Light the fire...

lucielle

Wow, you have made amazing progress. Keeping everything crossed it all goes well.

L

woodfired

Thanks SH & L , all docs now with mortgage co, hopefully the underwriters will ok it!
Have to pay for the searches tomorrow, I'm wondering whether to hold off 'til Tuesday/Wednesday as we should hopefully have a decision on the mortgage by then. I suppose it makes sense to.
Paid for 300 EUR for our holiday this morning. Clubbed together with friend and sis-in-law to get a better rate for a higher value. Should be ready to collect from PO on Tuesday. Must make a start on packing today, need to check we all have enough clothes. Trying to do this holiday cheaply so scraping by if we can.
This week will consist of eating up the fridge and hopefully some of the freezer as I'd love to have it reasonably empty by the time we move. I've sorted through most of the cupboards so they are much tidier and easy to see what I have in, wish the same could be said of the freezer. I shall go and have a rummage and see what I can come up with for dinner tonight. xx

woodfired

Starmummy wrote: »

Hi WF

I've been making my way through your diary all week and it has been such a pleasurable read.

You life sounds so idyllic, I'd love to know where you live it sounds just perfect, a lovely mix of community and countryside.
The new house sounds lovely, as does your current house. I hope the move is as painless as possible.

I'm a bit of a towny now but grew up on a farm and I really do miss it.

I shall be following your diary and look forward to the updates and the food inspiration.

Take care

SM

Bless you Starmummy! Such lovely words, thank you very much. We do live in a lovely bit of the world (in my opinion anyway ) we are in the Ribble Valley up in Lancashire, in a small village with a lovely local community. It does have it's problems (where doesn't?) and you can't sneeze without everybody else knowing about it :rotfl: but we love it and wouldn't swap it for anything.
Growing up on a farm was the best wasn't it? My children are so lucky that Grandad and Grandma are still farming and less than a mile away up the hill, they love spending time there.

woodfired

Still no news on the mortgage front it has been passed to a senior underwriter as our income is quite complex. He came back to MA on tuesday requesting more evidence and asking for docs going back years :eek:. Sorted these on wednesday so just playing the waiting game now. To be fair he had said to the mortgage advisor, 'show me' - prove their income is sustainable etc where some underwriters may have just given a 'NO'. So at least they seem willing to try to understand our situation. I even rang TSB yesterday morning - who are amazing BTW - to get a print out of our mortgage statements to prove the level at which we have been paying/overpaying to date. I'm not sure it will make any difference but it at least shows we have historically been paying more that our standard repayments would be on the new mortgage - quite a lot more if you average it out in fact.
Just hoping today brings some good news.

woodfired

Home from an absolutely lovely holiday with family and friends. So glad we went as it really has been so relaxing. However......

We didn't get an answer on the mortgage 'til Monday morning, thankfully it was a YES! and we celebrated on the beach with our friends. Sadly, the good mood wasn't to last as literally 20 minutes later, as we sat with a celebratory coffee, the estate agents rang to inform us that our buyer had pulled out that morning.

I am so cross with her, she made up some ridiculous excuse about the EAs misrepresenting the fact the garden is leased when I had long conversations with her about that! She even stood in our house and explained it to her father!!
The worst thing is she has wasted almost 3 months since her first viewing and 6 weeks since she made her offer. And all that time the agents have been turning away potential buyers. Even worse, they hadn't begun to market it as under offer as she was yet to pay for searches/survey so those who may have enquired but not left details won't know it's back on the market! :mad::mad::mad:

Ah well, not much we can do about it. We had two viewings this week whilst we were away and have another booked for next weekend so we may find another buyer. Only time will tell. I'm a believer in "what will be will be", so we will just have to wait and see. x

woodfired

Last night I sat and updated our spending/budget spreadsheet after the holiday and made the new one for November. I was feeling a bit fed up about the house situation so to cheer myself up I pulled some savings out of Nati0nwide and made a final OP to clear sub account 2. The balance after this months regular payment/OP would be approx £1780 so I paid that off.

