Ruby's Bought a House, Now I want to Own It! 20 January 2017 at 8:45PM in Mortgage-free wannabe 435 replies 23.4K views

ruby_eskimo

Hi everyone! I'm Ruby and we moved into our first house last Friday (13th January '17), haven't even made the first mortgage payment yet and right away we want to take the first steps to getting mortgage free. We live in Surrey, where property prices are high to say the least. Luckily enough we managed to get on the HTB wagon and have a 95% mortgage - however we've had to go for a 35 year term. I really don't want to be paying my mortgage when I'm 50+ so I'm hoping to have it gone in 20 years if not sooner!

At the moment we have a holiday to pay for later on in the year (but I have a separate plan for that) and just some small projects around the house. We're planning on building some savings for emergencies and then allocating extra's to the Mortgage fund.

Hoping to get some inspiration and support from all of you - and try to be as thrifty as possible!

Kittenkirst

Hi Ruby! Congrats on the new house, it's such a wonderful feeling isn't it

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary

michelle09

Good luck Ruby!

ruby_eskimo

Thanks for the support everyone. Had our first major house problem this weekend - a totally flooded kitchen on Sunday! When we moved in, the water inlet for the washing machine was leaking slightly as the tap wouldn't turn completely off. Had our washing machine delivered last Monday, connected it up and everything appeared to be fine. Turns out the tap that wasn't fully closed, also wasn't fully open when it appeared to be. Cue a bang and a torrent of water coming out of the pipe where the pressure had built up so much that it caused the bolt to sheer off. Luckily we were in at the time and we know a plumber who lives not too far away, but we did have a point where there was about 2 inches of water in our kitchen and it's seeped under the floor into the living and dining rooms. Have been home owners just over a week and already have an insurance claim in. It's going to cost us £350 excess but it's a relatively small price to pay if we need a lot of work doing. I'm really paranoid about leaks as DH's sister had a leak in her bathroom that ended up in them having to move out for 6 months while all the flooring in their flat was replaced!

On the plus side, managed to only spend £28 on food for the week which is pretty good going and I get paid on Thursday so will be squirrelling away some cash then.

lippy1923

Welcome to the board. Sorry to hear about the leak/flood. Hopefully that will be the last emergency for a long time.
Will be reading with interest.
Lippy

pawlala

subscribed, sorry to hear about the flooding, good luck with your MFW journey!

ruby_eskimo

Thanks for the support lippy123 and pawlala. The floor in the kitchen definitely needs to be replaced as it's lifting all over the place this morning and the living/dining room is definitely more springy than it was. Was hoping for a NSD today but need to buy some more screen wash one of my headlight bulbs needs replacing so need to pick a new one up. The drive to work this morning was certainly interesting with only one light working!

Made a big batch of minestrone soup using veg that needed using up so that will do me for lunches for the rest of the week and maybe most of next. Better get back to work, hope you all have a good day.

ruby_eskimo

So the surveyor came out yesterday and measured the damp levels - apparently it's just the floor in the kitchen that will need replacing. Luckily it's going to be way below the cost of the excess for the policy so we've cancelled the claim and will do it ourselves.

Went to a conference yesterday and had a NSD which was great. Even better is it's payday today. I've done the money shuffle and we now have almost £5k in savings again - £3k is for work that needs to be done on the roof which we found out through the survey when we bought the house and the rest has yet to be allocated. I'm tempted to take £1k and put it aside as our emergency fund, and leave the rest for decorating etc. Anything over and above that will go into the mortgage fund I think but we'll know more when we actually start paying bills for the house!

Still struggling to get back into any sort of proper routine - hopefully we'll have finished unpacking at the weekend and I can make a start on getting back to some kind of normality from Monday.

russetred

Congratulations on the house, we also completed on Friday the 13th and also waiting to pay our first mortgage payment on 1 February.Apparently you save money by paying at the beginning of a month!?! Really looking forward to overpaying as much as possible to reduce our term of 11 years to a hopeful 7. Will keep an eye on your diary.Best of luck.

ruby_eskimo

russetred wrote: »

Congratulations on the house, we also completed on Friday the 13th and also waiting to pay our first mortgage payment on 1 February.Apparently you save money by paying at the beginning of a month!?! Really looking forward to overpaying as much as possible to reduce our term of 11 years to a hopeful 7. Will keep an eye on your diary.Best of luck.

Thanks russetred, although I'm jealous of your 11 year term - 35 years is just way too long for me but the only way we could get on the ladder!