Extracting head from sand and facing the truth

BabyStepper

Ok Lydia, I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but really, someone has to say it.

You phoned your mortgage advisor to get a new deal on your mortgage, and ended up spending thousands and thousands of pounds you don't have buying a second house? You are struggling to pay your husband's car repair bill, your budget doesn't work, the debt is going up, you have no savings, but you are taking on another property? With less than a week's thought about what that means and how it will work? Have you at least done a forecast of expenses? What to do when there are no tenants? How to maintain the rental property? Without any savings you are about to become a landlord like redmel's, no cash to fix anything, no repairs getting done. Without a plan you are completely dependant on good luck. I have no idea how this can even happen in this economic climate when you have no money. I think your mortgage adviser definitely saw you coming.

No wonder you feel so positive. You are on a 'buyer's high' right now, in the process of spending an absolute fortune on something you cannot afford. I hope someone in RL can talk some sense into you.

Lydia42

Happy New Year everyone.
Not been on here for a while as we have had so much going on. I have read everyone's messages, and yes BabyStepper i can see where you are coming from too. We do have a very good mortgage advisor, and if we couldn't afford to do it with the equity we have in our current property she wouldn't get us the mortgages. As it is we looked at doing this two years ago, but decided to sit tight and over pay on our mortgage and reduce the term too. So we upped the payments significantly and reduced the term to 12 years. We now have 10 years to run on it. This has given us the equity in our current property to have a few more options available to us.

As it is we have actually sat back and decided not to jump into it all so quickly. Our current mortgage deal ends on 31st January 2019. We have just completed all the paperwork to continue with our current provider on a 3 year deal. Our monthly payments will more than half, and we have no tie in penalties. The money we will save in mortgage payments is ear-marked for over-payments to debts in order of when the 0% deals run out. The first one ends December 2019 so that's the one we'll focus on first.
On another note we have managed to have a good clear out and are still selling things as we clear the loft and have managed to raise over £4500, including hubbies tax refund. This is currently in a savings account as our CC are all 0% at the moment. We're still using YNAB daily and are actually doing pretty well with our budgeting, although Christmas messed a little with the figures - we were able to cover most of this with the savings pot we set up last year specifically for Xmas. DD is still in place to carry this on for the coming year as it was invaluable.
I'm looking at setting up savings pots at the end of January for further things like Car maintenance, school trips, dentist, etc. I'm feeling much more positive with each step we take towards being more organised with our money and savings pots for annual stuff is definitely the next step.

Happy New Year everyone - here's hoping 2019 is a good one.