The Edcawber Principle

Debsnewbudget

Well done 

Suffolk_lass

Gosh that's a hell of a life update - and I echo the congratulations for clearing all unsecured debt. The extension and remodelling of a house you already know so well is a massive decision, and in turn both exciting and potentially terrifying. As well as building your finances there is lots of research to find out about the builders local to you - taking into account their reputations, ages and plans as well as your own. 

Our mortgage remains an interest only one - in turn the freedom to overpay at will, combined with the lurking debt, plotted against timeline.

I do hope you will keep posting and keep us updated, maybe test out thoughts, either in this diary or another

Debsnewbudget

Just a thought, but I always think its worth getting an architect to come up with ideas and plans for any extension. For a few hundred they always add so much more value with their ideas and experience. 

Have you ever seen the current BBC 2 series “my perfect home” ?  Just have a look on catch up if you want to see the difference an architect can make.

A_Frayed_Knot

Looks like you have been putting the extra time to good use.  That's one monkey off your shoulder, must feel great, congrats.  Nice to hear of big future plans that only I could dream of.  

Remember a friend getting an extension, and her advice to me was, if you ever go for an extension and can take it an extra foot, take it.  I imagine a flood of advice following on . . .  

ajmoney

A_Frayed_Knot said:

Remember a friend getting an extension, and her advice to me was, if you ever go for an extension and can take it an extra foot, take it.  I imagine a flood of advice following on . . .  

We got this advice with the conservatory in our last house.  Our neighbours regretted the slightly smaller size, unfortunately when the same company came out to quote they believed we just wanted bigger and better because they didn't want to believe they hadn't advised well enough.

Busy_Mee

Congratulations Ed. That is an incredible achievement...well done !

The plans for the house sound great... we knocked a crap house down 11 years ago and rebuilt it. It was financially scary, but we got the home we wanted. Looking back it was definitely worth it and with the support of this forum we achieved mortgage neutrality last week, so we now effectively own  our house.

I think your more strategic approach to your finances will serve you well, although retirement always seems a long way off when you are young, it suddenly looms quite quickly.

slowlyfading

We did a big extension last year on our house as we knew we wanted to stay put long term but wanted to change things slightly - best decision ever stressful at the time but it's wonderful now it's done. Loving the update  and looking forward to seeing how you approach this one. 

edinburgher

Thanks all for the lovely congrats and great ideas!

Suffolk_lass said:

Our mortgage remains an interest only one - in turn the freedom to overpay at will, combined with the lurking debt, plotted against timeline.

Remind me SL - was that always the plan - or did you fall into it? My thinking at this point is that PCLS could potentially be huge vs the balance (if pensions are allowed as a repayment vehicle). Alternatively, if sale of property is allowed, I'd be more than happy to "rent" our house for the next 30 years at £2xx a month.

I think a new diary might be in order - my ideas outgrow the virtual space!

Debsnewbudget said:

Just a thought, but I always think its worth getting an architect to come up with ideas and plans for any extension. For a few hundred they always add so much more value with their ideas and experience.

Debs, we will absolutely use an architect when it comes to it. I'd seriously consider a structurally insulated panel (SIP) extension and they're still relatively uncommon, so an architect could probably suggest lots of bright ideas. Still, where on earth are you sourcing your architects? A former colleague got full plans drawn up for a basement conversion - £1300!

A_Frayed_Knot said:

Remember a friend getting an extension, and her advice to me was, if you ever go for an extension and can take it an extra foot, take it.  I imagine a flood of advice following on . . .  

Sage advice AFR - we did consider a simple kitchen extension (just a box on the back of the house) - then rejected it as it would just be a narrow box that was twice as deep as we currently put up with! Whatever we do will have to work for everyone.

Busy_Mee said:

The plans for the house sound great... we knocked a crap house down 11 years ago and rebuilt it. It was financially scary, but we got the home we wanted. Looking back it was definitely worth it and with the support of this forum we achieved mortgage neutrality last week, so we now effectively own  our house.

Busy_Mee - I take it it was a detached house? I have given serious thought to knocking down our semi, but suspect my local planning department would make it their business to prevent that...

I have closed down 2/4 of my credit cards today, there's £27,500 of temptation out of the way. Separate post below about plans to "repay" DD.

edinburgher

Investing for DD's future.

As regulars will know, I got myself in a bit of a fankle re. "borrowing" money from DD to pay off credit card debt. This isn't the first time I've got fixated on an idea because I was stressed about finances more generally. I remember living in London 12 years ago and being overly focused on my pension as I was repaying student debts and it was the one thing my creditors couldn't get their hands on!

DD has a JISA (roughly £1,000 before the carnage) that holds money that she was gifted as a baby. After the first couple of years, I started to use an ISA for her, as the thought of an 18 year old with ££,£££ that was theirs the day they turned 18 became terrifying to me.

The original plan was that she would be given £1/week/year of her age as pocket money, with the rest to be invested for her future. It basically came to the same value as CB at the time. Over time, however, I've become frazzled and that morphed into "SHE MUST HAVE THE CB ALL THE TIME"!! I wasn't taking into account the fact that pocket money was also something "for her" and should reduce the amount invested and I also wasn't adding the CB money into our budget as a credit, just a debit on the investment/"money I owe her" side. In short, double counting. It also transpired that £1/week/year of her age was far too much pocket money for a young child...

This meant that I'd invested CB money for a couple of years and then used it to pay off debt, creating a complicated (and ultimately very flawed) spreadsheet showing our "debt". This would be further complicated by investment growth (and then very rapid falls) as Covid-19 reared its ugly head. It was all a bit too much and was stressing me out. We had essentially ended up allocating far too much to investments, too soon.

I have now gone back to basics and recalculated how much we should be putting aside for her. Pocket money will go down to £0.5/week/year of her age until she's 12 and ISA contributions will go up by the same amount. It all added up to about £12,000 that we will likely give her as pocket money or investments before she's 18 (not including her JISA). A £70/month ISA to Vanguard for the next 12 years makes the whole messy investment side of things disappear.

Right - what's the next thing to fret about?

Debsnewbudget

My local architect is much cheaper than £1300
the last plans he did for an investment property of mine was £600, obviously you pay more for him To submit the plans and project manage the build.
when you are ready ask for his details as he does travel