Tackling what seems like the impossible

KittyMoma

Yesterday evening we had the vet visit for Pixie's (the Ragdoll cat whose picture is my avatar on here) annual booster and Peter's (3 month old kitten - addition to the family a month ago) second vaccinations and microchip. Total bill came to £219. The card machine didn't connect so I had to do a bank transfer instead. I was going to put it on my 0% purchase credit card

I currently have one 0% purchase card with the Post Office - who gave me one of the lowest credit limit out of all the credit cards I've had - £3,600 but a few days ago I got a letter saying they're increasing it to £7,200. Perfect timing as I was umming and ahhing about getting another one.

Does anyone know if you have lots of credit cards and even if you don't use them that much and you clear off the balances each month, do they affect applications/credit limits of new ones you apply for? I'm planning to get rid of my Tesco and Sainsbury's credit cards. The supermarket points thing isn't worth the hassle keeping them and the 0% on them ended ages ago. Tesco limit is £8,000 and Sainsbury's limit is £6,500.

KittyMoma

This week isn't going very well office-hours-budget wise. Under the budget of £5 a day for Monday, but Tuesday I was really hungry all day for some reason and wasn't prepared for it, today I had a lunch date which was £17 and I'm having lunch out again tomorrow with a friend. I'll bring in lunch for Friday though. Bad week

KittyMoma

I know I still have this afternoon at work left but I decided to add up what I spent this week during office hours.

£54.69 :eek:

And this is me watching what I spent! So bad.

Ok ok, it didn't help that I had two lunches out (£17 and £13) but still...

I have this evening and tomorrow afternoon free so I'll try and come up with lunch ideas for next week. A friend of mine has got me to agree on going low carb to lose some weight. I'm putting the cheese and tomato sandwich idea on hold for a bit lol

KittyMoma

Well. This has been neglected for too long. Sorry diary. So, what has happened over the past year and bit?

The budget planner app didn't last long.
I have four credit cards now for stoozing purposes so it was very difficult to keep track of what I was spending etc.
I paid for Experian for a few months and found out that if your debt (not including mortgage) is higher than £15k, they deduct points.
Last time I checked my score a few years ago, it was the top end of 'Excellent' so I was a bit shocked to find it was the lower end of 'Fair'. Not even 'Good', 'Fair'!!! What?!!!
Anyway, that's on its way up now. The main cause of the drop was because I applied for several new credit cards and current accounts too close to each other, within 6 months. As time goes by, these will drop off so score will improve. Not too worried about it, just need to remember not to apply for things too frequently!

I've gotten better at bringing in lunch from home. Not spending ridiculous amounts on lunch every day now so that's an improvement.

Exceeded goal for overpaying the mortgage in 2017. Happy with that.
I've realised I don't have enough cash savings so I'm going to build that up a bit for the time being rather than putting all my spare cash into overpaying.

Also I opened my first Lifetime ISA last year and paid in the maximum. Same this year. They weren't lying about the government bonus. Now I have £10k in the pot plus whatever the investment bods are doing in the background to grow the funds! For some reason this feels like easy, free money.

I've been dabbling with the idea of switching my current flat to Let to Buy mortgage and moving to a new property (bigger place but further away from central London).
There's plenty of information on Buy to Let mortgages but not much on Let to Buy.
I'm wondering if it's even worth it but it would be a shame to sell my current flat as it will only rise in price - it's doubled since November 2012.

Hmm. I think that's all to report for now. More later.

BookmobileBadGirl

KittyMoma,

I am so impressed by everything you have done. Not only have you done the dream and staircased to 100%, but have you have made great overpayment steps.

I bought 25% of my flat 18 months ago, and hope to buy another 25% next December which is why I am overpaying as much as I can now

KittyMoma

BookmobileBadGirl wrote: »

KittyMoma,

I am so impressed by everything you have done. Not only have you done the dream and staircased to 100%, but have you have made great overpayment steps.

I bought 25% of my flat 18 months ago, and hope to buy another 25% next December which is why I am overpaying as much as I can now

Ohh hello fellow shared ownership person! Thank you for your kind words

Are you planning to staircase to 100% as well? Do you mind me asking what your plan is?

A friend of mine had bought 30% but he was in no way going to be able to to go 100% so he sold and moved further out and bought a cheaper flat with no help. The logic was - if it wasn't going to be 100%, it's better to stay at a lower share because it will be easier to sell on than a higher share.

BookmobileBadGirl

My plan isn't very clear.

I am hampered by my income, I do not earn enough for the flat I currently have. I just had saved up enough of a deposit to make it affordable that they overlooked the minimum income thing.

I was going to staircase to 45% this year but have just changed jobs so mortgage wise not great, instead I will overpay more this next year and try and staircase to 50% next year. How I would staircase up to 100% would I am not sure. I think I would need a lottery win or an inheritance from a wealthy unknown relative.

I kind of agree with your friend, but as I will never be able to afford my own one bed roomed flat anywhere in the south east I will keep trying to increase my percentage so I pay less rent

KittyMoma

BookmobileBadGirl wrote: »

My plan isn't very clear.

I am hampered by my income, I do not earn enough for the flat I currently have. I just had saved up enough of a deposit to make it affordable that they overlooked the minimum income thing.

I was going to staircase to 45% this year but have just changed jobs so mortgage wise not great, instead I will overpay more this next year and try and staircase to 50% next year. How I would staircase up to 100% would I am not sure. I think I would need a lottery win or an inheritance from a wealthy unknown relative.

I kind of agree with your friend, but as I will never be able to afford my own one bed roomed flat anywhere in the south east I will keep trying to increase my percentage so I pay less rent

Ohh good on you for having saved up loads to begin with!

I suppose less rent and more equity for you when the time to sell comes.
Are you planning to live there long term?
Even if you sold this one and wanted to buy another shared ownership one, higher percentage might be trickier to sell.
Another friend of mine decided she wasn't going to live in her shared ownership flat for that long (she's getting married at some point and potentially moving) so she didn't bother staircasing at all to avoid the potential hassle the higher percentage might cause.

My contract said I could only staircase 3 times in total so you might want to check your terms and conditions as well.

Shared ownership gets a bad rep but I think there are more pros than cons!

KittyMoma

Okokok. I can't not overpay anything this year.

Mortgage 1 balance is £60,473.69
Mortgage 2 balance is £155,882.58

I can only overpay up to 10% on each one. The aim has always been to clear off the smaller mortgage asap so that my overall monthly payments will go down. The interest rate on the smaller one is also higher than the larger one.

I'll pay in the maximum I'm allowed for the year on the smaller mortgage for this year. I find out how much that is on June 25th.

Otherwise, need to build up savings.

KittyMoma

June 25th, I've overpaid into the smaller mortgage - £6,047.36. That will do me for this year.