Buying a house without a mortgage

Frugaldom

Strongboes - You mean like a mini-commune made up of all your friends? :beer: Don't forget about the multiple occupancy rules and, if you don't need a freelance administrator, what about a housekeeper?

Pavlov's - I think, perhaps, I need to get out for the weekend. As a trainee eccentric, my learning ability is being stretched too far and needs a break before it floods over the border into insanity. :rotfl: I sense another frugal-outing in the offing.

cashsaver

ooooh what a laff !!

Haven't managed to do any more apart from another extra 2 hrs of overtime to fit in with the kids,,,, and afew more plants planted at the allotment. Need to collate my figures and post on here when I am brave enough !!

This thing coud just about be do-able !! Keep up the gd work

Frugaldom

:j :j :j I have succeeded in rounding up to my next 'whole' number, so I'm quite pleased about that! Pity it's an ODD number, but I don't have a spare 'grand' to even it up! :rotfl: And worse still, it isn't even a tidy odd number!! I though it was bad trying to round up to a complete number but now I need to find £4000 just to make it a NICE odd number! Is there no end to this dratted syndrome?!

Pavlov's, you'll be pleased to know that I have applied to part company with most of the premium bonds in favour of the HI account. I couldn't bring myself to get shot of them all, though, and have kept 500 (Their value won't be counted in as savings towards the house, nor will the cashed-in ones, as these are set aside for DD and DS. DD is 21 this year.)

cashsaver, I have just finished potting my sprouted tomato seeds and planting some garlic chives. My pepper seeds had just sprouted and no more, so they have now been planted in one largish plastic pot until they look more like seedings.

The relevance to saving to buy a house in this exercise is that it allows me to have a FREE HOBBY and, hopefully, homegrown saves a few pounds of the grocery budget over the year. Every penny counts here!

pavlovs_dog

so the end of the financial year is nearing - how are we looking?

im one payment away from hitting the F&D fund target :j and the house deposit fund will jump up by at least £4k in a week when i pay in my £3600 and the interest on this years ISA pays up. chosen next years ISA so will open that next week and get the 08 tax year up and running properly :j

Frugaldom

Hi Pavlovs! :T Well done on the F&D, although my brain initially jumped to the conclusion it was Food and Drink until pointed in the direction of Furniture and Decorating! :rotfl:

That's brilliant news about your 4k increase. Mine, sadly, is already included, the only difference being that I need to transfer it from HI to a new ISA and I haven't decided which one yet!

I've opened a couple of new accounts - ciggy savings represent the garden fund and the £2 coins are being saved for 'Misc'. Every penny counts, doesn't it? My problem is that the figure keeps increasing to cover all the fees, repairs, F&D, central heating, doors & windows, roof repairs, which means it's looking further off than ever. For OCD reasons, I rounded it off to 60k but now suspect it could be closer to 75k. I'll decide once I see what the property prices for little fixy-ups are doing after the end of this tax year.

My only other recent 'investment' has been my first term assurance bond (or something like that) so I at least have some form of insurance when I eventually end up exchanging savings for property. Still discussing the possibility/viability of joint-ownership, but it entails so many legalities that it's quite bamboozling.

Keep up the good work and any suggestions for the best ISA (I like to see interest going in monthly) then please let me know. I've gad a few madcap ideas but nothing concrete yet.

pavlovs_dog

im leaning towards the Lloyds 6.5% fixed for a year (tiered interest rate, 6.5 is for all balances over 9k, and they accept transfers in as well as new money). if you head to the ISA, tessas and whatsits board, there is a great thread there which lists the best products currently available.

i used to love watching the interest build month on month, but i havent had that type of account for the past few years (sacrificed that facility for top perfoming accounts). after a while you do stop missing it. and with a bit of basic maths you can roughly figure out what you will be paid at the end of the year anyway.

and hows this for ultra anal.... i even have a small pot which i finished a while back for miscellaneous costs such as getting the phone line connected (have you seen what bt charge :eek: :eek: ), filling the kitchen cupboards and freezer (so that subsequent weekly shops will be cheaper), etc. so in a way there is a Food and Drink fund, but its nowhere near the 7k mark

LittleMissAspie

Nice to see other serious savers. Love the way you have "pots" for every single house-buying cost. I thought I was bad logging my savings on a spreadsheet and dividing them into pots for each thing I'm saving for but you guys have gone even further

My boyfriend and I are saving for a mortgage deposit, hoping to have 20% in two years time (that's assuming a 25% drop in prices around here). I'm going to put it in my signature I think. We're paying into ISAs and I also try to top up with some here and there, which I'm thinking will cover costs and fees.

I also like numbers to be rounded off. My savings have ended in 8p for a while now and every time I see it I wonder if I should take 8p out or put 92p in!

Frugaldom

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

...I also like numbers to be rounded off. My savings have ended in 8p for a while now and every time I see it I wonder if I should take 8p out or put 92p in!

Put 92p in, that's the quickest way to see the balance increase and then keep doing this every time there's interest added that upsets the balance of the balance

MORPH3US

This thread is brilliant... I love it...

To see you guys saying "i'm saving for a new roof", "i'm saving to do the garden up" and you don't even have a house yet... it sounds crazy, but its great!!!

Don't forget the pot for the house warming party now will you....

I already have a mortgage and make max overpayments on it already so chances for savings are limited, but that said we have managed £6k in two years even after mortgage and overpayments so we're not doing too bad....

That said, the £6k is to cover us on our mortgage as we don't have any kind of mortgage insurances.... so we have to keep it for a good while yet, but when the mortgage is paid off and we haven't needed it, it will be ours to spend on?????? who knows...

Anyway keep up the great work guys!!!

Frugaldom

I'm going to be brave and post an update of how things are going here. As the property market swirls around us in chaos it is difficult to imagine how, where or when because word on the street is that there may well be a spate of downsizing to avoid repossession, so any subsequent price drops may not be as beneficial to the first-time buyers as we were hoping. In the longterm, I guess it could mean that those with the cash at the ready could swoop and pounce on any available fixy ups for the distant and foreseeable future. Never mind, we'll carry on regardless in the hope that we can catch up one day and afford a home of our own without the the mortgage millstone hanging around our necks.

This is the current situation:

STAGE 1 - TARGET TOTAL £2,100
Mortgage arrangement fee - NIL (No mortgage to arrange)
Basic lender's valuation fee - NIL (No lending involved)
Survey Fees - £1500
Land registry - £100
Local authority search - £100
Other search fees - £100
Conveyancing - £300
Stamp duty - NIL (it's going to be a cheap property)
COMPLETED :T

STAGE 2 - TARGET TOTAL £7,900
House viewing allowance (meals, B&B, travel if in different area) - £1000
Removals - £1000
Immediate essential repairs - £3000 (Remember it's going to be a fixy-up)
Central heating system/wood burner - £2,900 (Grant available)
COMPLETED :T

STAGE 3 - HOUSE FUND
3% saved (This is a certainty to be a long haul!)

Stage 3b - Garden & livestock fund - £141.42 (Quit smoking money)

Stage 3c - Decorating fund - £52 (£2 coins)

That's as far as I have got and progress is really, really slow. I hope everyone else is managing to succeed with their own 'home goals' and will keep us posted. Feel free to join in at any point; it's a simple task - save enough to buy a home without a mortgage.