Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

enthusiasticsaver

Get your DHs virgin card as low as possible before porting to keep the BT fee as low as possible. The loans and the HP deals will also affect affordability so don’t be tempted to take any more HP out. Instead of thinking what discounts you are saving think of the extra £130 you need to find a month to come out of your income to repay it.

I appreciate you want to do all this work to your house but it does not all need to be done now. I think it took us the best part of 15 years to get our house decorated and as we wanted it.

I read your old diary last night. Did you stretch yourselves to buy this house? It looks like your mortgage at one point was £119k and it more than doubled when you bought this one? Maybe I have it wrong though.

try_harder

That sounds like a great plan .You can do it.

XSpender

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

I love reading your diary, as I think you're as honest and open as I am about your less-than-perfect spends, but also open to people suggesting things that don't need to be spent on.

That's why I like reading your diary too TOPM. If I can't be honest on here I am only lying to myself and that isn't going to help me move forward. I kind of know what I should and shouldn't be doing but sometimes hearing it from someone else makes it more real.

I would agree that every single item on your house list is a want rather than a need - absolutely none of them are needed to make/keep your house habitable. Our house also hasn't been updated at all since the late eighties - the kitchen is revolting, every single last wall is papered in vile textured wallpaper and the hideous artex ceiling plastering is flaking off due to (now resolved) damp, so I feel your pain in holding off doing work that would make home life infinitely more enjoyable. But over the past 12 months I have really had to get my head round the idea that I don't have a right to any of those lovely things I would like. They are extras, not necessary for our health and safety. It really grates, especially when I visit friends who have been able to do all the things on their properties that I would have done to ours were it not for LBM and DF journey. And knowing how lovely our house will be when it finishes. All of it. But none of it is worth making our financial position even more vulnerable than it already is.

The 80's textured wallpaper, aertex ceilings and dated kitchen are exactly what we have here. Plus we moved from a 2 down 3 up to an 8 down 6 up and needed storage as we had built in wardrobes and cupboards in the last house.

I have spoken to DH again this morning and agreed that we finish the guest room and that is it so we can focus on reducing the debt to allow the re-mortgage. I would not bother doing this room but my mum and step dad stay in this room (because it has the en-suite) and as they live 100 miles away they stay over when they visit us. It's not as if we have lots of other guests all the time and none of our friends care what the house looks like they just like looking at the view :rotfl:

I don't have a very close relationship with my Dad who lives abroad, hence I haven't seen him in several years, and he is a bit of a snob which is why I suppose I wanted to make the guest room nicer than it is when it hasn't bothered my Mum before

I am going to work on DH (who likes gardening but is short of time) to get him to agree that we do a lot of work in the garden together.

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I appreciate you want to do all this work to your house but it does not all need to be done now. I think it took us the best part of 15 years to get our house decorated and as we wanted it.

We had planned to take 5 years and we are way ahead of that.

I read your old diary last night. Did you stretch yourselves to buy this house? It looks like your mortgage at one point was £119k and it more than doubled when you bought this one? Maybe I have it wrong though.

We had an IO mortgage of about £121k when we bought the last house in 2006 and paid a couple of grand off with OPs. When we decided we wanted to move we OPd over £1000/month and paid off another £10k in about 9 months, saved another £1000 for the moving fees and borrowed £8k off family, about £4000 of which paid for the kitchen makeover. Our mortgage was on 0.5% and we had about £1000-1500 on a 0% CC. There are only 4 of these houses in the village, they change hands once a generation, and the location/view is amazing. It is also the style of house I have always dreamed of living in so yes we pushed ourselves to buy it probably 4-6 months before we were financially ready

try_harder wrote: »

That sounds like a great plan .You can do it.

Thank you try harder.

enthusiasticsaver

So you went from a 0.5% mortgage of £110k approx to a £270k mortgage on 3.4%? That is a huge jump even taking your OPs into consideration. What is the term of your new mortgage?

If your dad is a snob and does not think your house is good enough I would be telling him to book a hotel! Surely he is coming to spend time with you and your family not examine the d!cor? Can you not explain you have not long been in the house and having to take your time to do it up due to the cost of the house in the first place?

