Chapter 3: the large London mortgage

edinburgher

Upcoming big expenses: getting a wood stove put in (an eye-watering £2000 quote) and blinds for all bedrooms and downstairs is coming to £2100 installed. HOW IS IT SO INSANELY EXPENSIVE? Can definitely negotiate the blinds down a bit, and might end up just doing bedrooms for the moment.

You live in London

It's not just a London thing, but contractors definitely price based on postcode. We live in a suburb of Glasgow that's considered quite affluent (in a shoebox) and you can hear the pound signs when you speak to someone on the phone prior to quoting. We've had some ludicrous quotes (like a joiner who quoted 40% of what we'd paid for a house deposit for a moderate amount of work in one room).

It has been a bit of an eye opener and I do a lot more DIY than I used to.

lessavyfav

I think you're exactly right edinburgher! we live in a fairly affluent suburb, but we bought an ex local authority house, so it's not like we have the income of many of our neighbours haha.

I think the blinds COULD be something we attempt ourselves..

In good news, I was setting aside £100 for personal tax (got to £400) and just saw that I only need to pay £31 !!!8211; so some of that money can be used to cover a pension contribution this month. Will have to pay personal tax next year though so I'll continue to keep saving!

lessavyfav

I swear it didn't seem like I posted that long ago but it's been more than two months!

Checking in because I don't feel we're making enough headway. We definitely have leftover money each month (good), and also paying off the people we owe (mum and dad, M&S bank), but still feels as though it's not enough. Might be being a bit hard on ourselves as we are earning significantly less with the new biz, but I'm a bit frustrated by it.

Looking at the bright side, the wood stove I spoke of in the last post is actually going to come to £1800 installed and we've put down £200 deposit. Got to cough that up in a couple of weeks and we'll be really scraping to get it so blinds will have to come next month (and maybe fewer blinds till we can afford it!) Both the OH and I have no CC's which is a great feeling, and will be even better when we have large chunks of £££ to pay for whatever we desire...

Things I need to do to save:
- Bring in lunch/make lunch for OH so we don't spend at the shops (pretty good at this though)
- Make sure to stick to the budget for OH's birthday present. I've put aside £100 which is plenty
- Make something nice for his b'day instead of going to a pub or restaurant
- Drink less alcohol
- Be better organised with the food shop
- Sell some things, I'm sure i have more clothing lurking in the wardrobe

lessavyfav

Not even halfway through the month and already the bank account is haemorrhaging.. we’re on holiday and everything is super expensive, even going to the corner shop to bring home food has been a lot - this coming from a Londoner! We were also ripped off by our car hire place - because we no longer have credit cards, they forced us to take their insurance, coming to a ridiculous £150. we’d already purchased excess insurance for the trip online but they wouldn’t accept this or our debit card to take the hold limit. Very annoying as I managed to use a debit card only a couple of months ago in a different country with no issues. It turns out being organised and not having a credit card are actually bad things after all. Other than that though, the holiday has still been enjoyable.

We have to pay the balance of the wood stove and installation next week, and I think it may mean digging into some of my tax savings unfortunately.

Sigh..well doesn’t seem like the most positive post, does it? One thing I did recently do is open an IFISA to do some p2p lending. Really interested to dip my toe in there, so I’ve popped a couple of g’s and will see how that plays out.

Best be off!!

lessavyfav

End of the year seems as good a time as any for a money update.

With OH and I both being self-employed, our monthly income is variable. This has been our quietest month due to holiday days off, but we've still managed to have enough money to pay off debts each month. The last few months have been particularly great but we know we need to bill more.

