Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

LadyWithAPlan

So sorry to hear about your cousin - awful for you and all your family and his friends as well. Glad you can support his brother.

I have read your amazing diary (I am at the start - currently deposit increasing) and you really have turned up consistently and worked so hard.  Between Uber and just eats and your surveys. Wow.
You are very impressive and I am sure the new house will be great. I love kayaking, sailing etc and once nearly bought a Catamaran but as I live  in Central London decided it was a bad plan... Being able to walk to your paddle club is fabulous.

themadvix

Very sorry to hear about your cousin, how terribly sad and heartbreaking for his brother. Thinking of you all x

debtfreeoneday

Sorry to hear about your cousin. Sad times. 

What a lovely bonus re the £50. And house completion not far away. 

Kittenkirst

Morning Mortgage-free wannabes!

The last 2 weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind to say the least, 

This made me laugh @LadyWithAPlan

I love kayaking, sailing etc and once nearly bought a Catamaran but as I live  in Central London decided it was a bad plan... Being able to walk to your paddle club is fabulous.

It sounds like an thing i would want to do, then work out the practicalities and realise its not to be. Hope you have somewhere near that you can practice your love on the water?

We’ve had the formal notice served and completion is the 10th- we have chosen our floors (mostly- just waiting for the upstairs wood sample shortlist to be dropped round) and have gone with another company for the stairs runner too. 

We had our home preview which all went okay- they have noted down the main snags we spotted and had already advised the fencing and turfing would be completed before Friday. We popped round last night and saw the frame of the fencing up, but its not yet completed so they have a bit to do in the week.

We have been transferring £10k a day of the house equity over to our solicitors, signed the TP1 Documents and re-sent over our buildings insurance ready for completion. We have rearranged the snagging person twice now, so they are coming on the Tuesday 14th Sept and once that’s done our flooring guy will book us in. At that point we will arrange the movers to bring our stuff back from storage and get us moved into the house!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeek!!

Its felt like a distant dream for so long that we were chatting last night that it almost doesn’t feel real still. I think it will all feel real when we pay that first higher monthly mortgage payment though

In MSE news, Ive used a bit of cashback apps the last week and got some bits in a box ready for the move (cupboard staples that will help with the first 6 months or so when money will be tight with getting furniture etc) and I also won a SKY VIP £20 UberEats voucher. Its got until late September so will see if the timings work to get us a takeaway on move in day (or we may have to use it at in-laws before)- I’m thinking if i go collect unit, it will make the voucher go further too


I went out to do deliveries twice last week including Sunday afternoon, and on Saturday we went over to Cromford Mills (near the Peak District) for a kayak supplier sale that people at my paddle club were raving about. I decided to invest some of my deliveries money on some waterproof clothing as the weather starts to drop as club continues until mid October. It was a lovely old mill and we got there an hour after the sale started and it was half empty as people had been as soon as it opened. I still managed to get a ‘kag’ (waterproof sealed edged coat; its triple layered with latex arm cuffs neck cuffs, hood etc) that will be perfect. It was a sample as it was a ladies size 12 and they only do a men’s version currently. The men’s version is anywhere from £260-£295 online. I paid £125, which is a lot to me but its a three season one and I plan for it to be an investment in my sport

I also picked up some waterproof fleece lined knee-length paddle shorts I had bookmarked online. Which were £20 instead of the £45 just because they are last seasons colour. I was pretty pleased and spent £145 of the delivery funds. 

In the delivery ISA there is now £221.45 with £65 for tax. I will let it build up again before spending anymore on anything else.

In the spirit of living for the day, i finally did my scuba diving trial dive at a local pool. It was harder than I imagined, as I found it hard to relax at first under the water and breathing, but by the end of the session (45 mins) I was flippering /swimming around in circles the entire pool at the bottom . I was impressed as it was only £10 to give it a try too! Ive messaged them to find out more about courses to start that over the winter months when kayaking weekly sessions stop.

Off wakeboarding with friends this lunchtime which i am both excited about and super nervous. Its going to be much colder this time, and last time i did find my teeth chattered a bit in the water at first- not sure if nerves or cold or a bit of both!! However, I will take my dry robe which we can unzip and use as a blanket across laps after being in the water so should be a bit more snug

Kittenkirst

Oh! I forgot; we used our Paris savings to finally book our AirBnB for December and also booked a Christmas concert in Saint-Chapelle (both refundable, covid dependent) so we have that to look forward to later in the year too

South_coast

All sounds very busy and active, KK! Is there a particular reason why you're having a snagging survey done on the house?

Kittenkirst

South_coast said:

All sounds very busy and active, KK! Is there a particular reason why you're having a snagging survey done on the house?

We did it on our last house (also a new build) and found it invaluable for pointing out any building errors, that we wouldn’t have picked up. Its a piece of mind thing, knowing things like the insulation is laid correctly, all the brickwork/roof tiles are correct etc.

Its not the cheapest at £400 for the 4 bed house, but we saved towards it as we simply don’t know enough about building work not to pick up some of the errors Ive seen people share on social media.

Yesterday’s Wakeboarding session was fantastic! I managed to surf the wave behind the boat for 2 mins+ at a time, going round corners, using the board to manoeuvre myself towards and away from the boat and navigating massive waves. Such an adrenaline rush and so much fun. I go with three other friends and its so ace seeing them getting up onto the board and riding the waves too, all cheering each other on and enjoying doing something very different to the norm!

I’m definitely going to need to keep up the delivery driving in order to be able to fund the kayaking, scuba and wakeboarding into next year too as it soon adds up cost-wise and i really enjoy the time doing it and find it pretty fulfilling

South_coast

I've sent you a PM (I think!)

Kittenkirst

Morning all,
The last payment has today been sent to the solicitors meaning we have sent them £71,253.91 which is our house equity, solicitor payment & the reduced stamp duty (as its in the tail off period so we saved £2450 off stamp duty!).

Now we just wait for Friday to roll around.
We have made our flooring choices with the floor man- and got our quote back so it is 

£8440 for the full house- LVT in most rooms (different in bathrooms and bedrooms), underfloor heating in the kitchen/diner, and soft carpet in the lounge. The runner up the stairs will be £1100 paid separately to a different firm so its come out a little more than we expected, however we have been saving saving saving so can cover it okay.

I didn’t do any deliveries last week, and tonight is kayaking. I’m hoping to pop out tomorrow tea time and do a quick shift and earn £35-£40 as all these water sports are starting to add up

Cashed out a small £8.22 yesterday on Prolific surveys and have £3.80 in cashback paid so that’s gone into the savings account to overpay the mortgage from next week. Its all small amount but these bits will hopefully all add up over the 25 years!!

Today is looking to be another hot day so Ive got my loose harem pants on (from my Thailand trip- such a cliche I know!! They are my standard summer working from home bottoms) and a nice summery vest to try and enjoy the heat without being uncomfortable. Looking forward to getting out on the canal tonight- hoping there is a paddle board free tonight as I quite fancy a paddle and trying to stand up this week again (will take my new dry robe in the car in case of any overboard incidents too )

Kittenkirst

Today is the day!!!

Solicitors confirmed yesterday morning that they had the mortgage funds, however they then asked for another £999 as in their figures they hadn’t included the mortgage product fee from Leeds BSoc. Luckily we accounted for that already and planned to pay it off the mortgage next week, so we were able to transfer that quickly over.

Chatting with our Redrow lady i think we are aiming to meet her at 4.15pm this afternoon all being well and we will have bought our new home

Excited & Nervous is not the word for it!!!