Reduce to Increase...Towards the Forever Home...

jenni_fer

Offset mortgage started last week and we've spent the last few days transferring in the various savings pots. Think we are done now.
I haven't quite sussed how the offset works yet...my spreadsheet accurately got the right monthly payment amount but it hasn't quite got the interest charge for the first month and I'm not really sure how the offset element really works so will have to wait and see at the start of August.
DH had slightly more in his savings than I thought so that was a welcome boost. Seeing it all in one place does help concentrate the mind a little, I've been sat playing with the marginal gains from spending less each month etc again, it really does all add up!

Slight shift in how I'm tracking now as it makes sense to focus on the actual offset balance and ignore the regular saver balances I think.

We're still waiting for the Welsh housing marketing to reopen to decide what to do, the reality is probably that unless the perfect home comes up we won't put ours up until next spring so should focus on paydown for now. Of course, if the perfect house does come up I'll be kicking myself that this one isn't sold yet. And then there is the whatif over stamp duty too. So many unknowns!

Current Net Position (£35,724.22)

jenni_fer

Another few months have passed.....whoops!

We've been doing ok the last few months. DH had some work shares mature which made a few £k dent in the balance and the joys of being in local lockdown and having cancelled our summer holiday mean we've spent very little.
Share price dependant DH is due another substantial lump sum in November (hopefully about £15k), mortgage neutrality by the end of the year feels like a distinct possibility, something I didn't think possible at the start of the year! 

My Rightmove habit is as bad as ever but we've made a fairly definite decision to hold on and put our house on the market in the new year, the Welsh Stamp Duty holiday isn't enough to push us to hurry up and with most of the country on local lockdown it doesn't feel like a sensible time to try and sell. 

Current Net Position ( £ 21,472.02 )

jenni_fer

Current Net Position (£ 6,854.90)

So incredibly close! The end is very much in sight now! I've got a £3k regular saver maturing any day...I have 1st Jan as a realistic mortgage neutral date.
I don't think we'd ever get this far, it feels really strange that such a miserable year has lead to us having the ability to get this close.
If only we could find a new house to buy!

BabyStepper

Well done on your progress! You're diary is really inspiring.

I just wanted to say I'm in a similar position with the house move dilemma. We may be forced into it with OH's work requiring him to move. But the thought of moving up the housing ladder to somewhere bigger with a bigger mortgage, at such an unstable time, is more than a little worrying. Yet a sideways move would be pointless. We're currently on hold until spring but I can't help thinking our chances of selling, with all the redundancies happening, will be very small. 

Best of luck with whatever happens.   

jenni_fer

Annoying I forgot that 1st Jan was a bank holiday so actually our mortgage neutral date will be 4th Jan, but I'm calling it early anyway....

Phase one of reducing to increase is complete!!!!!!!

From now on, the mortgage payment will go into the mortgage side of the account and the equivalent amount will come out of the savings side into somewhere paying pennies of interest.

We're getting close to being ready to put our house on the market, to be honest the only thing that is really stalling us is COVID and what that means for the market etc. I think we have come to the conclusion that we just have to go for it and hope for the best. The biggest concern is actually that we sell ours and then can't find anything worth moving to. I will not be renting!

So, while that ticks along in the background, I am moving to Phase Two: Save as much as possible to increase budget/minimise new mortgage.
Now that there is effectively no mortgage payment to make, we should be able to save a fairly decent amount each month. Our other DD bills amount to c£500 a month and then everything else we spend goes onto the credit card. So it makes sense to me to focus on reducing the credit card bill each month rather than trying to create a savings target.

Billing date is the 10th I think so targets as follows:
1st Jan to 9th - £150, to include pre-booked oven clean c£50. I don't expect to need any shopping other than bread and milk so this is more an emergency / Aldi Specialbuy fund!
10th Jan to 9th Feb - £1000, to include all spend for DS birthday
10th Feb to 9th Mar - £1000, to include Car Insurance
10th Mar to 9th April - £1000, to include MOT and service

Includes all food, petrol, clothes, basically everything that will accept credit card payment!
Excludes and spend relating to buying/selling houses (wishful thinking!)

Hopefully this will give me something to think about other than 'where are all the decent houses' and every £1 saved now is one less £1 to borrow in the future!

jenni_fer

So far, so good.
Took some damaged storage boxes back to Aldi on Sat which offset my shopping spend considerably, I did get drawn into buying some trainers from the middle section (which I wasn't expecting to be open!) they would have been a bargain if they had fitted but they don't so that'll be a small refund next time I go to the shop. Net spend £1.94
Treated myself to a cheap kindle book, I've been managing on free ones for the last 6 years or so but am reading a lot more at the moment and it was a title I was recommended. £0.99
Send a parcel of old kids clothes to a friend today at a cost of £4.20
Oven clean tomorrow, first time I've ever paid someone to do it so I'm pathetically excited, will cost £52.20 though which is a big dent.

£59.33/£150, half way there, under budget.

jenni_fer

So Phase 3 started today...we are on the market! I still don't know if it's right or wrong timing wise but it's where we are!

Spendwise we've been doing well, too busy manically tidying the house!
Renewed an online maths thing for DS at 12.99, supermarket spend including taking back the trainers from earlier was £40.81, regular £10 donation to NSPCC went through too. Under target though, which is good, nothing spent this card month yet (2 whole days in!)
Jan - £123.13/£150, 26.87 under budget
Feb Bill - £0/£1000, 29 days to go

jenni_fer

It's been a busy few weeks!
We had our viewings last Saturday and by Tuesday had accepted an offer...now the fun of trying to find somewhere to buy begins! Typically there has been nothing at all of any interested listed in the last few weeks. So now I'm getting a little anxious and my rightmove refreshing is getting a little out of hand! I'm hopeful that the news the younger kids are going back to school after half term might give people enough hope to decide to go for it and there will be some movement soon. I don't know how long we can keep our buyers waiting for!

Spend-wise, we've been doing OK. I got the dates for the insurance and MOT wrong slightly, so we've just renewed the car insurance this week and the MOT is booked in for mid next week. I'm not sure if the MOT will fall into this month's bill or next months.
Spend almost entirely supermarket, a couple of small presents and a McDonalds for DS birthday, and the car insurance.
Feb Bill £758.65/£1,000 £241.35+£25 refund remaining. 3 days to go.

jenni_fer

2 weeks on and not a lot has changed.
We've viewed a couple of properties and been unsuccessful at viewing a couple of others...apparently waiting til the evening on the day something is listed is too late!
The search continues but I'm encouraged by the fact that some possibilities have been listed, it only takes one!
I'm hopeful that the kids being back in school from tomorrow will make it easier to pop out and view things so hopefully it won't be long until we've found the one.

Spend wise, credit card bill is on about £650 including £400ish of MOT/service/repairs. Think we're a third of the way through the bill month so run-rate would take us slightly over the £1k target but there has been some gifts for people this week so I'm still aiming for that.

powerspowers

Well done JF! Just got to find the right place now. What’s the market like where you are? It’s dead slow for us, hardly anything coming up each week.