Here's the good:
- Contract extended till June and hoping this is my last round there before I can concentrate on work I'm passionate about. I asked for a huge day rate increase (more than 25% thinking they'd meet halfway) and although I'm still waiting on the contract, I think they've agreed to it. Anxiously waiting on my email to come through in the coming few days.
- We are setting aside 20% of pay each month to debts. Have been steadily paying mum and dad's interest free loan (sitting in another account, they don't want it back any time soon) at £400 per month, almost halfway paid. Our other loan has about £7700 to pay, which normally comes to £290 per month and has more than two years till end of term. We have just started snowballing as much spare money as we can and hoping to clear this in 7 to 10 months.
- One reasonably well-paid job come through for OH, another potential client meeting in Jan which looks promising.
- Money gifted to us from a family member, very generous. We are saving most of it by adding to the emergency and garden funds, then splurging a little. I don't even know what I want to spend it on! I was saving for a bike so will probably put it towards that.
- Have started paying into our pension pot, a smallish standing order which we hope to increase.
- p2p fund going well so far. I'm not holding much but thinking of adding £1-2k in the next month.

The not so good:
- No overpayments on the mortgage in forever, so that's a disappointment since I want to be an MFW ASAP.
- Remortgaging in about 6 months. We'll only really have the option to use our current lender deals due to our new self-employed status – checked on this and will probably be able to get a rate a little less than what we're on if we pay a fee. I think it'll be worth it if we overpay of course.
- We have regular money coming in from OH's old job but this ends in March. So this will be a bit of a shock to the system if we don't start earning more on the new biz!
- Hardly contributed to S&S fun, and it's lost value.

I shall be back soon to update signature and some more concrete goals for 2019!

lessavyfav

Hello!

Updates since my last post..got the day rate increase I requested – absolutely brilliant and helpful! And the business in general is picking up with more potential well-paid work in the pipeline. All this is needed if we are thinking about trying for kids this year.

We've been overpaying our loan and have £5975 remaining. My S&S ISA had £2300 in it so I've requested to have that sent over which will be used to reduce the loan further. By the end of this month we'll have less than £3400 left. Hopefully it'll be done and dusted in the next 4 months, we can then pay the bank of Mum & Dad. Woohoo!

I'm feeling motivated seeing that the end of loans are near and we'll be able to finally begin overpaying our mortgage!

lessavyfav

I've updated my signature to better reflect what's owed on the loans. Looks icky but with some money coming from my S&S ISA in the next week or two, that'll see M&S not far off being paid off. No overpayments on the mortgage till at least the M&S one is GONE, hopefully in 4 months!

There are still 12 days till payday, and we don't have that much in our bank account at the moment! We did invoice less last month than usual so that's a big part of it. Luckily the business owes both my husband and I bit so we can draw out on this if we really need to towards the end of the month, but I'm going to try to stretch out out as much as possible!

Money things:
- Our home insurance is due in Feb and I have the money set aside for this. Need to call insurer for a better deal or leave this week.
- Loads of food in the fridge and pantry, and I've planned meals till Friday evening. We get a cheap veg box every Thursday and hoping to only top up for yoghurt and bread.
- I put 5 things on ebay today, already got a bid on one thing – yay!
- I sold two things on ebay last week that surprisingly earned a good amount of money so I've shoved that aside to tide my personal spends (have a dinner I think could be expensive on the 21st). Any spare will go towards filling up more of a pot to top up mortgage overpayments.
- I've been doing one of those apps to collect receipts. It's so slow going but I reckon I could get a £5 voucher every month or two so hey, going to go for it till I get bored! That'll go to either topping up personal spends or adding to mortgage OP.
- Aiming for Mon-Wed NSD this week.
- Weather is warming up so aiming to use a lot less energy this month. Last month was atrociously high!