This was a target I set myself in February, before we had planned on moving. I have been slowly chipping away at it since as bits of savings have matured. Our stay-cation in Norfolk this summer also meant that we spent thousands less than previous years when we've travelled abroad and I OP'd the difference.
The balance of this account in Feb was £12 227.38. We've cleared it. :T:T:T :beer: :j

I will update with the new outstanding balance in a few days when the DD has gone out and interest has been applied.

Next problem: Our fixed rate on sub-account one end this month. Current rate is 1.64%, SVR will be 4.74% :eek::eek:

We were happy to take the hit when we had a move in sight but now I'm really going to begrudge paying that rate when there is no end in sight. I suppose I should look on the bright side of unlimited overpayments, however, I think we need to set a cut off date for when we will re-fix. I suppose I should also look at the redemption charges on a new fix versus the monthly extra cost. The monthly payment hasn't increased as much as it should have done due to the OPs on the account. It is increasing by around £117 a month but my calculations tell me the interest will shoot up from around £160 per month to around £427!!! :eek::eek:

On that basis, we can't stick on this rate for long, it's such a waste of money. Must go and do some sums.

Happy Sunday.xx

greent

Can you get a fix and port it with you when you move? - the broker may have some ideas around that? X

Moneyfordreams

That is soul destroying. It happened to us 3 or 4 years ago. I hope you find a buyer quickly

woodfired

Thanks Greent & MFD.

I don't think porting would be an option sadly as the extra borrowing would be on a much higher rate (from experience) and over 50% of the mortgage would be 'extra borrowing'. It is something we should look into in more detail though, thank you.

No further news on the house yet, we have another viewing booked for this week so trying to think positive.

In other news, the lovely weather has helped dry all of my holiday washing. I spent an hour last night catching up on the GBBO whilst folding and sorting out all the dry laundry and putting the last bits from the suitcases away.
Today I have finished work early as I am smothered in a cold, was going to do some work in the garden but i'm feeling pretty sorry for myself so have lit the fire and settled down to watch Location and catch up on diaries. A lazy afternoon but it must be done sometimes.
Yesterday I made a slow cooked roast beef dinner and also made a mexican bean dish to have tonight with tacos and salad so no cooking to be done either which i'm glad of.

The OP and DD have come off the balance on TSB but i'm now waiting for the interest to be applied. Current balance is £107 995, will increase by about £160 at the end of the month though. I'm making the most of the last month of such low interest rates, best rates for a new fix is 1.94, which is still up 0.3% on our current rate but much better than SVR of 4.74!!

woodfired

Morning Folks.

Grey and miserable here today, fog is like pea soup. I'm up and have lit the fire which Ralph cat is enjoying currently and just catching up on diaries with a nice coffee. Will shortly have to go over to the shop to finalise the wholesaler order.

We have had a quiet weekend so far, a lovely bonfire and fireworks display last night on the playing field across the road from our house the a couple of drinks in the local (again across the road! )

Today we are at a christening and I also need to finish off the laundry ready for school tomorrow. We had a viewing yesterday so everything was hidden away and I'm now a bit behind on that front - the house is spotless though so that is a plus! I'm also thinking about dinner - I have a beef roasting joint in the fridge so might slow cook that today, could have hot beef sandwiches for tea then roast dinner tomorrow. I don't think we'll be hungry for a full roast dinner tonight having been fed at the christening. I haven't got any nice bread though so might throw some bits in the mixer and do homemade? Could leave to prove all day in a cool place whilst we are out then bake fresh tonight? Yep, will do that.

One final thing has left me confused. Can anyone explain? Our fixed rate ended on 31/0/19, the mortgage jumped from 1.64% to 4.74% as I've mentioned before. So I was expecting the interest applied at the end of Oct to be around £160 which is at the lower rate. Sound about right? Well they applied almost £400! which must mean that Oct was already on the higher rate? Anyone else had this? TIA

Anyway must get on. Happy Sunday.x