The Edcawber Principle

beanielou

What a lovely post. 

Suffolk_lass

beanielou said:

What a lovely post. 

I agree, nobody here resents your good fortune. It has given my day a little lift - thank you

edinburgher

Much as I love Mrs E, she has no concept of skintness. I told her the other day that we'd overspent almost every budget line and that I was trimming like a barber after lockdown, only for her to come back from the shops today with a £5 card for her parent's wedding anniversary! I wouldn't object to spending that much in a normal month, but December is usually torrid and we'd already spent £133 on a gift for them (milestone anniversary).

I now have essentially no budget to trim, thank goodness I get paid on Thursday. Slightly lower than last month (goodbye WFH tax adjustment), but very welcome.

One small household chore done (replacement pegs for errant bathroom shelf that keeps on collapsing) and £109 Blu Ray box set sold! Will need to get that to a courier drop off today, seems the least I can do at that price point

Have a good weekend all.

edinburgher

Right! As long as I stuff cotton wool in my ears and yell "LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" at the top of my voice, there should be no more Christmas expenditures

We will be going round to the inlaws for Christmas dinner, but it will be a mid-afternoon to dinnertime thing and then home to ours (we'd usually stay over, but we're trying to do the rightish thing this year). They only stay a few miles away, so can't justify it. Luckily the husband of Mrs E's sister doesn't drink, so free taxi (can't believe they canned the :mse: smiley)

DD had her last day at school yesterday and the parent council organised a load of lovely safe activities in the playground, only tarnished slightly by the headteacher making several pointed comments through the school app about how expensive it was (hint, hint). We live in a well off suburban area and people are very generous, but I think they may have been tapped out after the sheer volume of fundraising requests this year. As an example, a charity collection the prior week had raised ££££. I chipped in an extra fiver to add to the fiver we'd already contributed, but that was all I could wrangle. I'll up the budgeted amount for charitable things next year, get the feeling it will be needed.

Now off on holiday for the duration (with the exception of me, who will be phoning it in at work on Christmas Eve )

Otherwise looking forward to relaxing with the family, cheesy movies and eating delicious things (fridge is groaning with some of my festive favourites including smoked salmon, salmon caviar and wine).

Remortgage is set to progress on 5th January, so that's all good. Daft question, but the current mortgage would be taken on 1st January 2020, does anyone reckon we'll end up making two payments in one month, or will the lenders likely square it away between them?

Take care all, hope you're looking forward to the holidays.

peb

Depends on what you've agreed with your new lender.  For the old lender, the payment will be taken on the first but the balance for the fifth  to end of month will likely be refunded, depends though on how up to date a redemption statement is on completion. Your solicitor will let you have a copy of the statement they use and sometimes these are quite detailed showing the last payment made.  Then it's however the new lender takes it, they are all different. Budget for up to double to be taken on the first payment. 

Goldiegirl

Hi, Ed, glad you are doing ok.
From my previous life in mortgage lending, the solicitors will contact the old lenders in advance to ask for the final amount outstanding.  We never assumed that any further payments were going to be made, so we'd just project a figure to the required date, based on payments received to the date we calculated the projection.

I can see that 5th January is the first working day in  Scotland, so the solicitors will almost certainly have got the amount owing figure before Christmas. So the 1st January payment will probably be surplus to requirements and will be refunded to you. Where I worked, a completion date of the 5th January would mean the payment of interest for January, 14 days after completion, and the first regular payment on 1st February - but this can vary from lender to lender.  It will probably give this information in the terms and conditions that came with the mortgage offer.

Hope this helps! 

edinburgher

Thanks both

@Goldiegirl - the conveyancer definitely confirmed the amount outstanding about a week ago, I'll go and dig out some paperwork.

beanielou

Enjoy your break.

Suffolk_lass

Enjoy Christmas and don't feel guilty - good luck with the remortgage. 

edinburgher

The internet ate my previous post!

Am I the only cynic with a DB pension who assumes that my former employer will either accidentally or deliberately forget about me? Back in the summer when I thought we might stand a chance of getting a IO mortgage, I'd requested an updated statement for my old deferred Civil Service pension. Now, according to the administrator's website, I'm supposed to get an annual benefits statement, but it's been 7 years (and I chased the last one, too). So, after 4 months I've politely pestered them into sending an update, it should have gone out on Friday.

It's not worth the most ever (perhaps £3,000 a year allowing for estimated 2% inflation since last statement), but a) that would cost me £75,000 in a SIPP and b) I transferred my first occupational pension into it (maybe £10,000). So, even though I only worked there for 2-3 years, I probably "paid in" more than most per month.

We got on top of our pre-Christmas chores earlier in the week (washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer, bathroom all cleaned), hoovering done and aquarium water changed, water tests and underwater gardening all complete for another fortnight or so Mrs E has taken DD out for two Christmas events with friends or family (all in places with proper cleaning protocols or outside). I was a little torn about this after this week's grim news for so many people, but we are always sensible and are facing lockdown again anyway Anyway, I have a rare afternoon off for leisure, so yay! Am thinking a good book in the bath and a "me" film.

Our Christmas plans aren't actually changing (we'd already said that we weren't doing an overnight so as to reduce risk with inlaws). How about the rest of you?