Half a house

Silence101

Our new fixed deal came through the post today, so it’s official now! We’ve fixed it for 3 years. The exciting thing is that on the letter it said we now owe less than £60000.

It will be interesting to see where we’re at in 3 years time, as I don’t know how much we’ll be able to overpay (as I said previously we’re hoping to OP £50 a month as a minimum, but who knows what the future will bring). The main issue is that every year the rent goes up, so far about £10/month each year, which doesn’t seem like much, but the longer we stay here, the less affordable it’ll become to sell as the new buyer will have to contend with a higher rent portion. I knew there were pitfalls in buying a shared ownership house, and timing seems to be one of them! But we’ll assess the situation in 3 years time, and possibly look to move then, if we can afford to.

I’ve been TT at the end of each day, tiny amounts, but every little helps.

We do need to buy 2 big bits of furniture soon (bunk bed and sofa bed), and although I see them going for much cheaper second hand online, we would then have an issue of getting them delivered here. I know the charity shops offer a delivery service for about £20 so I need to see if they have what we need. If not, we’re going to have to stump up the cost for new ones.

Silence101

I have finally tackled the desk/bookcase space, and cleared out a huge amount of stuff. Most of it was old uni coursework from 10 years ago, that I have never looked at since and that were a constant reminder that I could have done better during my degree. So I hoping that by getting rid of it all (I did flick through the files just in case there was anything worth keeping) I have freed myself from the guilt, and also opened up new possibilities. MrS now has space to put his books for planning, and will have a quiet place to work.

Tropically

Well done Silence. I have a personal policy to never EVER read old assignments. Even though I did okay, they seem so embarrassing now that I have more experience. How could I submit something so shoddy?

Silence101

Yes, I find that with a lot of things! Which is good, it shows that we’re growing I guess!

Silence101

I have finally done something MSE! I’ve signed up to Quidco, and have just renewed my car insurance, so a bit of money coming my way in a bit. I kept thinking I didn’t buy much online, but I do buy more than I thought, so I finally figured I was wasting money by not signing up.

I have also cancelled a couple of lottery subscriptions, which added up to almost £200 a year, which was just a ridiculous amount to waste. So now I need to make sure that money goes in the right place, instead of frittering it away.

Big chunk of money of out the savings though, as we need to buy bunk beds to make space for the baby. I keep looking online for second hand ones, but I haven’t found any in the area, that are any cheaper than buying new!

Silence101

First OP of the (mortgage) year - I’ve finally redownloaded the mortgage app, and transferred enough to bring the total to finish with 00.00 I think my aim will be to round it up to at least 0.00 every month, but hopefully closer to either 50.00 or 00.00.
It’s been very expensive few months, and our savings have really suffered, so I’m hoping we can curtail spending in November!

Silence101

I discovered this morning that half our monthly payment goes on interest :eek: I don’t think we can afford to OP the whole interest amount every month, but it’s something to aim for, and there are things we can definitely cut down on to help towards it.

wishingthemortgaheaway

That's not too bad given you've only been in the house a short while. Think about how much worse it would have been if you hadn't have paid off so much of the capital with your overpayments.

Wish.

Silence101

Yes, you’re right, and I know that the interest is proportionally higher at the beginning of the mortgage, so it probably seems worse now than it will in a few years time, if we can OP regularly.

Silence101

We have (finally) set up a standing order for £50 a month to the mortgage. So we should be paying off 1% of the remaining mortgage every year, as a minimum. I’m hoping to add to that regularly by Tilly tidying and trying to minimise unnecessary costs, but I’m happy that we now have a OP baseline.