Buying a house without a mortgage

pavlovs_dog

ok. you get you anal annie crown i thought i was [STRIKE]obsessive[/STRIKE] overly organised

Frugaldom

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

ok. you get you anal annie crown i thought i was [strike]obsessive[/strike] overly organised

Never mind scoring it out, I'll openly admit to being obsessive. I WILL have a home to call my own, bought and paid for by err... 2015 :rotfl:

Kaz2904

Well I'm not doing very well with my anal retentiveness- I managed to get over the £10k mark but it's still an uneven number.
Doing ok with the grocery challenge and still have to decide what I'm going to do if or when I have any grocery challenge leftovers.
Maybe mortgage payment maybe try to keep the month going for as long as humanly possible from the paltry amount leftover?

Frugaldom

Hi Kaz, at this rate, I'm going to have to give up groceries in favour of having electricity in this house! :rotfl: It really is getting to the stage of heat or eat if I don't want to further affect my Scrooge-like savings habits.

butterfly72

What a great thread! The OH and I are frantically saving towards a house deposit. I'm not sure we'll save enough to buy outright but we are hoping to put down at least 100K. So far our deposit stands at just over 70K (Would have been more but I had to buy a car.. got a 6 month old Corsa for 8K which I'll probably keep til it claps out) We save approx. £1000 per month at present which isn't bad as we rent in greater london. We may have to relocate to the Newark area in the future but that will mean a nicer house for our money! Also I'm hoping to get pregnant soon.. so that will slow the savings. I'm selling my old CDs on amazon (they are all on the ipod now) and old books. I'm not doing too bad selling my old junk! I'll be doing a car boot this summer. What I'd really like to do is grow a few herbs and veggies but we live in a flat and only have a small courtyard area. I'm also looking to do a few shifts at the local hospital to help. OH is thinking of doing some freelance work at the weekends.

Good luck to everyone and their challenge!! :T

Frugaldom

Butterfly, I have a rapidly growing herb garden on the window sills. So far, my mini-garden comprises coriander, chives, parsley, mint, garlic chives and cress. All of these plants have been purchased from supermarkets at clearance prices ranging from 14p to 75p each. Total cost so far - under £3. My tomato & pepper plants grew from free seeds - if you take the time to scoop them out whilst preparing a meal, then wash them, dry them and plant them.:)

butterfly72

Nykmedia,
would now be a good time to start some herbs then.. or have I missed the correct time of year?

I was thinking of just going to the garden centre and buying a few growing herbs and growing veg in pots so I don't have to worry about soil and pots and planting them!!! I haven't got a clue! It seems you a bit of an idea to grow stuff. My dream is an allotment or a garden big enough to grow my own.. but I know I'll have a lot of learning to do before then. With the price of food going up I think growing your own is the way forward.

Kaz2904

Definately want to start growing my own!
I've been working my bum off this week to try and get my front *garden* ahem sorted out. It was concrete when we moved in and was letting water in through the air brick. I've dug out all of the concrete last year but got caught by the dreadful weather. Since Monday I have taken 3 huge carfuls to the tip. Nearly got rid of the horrible earth.
DH has decided to take the day off work tomorrow so I'm hoping that he'll take the kids out for the morning while I'm in bed. Then he can pop to B&Q and pick up the coping stones for the front. If we can get them in then I'll be able to continue to get some plants in.
Really can't wait to get everything in but am a bit behind. Never mind, we go on holiday in August and would probably miss harvest season for all of it.

Frugaldom

Cheap herb garden ideas - always, always check the supermarkets for the potted herbs as they reduce them often just to clear them off the shelves as there's nobody to water them. But these are live plants, pay a few pence (max I have paid was 75p) and then repot them at home. Instant herb garden and each time you cut some, more grows These are also OK to repot outside as soon as the chance of frost has passed. A budget of £10 should fairly fill a garden, I would think

I've transferred savings from HI to ISA, but am disappointed to see that interest rates are about to be cut again! Oh well, back to the drawing board and time to start scrimping and saving again, only another £2994 to go to prepare for next year's allowance. :eek:

pavlovs_dog

seeing as you laid yourself bare nyk, i figure its only fair i do the same tit for tat and all that

here's how team pavlovs_dog shapes up!

deposit: £16-16.5k (depending on how much interest i get when my taxbeater isa 'matures' in next few days). overall aim is £25-30k

furniture and decorating fund: £8k - currently frozen whilst i build up next years ISA allowance. as a minimum this would be a very good starting amount anyway if worst comes to the worst.

economy folds or we loose our jobs fund: £10k. equivilent to about 6 months of our take home income at 2009 rates.

roof caves in and boiler blows up fund: £3k

costs/fees: approaching target of £3k (to cover solicitors fee, mortgage arrangement fee, survey costs etc). would like to increase this by around £2-3k if possible in case we end up incuring stamp duty.


as preliminary targets (oooh, get me ) have now been achieved, savings focus is on saving the stamp duty element of the fee fund, and then ploughing all extra money towards the deposit.