Non-money things, but stuff I'm getting done or planning to:
- Got rid of a whole lot of things in the bathroom and my wardrobe. Some things to the charity shop. Loads more to do though...gotta spark joy and all that.
- Washed seat covers of our sofa. My god,I had no idea filthy they were but looking so much better now.
- Need to get brutal in the kitchen. I want to re-do it eventually but the design I have in mind actually reduces the amount of storage we have currently so I need to get rid of the things I don't use (paella dish, anyone?)

lessavyfav

Another money update:
- Earlier this week I sent £,2200 over to the M&S loan, so very close to seeing the back of it! Since my parents don't have a deadline of when they want their money back, I am thinking of taking out the money sitting in that account and transferring it over to the loan so it's done and dusted. But first, going to see what Feb's wages and dividends are like. Things are looking great though.
- I was a bit useless on the NSDs at the beginning of the week, but today been good out of pure laziness. We had no bread but I didn't feel like heading to the shops so I made some instead, which tastes pretty good! That's breakfast sorted for tomorrow.
- I also finally sorted home insurance, which came in just under £280, slightly less than last year.
- Found £5 in an old bag – woohoo!
- Nearly ready to cash out the receipt app...well, I have 12 more receipts to collect which I think I can do this week.
- No more bids on anything I listed on eBay but most things have watchers so fingers crossed some thing sell. If not, they'll go to charity.
- Took some jeans to get mended instead of buying new ones – £25!!!! oh well, they were expensive jeans that I wore a lot so it's better than buying a new pair I suppose!

Less than 6 days till payday, very little money in our accounts but I think we should be OK as we have no major plans.

Right-o, time to get creative and sort some dinner out with the sad looking veg.

lessavyfav

Can't quite believe it's already March..and yet it feels like we've spent a bomb this month just 3 days in! I'm hoping other than my birthday it's a relatively low key month.

Money things:
- The good news is M&S loan should only have around £350 to go till it's paid off – just need to get OH to call them this week to find out the exact balance. SO happy about this.
- This means we can focus on making payments for mum and dad's loan, and I'm aiming for us to have it fully paid off within 7 months.
- Tomorrow and Tuesday aiming for an NSD. Maybe Wednesday too.
- The bad news is car is getting serviced this month and I know we need to replace brake pads.

Future money things:
- OH is due a lump sum in the coming months which will be very healthy, but best we keep this tucked away in savings as we are thinking of trying for a baby soon. Also, if we have a baby then we'll need to re-do the bathroom.
- I would also really like to re-do all the bedroom wardrobes as the ones we have are awkward old 60s, impractical and falling apart. I am thinking of getting Ikea in the spare rooms with custom door fronts, then something more bespoke for our bedroom as we'd look to move the position and need to make every inch count.
- Looked at pension this morning, we need to up this! Going to suggest we double the amount we're contributing from our business to £400 each per month and will need to step this up further once business becomes more steady.

Non-money things but stuff I'm doing or planning on doing:
- Cleared out my wardrobe for charity and OH did the same – have a huge bag ready to drop off, plus bags of stuff to go in the bin.
- Baked banana bread
- Made a meal plan for the week. None of the planned lunches are leftovers though so I need to be making lunch ahead which is usually my downfall! Will prep tomorrow's lunch tonight as I'm doing dinner.
- Did some cleaning and organising so things are looking nicer in the home.

Right, time for me to get our veggie roast on and make the most of my Sunday evening!

lessavyfav

M&S loan is now fully paid off as of earlier this week. Woohoo!

More money haemorrhaging from the bank account so early in the month though..a few expected, some not. We're owed some money from the business so not too big of a deal I suppose.

Business is going really well though. More projects and better paid, so the slow start and doing things cheaply has been worth it. We certainly haven't felt like it's been stressful either, can't ask for much better than that! Am just hoping we can do all the work within the timelines since there's only two of us!

Bit of an expensive weekend planned as we have dinner tonight and tomorrow night.

Non-money things, but stuff I plan to do:
- Meal plan. For some reason I have loads of cabbage due to a veg box overload. Going to make a soup and hope that's not too gross, plus coleslaw. Chicken stir fry. Got some Crown Prince squash and feta so I can make something delicious from that too. Not sure what else really but going to avoid doing a big shop this weekend if I can.
- Put away everything sitting on top of the fireplace. We have a potential client dropping by to see us on Sunday so this will force us to do a thorough clean again like I did last week.
- No drinking Sun-Wed. Had way too much alcohol this week and am feeling it.
- Look for stuff to sell on eBay.