22 Foxhole East

greenbee

f0xh0les wrote: »

Oh go on, I've shown you mine! :rotfl:

I think me paying the daily interest (about £180 pm) so all DH's 'proper' payment actually makes a dent in the amount is the only way I am going to be able to do it.
Tonight I Just applied for a christmas casual post at the post office sorting office. Might turn into something, might not. Even if I only did weekends it would be an extra £150.00 a week....will keep you posted.

Haven't looked at mine recently, as I try not to think about it, but it started at around £320k (and I'd paid all but £30k off the last one!). I keep consoling myself with the fact that at least work travel saves me money as I don't have to pay for heating, lighting, food, hot water or laundry (if I'm away for long enough).

Mind you next trip is to the US and looks like Hurricane Irma will be turning up to greet me

I've got a landscaper due to build a base for a second-hand greenhouse I'm being given, builders due back to do the snagging from last year, and am about to bite the bullet and start on downstairs with levelling the floors.

f0xh0les

If it is any consolation, my bedroom is bare plaster and filler, the carpets are nasty , there is a hole in the bathroom laminate (water damage ) the hall, stairs and landing are bare stripped plaster, the shower leaks, the downstairs bathroom has been nicknamed 'the black hole of Calcutta' and I have not got around to hemming the curtains.

If I had a line of credit open to me, or a salary, I would have fixed everything with a loan and sorted that out ASAP then thought about overpayments. But with the end of the low interest rate coming up, and a few places telling me when we applied for the mortgage they would not offer us more than about £106k on DH's salary (5 dependents on the one salary - even though I am sooo cheap) I feel like I have to smash this down as fast as I can.
I had a look at the best buy mortgages for switchers or porters or rate tarts, or whatever I am called right now, and DH's bank actually tops the leader board at the minute.

So I have asked him to find out they would offer him. Under 1% would be ideal, and I could hammer the hell out of the capital repayment with that deal. I am sure my rewire and double glazing will bump up the valuation a bit too. Just need to have the decoration done before anyone turns up to value it!!

f0xh0les

kerri_gt wrote: »

Pun intended? :rotfl:

Oh yes! Glad you noticed

f0xh0les

greenbee wrote: »

Haven't looked at mine recently, as I try not to think about it, but it started at around £320k (and I'd paid all but £30k off the last one!). I keep consoling myself with the fact that at least work travel saves me money as I don't have to pay for heating, lighting, food, hot water or laundry (if I'm away for long enough).
.

I honestly don't know how anyone in the South copes. I went from living in London to uni in the Midlands, and with the exception of 9 months in Portsmouth, Leicestershire is the furthest south we have been for 20 years. Northern ££s last so much longer than Southern ££s.

greenbee

I've been here 4 years now Foxholes. Last year I finally did upstairs so half the house is civilised. I moved in August bank holiday 2013, and ripped out the carpets, underlay and most of the kitchen. In November I had bare concrete floors and was having the boiler, hot water tank and downstairs radiators replaced. The windows were so rotten every time I opened on more of it fell off... It was a VERY cold winter.

Early 2014 I knocked through from the kitchen to the dining room, and put a door in the garage.

At the end of the summer I had the windows replaced. All 17 if them. With hardwood DG windows. The difference is amazing!

in 2015 I had the roof sorted out (lead redone, some slates fixed) and then the loft insulation replaced (new insulation is much more effective than old insulation + mouse poo and dead mice) and the main bathroom done.

My dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer in Jan 2016 so I got a bit of momentum and the builders did the whole of upstairs (floorboards up, electrics and plastering and plumbing, ensuite, some of downstairs wiring, rest of the rads, zoning the heating) as well as moving the staircase in two months so I could show him some progress before he next came to visit. He died at the end of last year, still telling me to get a move on and get my kitchen done!

This year I've had a bit of a break and mostly done the garden. But there's still all of downstairs to do, including levelling the floors so flooring can go down, putting a kitchen in and replacing the doors. This should all make the house a lot warmer (as will replacing the ugly open fire with a stove). But it'll involve a lot of dust so I've been putting it off.

My kitchen will be second-hand, and isn't available yet due to building delays, so i'm hoping I can get the floors levelled in the sitting room, hall, loo and office (the dining room/kitchen/utility can be done separately, the electrics and filling done and maybe the decorating before Christmas, and then the patchwork of carpet can go back down. I can't see the flooring being done, although we might get the loo floor done.

I still have to decide what to put down in terms of flooring. I'm leaning towards bamboo for the office, hall, sitting room and dining room; ceramic tiles for the loo; stone or ceramic for the kitchen and utility. But you do end up getting decision fatigue.

I will probably end up having to get the builders to do the decorating as well, because I'm away quite a bit, and it will need to be done before the flooring goes down.

It'll be good to feel I've done some of it, although I'm not looking forward to the dust!

I remortgaged for 2 years recently, and rates are lower than when I moved. If I can finish the house before the anniversary I'll have a year of low rates to pay down a big chunk, and then pay off as much as I can before I sign up for my next deal...

So there is a kind of plan...

greenbee

f0xh0les wrote: »

I honestly don't know how anyone in the South copes. I went from living in London to uni in the Midlands, and with the exception of 9 months in Portsmouth, Leicestershire is the furthest south we have been for 20 years. Northern ££s last so much longer than Southern ££s.

When i'm done I'm tempted to sell up and move north. As long as I have broadband and access to an airport location isn't important :cool:

f0xh0les

You could probably afford a whole village in Lancashire!

So sorry about your dad.

You will get there in the end!!

greenbee

Just checked... Mortgage is now down to just under £290k. I think I have enough money in savings to finish the house (if I stop buying plants...). It's been getting cheaper and cheaper to run as my oil bills have been dropping as the energy efficiency improves, which is one positive.

Once the work is done, I can start overpaying and start my own diary instead of reading everyone else's!

f0xh0les

From £320k to £290k in 4 years is fabulous!! £30 odd k without overpaying. I take it you are planning on staying there for a while?

With DH moving around for work - this is his first 'permanent' contract in his second career - and us having no ties geographically, we should only be here for another 4 years or so. It is much harder now DS1 has started his GCSE years, and DS2 will start his as soon as DS1 ends, which will take us up to A' Levels, we don't really want to disrupt them too much, unless we could go back to Sheffield, they all loved Sheffield and say they would go back in a heartbeat (the barking mad Scouts group was amazing) of if we could get a job at a Scottish university so the kids could get a free University place, that would be cool too.

One day I shall live by the sea. Might have to end up in a camper van, but one day I shall live by the sea.

greenbee

I never plan but do at least need to stay until I've finished Like you, it does depend on work - at the moment location doesn't matter as i'm home-based, but that won't necessarily always be the case.

I do think though, that with houses, unless you are planning on doing them up purely to sell and move on (which I'm not sure is as profitable as some people like to think), you need to do what you want to make it the place YOU want to live in. I planned 5 years in the last house and stayed 13. As a result I redid some of what I'd already done (not just maintenance).

So do what you need to in order to make the house the home you and the boys (and DH...) need. As with mine, whatever you do is going to be an improvement on what you started with from a resale perspective

As for the mortgage... the reason it's gone down that much is because it's so huge. But it will start to speed up, and the thought of being able to start over paying is motivating as far as getting the work done (although I expect that'll wear off after a few days of builders...)

Keep looking out for that camper van...