No way would I be going further into debt for doing up a guest room. If you can do it out of your monthly surplus if there still is one then that is your choice but personally I would have thought the money would be better spent on doing things with them while they are staying? That is where I always find the spendiest thing about having guests is. Entertainment and eating out. If you spend your spare money on mirrors and door handles etc is there anything left to spend during his stay or will he pick up the tab for days and meals out etc?

sharronej

Hi ladies and gents,

Would it be ok to join you? I'm on what feels like a never ending debt free journey - determined this time will be the last time! My mortgage finishes this year but if i manage to stay on track with the cards and bank loan it will be another two years after before we can finally say we are free, I think reading and joining in with this thread could help me say on track. Thank you x

enthusiasticsaver

sharronej wrote: »

Hi ladies and gents,

Would it be ok to join you? I'm on what feels like a never ending debt free journey - determined this time will be the last time! My mortgage finishes this year but if i manage to stay on track with the cards and bank loan it will be another two years after before we can finally say we are free, I think reading and joining in with this thread could help me say on track. Thank you x

Welcome.
You might be best starting your own thread as you will get more visitors that way.

Suffolk_lass

A good alternative to a £10 toilet roll holder is a simple kitchen roll pole like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSV-Chrome-Kitchen-Dispenser-Silver/dp/B00I49LFEY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1517178444&sr=8-4&keywords=kitchen+roll+holder which holds three loo rolls and is less than a fiver - I think I bought the one in my bathroom for a pound from the pound shop. You never run out of loo roll in the guest suite either

XSpender

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

So you went from a 0.5% mortgage of £110k approx to a £270k mortgage on 3.4%? That is a huge jump even taking your OPs into consideration. What is the term of your new mortgage?

£288k @ 3.19% over 18years.

If your dad is a snob and does not think your house is good enough I would be telling him to book a hotel! Surely he is coming to spend time with you and your family not examine the d!cor? Can you not explain you have not long been in the house and having to take your time to do it up due to the cost of the house in the first place?

No way would I be going further into debt for doing up a guest room. If you can do it out of your monthly surplus if there still is one then that is your choice but personally I would have thought the money would be better spent on doing things with them while they are staying? That is where I always find the spendiest thing about having guests is. Entertainment and eating out. If you spend your spare money on mirrors and door handles etc is there anything left to spend during his stay or will he pick up the tab for days and meals out etc?

As soon as we encountered the plaster problem we knew we were not going to be able to get the room ready for my Dad coming. The work on the list is what it needs to get it finished which we will take longer over.

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

A good alternative to a £10 toilet roll holder is a simple kitchen roll pole like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSV-Chrome-Kitchen-Dispenser-Silver/dp/B00I49LFEY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1517178444&sr=8-4&keywords=kitchen+roll+holder which holds three loo rolls and is less than a fiver - I think I bought the one in my bathroom for a pound from the pound shop. You never run out of loo roll in the guest suite either

I've got one of those in the downstairs loo!

On Saturday I cleared out the junk from the front bedroom which was an upstairs sitting room for the previous owners, started off as being a part office/part dressing room/dog's bedroom when we moved in but hasn't had much of a purpose really even though it is the second biggest bedroom. I wanted it tidy for my dad coming even though we had planned to put them in our room (due to the plaster issue) and we would put the blow up bed up in the guest room. Loads of stuff went in the loft and 6 bags of rubbish went to the tip and a hanging rail moved back into our room until the wardrobe comes.

On Sunday DH said he would put the new bed that we bought for the guest room up in the above bedroom so we could have a proper bed to sleep in. It looked so good when we put the bed up we have moved a bit of furniture around, moved a wicker chair in from elsewhere and put up 2 pictures and lo and behold we have created a guest room for my dads visit Yes the paper isn't to our taste (but probably the best condition of any of the rooms) and the curtains (2 windows) are wafer thin and none of the furniture matches but it looks great

apple_muncher

A good result!

Treadingonplaymobil

Oh well done, that's absolutely brilliant! I know how it is when you have your heart set on one solution, I'm so pleased you've managed to find a compromise that feels OK enough to live with for now. Big pat on the back for Team XSpender.