to celebrate with our favourite takeaway (and it was only £24 and will feed us again tonight- Brucey bonus!)

CathT

I'd say that was definitely worth celebrating and leftovers are a bonus! 

earthgirl2

Congratulations on the house and all the other news! Just wanted to de lurk to say thanks for mentioning olio, I checked last night and got lots that was going to landfill. Great reminder thank you!

Kittenkirst

Awww that’s fab Earthgirl2! Glad it prompted you to check it- such a great app isn’t it!
Whilst the girlfriends parents shop is closed, they had 8 packs of digestives go out of date (still fine to eat) so popped them on olio and they were gone within 24 hours Our food waste hero goes late night tonight so will keep an eye in case she lists anything we would use in the next few days.

We are on a mission to try and use up our freezer (and the chest freezer of stuff at girlfriends parents) so after a rummage tonight we have a lunchbox full of Indian style rice (assume from a takeaway some time ago), frozen peas, frozen baby corn, frozen spinach and a handful of prawns, This will go in a wok with some eggs for extra protein to make an Indian style egg fried rice. A bit of a random dinner but I’m sure it will be tasty!

I started the new job yesterday and the people are just lovely, although it’s a lot of learning and my brain is a bit fried this evening. So much to learn but I’m sure I will get there

We’ve had an email from the vets about Oscars FIC- we are to switch him to a prescription food specifically for urinary issues, continue using the feliway diffusers and the feliway cystease tablets daily. They advised to make sure he is kept occupied and not bored (! He’s an outdoor cat who hunts, a lot so I’m not sure how he can be bored!). He seems to have recovered from the latest bout of cystitis/bladder issues which is good as he’s happier

Overpayment has been made to the mortgage instead of the council tax due on the 1st March- it would have been £146, and Ive had Quidco of £2.50 cash out too so we’ve sent £150 to the mortgage to get it down as much as possible before the sale/purchase. Ive also managed to redeem £5 on airtime rewards against my mobile phone too so my next bill will only be £15. Every penny counts at the moment!

We need to send lots of documentation to the solicitors tonight as we hadn’t realised we now needed to appoint them for the buying of the new house (assumed it was part of the sale process we have already started with them) so that’s an extra £1600 we hadn’t accounted form and need to send £360 over tonight to them too urgh

debtfreeoneday

Not sure what food he is on but if you can hunt about. Ours is prescription and it would cost nearly £150 through the vets a month but we found somewhere online that halves that cost. 

Glad you got a diagnosis at least. These men cats and their bladders!!

Kittenkirst

debtfreeoneday said:

Not sure what food he is on but if you can hunt about. Ours is prescription and it would cost nearly £150 through the vets a month but we found somewhere online that halves that cost. 

Glad you got a diagnosis at least. These men cats and their bladders!!

We have had a bit of a hunt around and Animed Direct seemed to be the cheapest for the brands recommended by the vets. Where do you source yours from? 

The first week at the new job is now done and man alive- I am shattered- learning is very draining, as well as doing lots of background reading. I was falling asleep on the sofa last night at 7.50pm! I’m having to google a lot of terminology used to try and make sense of it, but I’m sure that’s the be expected when working in a different sector to what you are used to.

We’ve been lucky this week with Olio collections- we’ve had some Tesco sandwiches for lunch twice thanks to our food waste hero lady, and also enjoyed some toasted teacakes, some odd bits of veg and a Greek salad. Yum!  It’s now been three weeks since our last online delivery of food, and the freezers and fridge are still looking so full, so we have a way to go before 

I have also had two deliveries from online shopping- £20.48 spent at Accessorize on new wallets, a new work silk scarf and two work bags (all in the sale) and then £55 from Dorothy Perkins using my old workplace vouchers. I ordered 3 tops that were £7.20 each and perfect for working from home, a cotton dress for £5.04 which fits beautifully (bring on the spring sunshine!) and then 3 pairs of wedge sandals to try on (each one from £4.94- £5.20). I will only keep one pair of the wedge shoes and send the other two back, as I already own a pink pair that are super comfy and pretty but don’t go with much of my wardrobe; I’m hoping  the beige/ natural or black will complement so I have two options for summer footwear (other than flip flops!).

We have our options meeting tomorrow at the Redrow offices which is exciting, and we have had our flooring quote back from the guy who did our current house. Redrow wanted £9890 to do the whole house but that would mean carpet in bedrooms (we want wood/laminate/vinyl ideally). Our guy Justin has quoted up exactly what we want but based on the premium brands available, and including underfloor heating in the kitchen for around £8600!! He is going to show us cheaper alternatives closer to the time but its good to have a ceiling value we are working towards with saving, and great that we can have underfloor heating in the kitchen/Dining/Family area as that’s the room we plan to spend the majority of our time!