A New Year, A New Start

Silver_Queen

Lots of exciting movements in the past week.

New job: just waiting for all the checks to come back now! They said it will take a few weeks, but I'm hoping it'll be quicker since it's January and things are quiet. The checks look seriously invasive and I'm surprisingly nervous. I have nothing to hide and nothing to be worried about, but...

Flat: I asked my broker to apply for a new mortgage. It's been approved pending valuation, and the valuation is due to take place today, so fingers crossed! I tried to ask for compensation for the delay but the seller has said no.

We went to see some family members last weekend (hooray....) and ended up burning through our joint account funds for the train fare. Really need to look into a car, the train cost us around £100 for both of us. Car is on back burner until flat is sorted, though.

6 days til payday...

[Deleted User]

Oh exciting times!! Hopefully you will here back soon, the waiting is the worst isn't it. I know what you mean about the stress even though you know it's nothing to worry about

Trains are sooooooooooo expensive aren't they!

Keeping my fingers crossed for your new mortgage.

Silver_Queen

Deleted_User wrote: »

Oh exciting times!! Hopefully you will here back soon, the waiting is the worst isn't it. I know what you mean about the stress even though you know it's nothing to worry about

Trains are sooooooooooo expensive aren't they!

Keeping my fingers crossed for your new mortgage.

Trains are unbelievable! I honestly thought we'd be saving money by getting rid of OH's car, which cost about £350 per month to run including all fuel and maintenance, but we're paying close to that on train fares and it takes so much longer!

My parents live close-ish to us and the return train fare to them is about £20 per person, but they seem to be under the impression that they can expect us to help them out almost every single weekend. OH's grandma lives a bit further so train to hers costs about £40 return per person. God forbid we go visit his parents, that costs us about £50-£60 a pop!

I really do think that a car is going to be the cheapest option

And yes, I'm so nervous but so excited about the new job! I keep checking the application to see whether my checks have been approved yet, even though it's only been 2 days and I was told a minimum of 2 weeks :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

I'd be the same, I'm sooooo impatient with stuff like that.

Silver_Queen

Very frustrated with myself today. Managed to lose my Oyster card whilst out meeting a client. I'm 99% certain I know where I've lost it, but it's somewhere that I can't get it back again.

Luckily, it was registered so I just had to pay for travel back to the office, and then for a new oyster card and for a fare back home. Total cost about £15 of money that did not need to be spent!

Also bought many coffees today. The meeting this morning was a toughie and I've been exhausted ever since.

Going to my parents tomorrow and then hopefully that's the last trip to family for the next couple of months. I can't afford to keep paying for the train.

Payday is on Tuesday and I am counting down the hours.

[Deleted User]

That is so annoying, I had to pay for a bus fare a couple of weeks ago even though I have an annual pass.

If the coffee helped you get through the day then that is the main thing, sometimes we need all the help we can get.

Silver_Queen

Finally payday.

Time for a money shuffle.

£500 to joint account (OH still owes me for holiday so he's putting in extra this month and I'm putting in less)
£500 Amex (sofa!)
£300 savings
Rest (just under £800) will stay in current account for now, anticipating solicitors spends this month


I finally caved and bought underthings. Trouble is that it can be hard to find ones that fit right, and I hate hate hate going into store. Ended up spending £250 online on 11 of them and will probably keep 2 or 3, returning all the rest. Hopefully will spend £100 max on them after all is said and done.

I'm still waiting for a £30 refund to clear. The company say they issued the refund three weeks ago. If it doesn't turn up by the end of the month, I'll have to ask Amex to look into it. Bit annoying!

Some expensive days coming up this month. Our anniversary and v-day. We don't usually do v-day and I think I'll continue this tradition of resolutely ignoring it. Might get a card and that's it.

Getting increasingly nervous about new job. I'm such a worry wart.

Got some surprisingly nice comments from my superiors at current job. Sounds like they knew all along that I do a lot around here. Shame they didn't show it earlier. Also got praised from a senior external person in our field for some work that I did, which has got me chuffed :T

Silver_Queen

Silver_Queen wrote: »

Finally payday.

Time for a money shuffle.

£500 to joint account (OH still owes me for holiday so he's putting in extra this month and I'm putting in less)
£500 Amex (sofa!)
£300 savings
Rest (just under £800) will stay in current account for now, anticipating solicitors spends this month


I finally caved and bought underthings. Trouble is that it can be hard to find ones that fit right, and I hate hate hate going into store. Ended up spending £250 online on 11 of them and will probably keep 2 or 3, returning all the rest. Hopefully will spend £100 max on them after all is said and done.

I'm still waiting for a £30 refund to clear. The company say they issued the refund three weeks ago. If it doesn't turn up by the end of the month, I'll have to ask Amex to look into it. Bit annoying!

Some expensive days coming up this month. Our anniversary and v-day. We don't usually do v-day and I think I'll continue this tradition of resolutely ignoring it. Might get a card and that's it.

Getting increasingly nervous about new job. I'm such a worry wart.

Got some surprisingly nice comments from my superiors at current job. Sounds like they knew all along that I do a lot around here. Shame they didn't show it earlier. Also got praised from a senior external person in our field for some work that I did, which has got me chuffed :T

Underthings update(not something I thought I would post on the internet): I'm keeping £75 worth and returning the other £175 worth.

Also, I GOT MY MORTGAGE OFFER!! :T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T

SO PLEASED.

Silver_Queen

A frustrating start to the new week, left my oyster in my other coat so I have to pay for travel to and from work today - £8.60!

I'm trying to kick my very expensive coffee habit - it started from only getting coffee when it was free, to buying it once a week, to buying it every day, to multiple times a day...so no coffee this morning.

Meant to bring lunch but my sister did the annoying thing she does, and unexpectedly was in for dinner, so the extras I made for lunch went on feeding her instead. She's gotten worse and worse at buying groceries and now hasn't bought any for months. It's frustrating but I'll be moving out soon, so it is what it is.

There's been a bit of a reshuffle with the parents-postgrad-loan and mortgage-gift-slash-loan, to make it easier we've "consolidated" them as £32k total and I'll be paying £700 a month into a third family member's account until it's paid off. It then will go to whoever needs it next, probably my little sister! Makes it easier for all of us. At £700 per month, it won't be paid off until December 2023, so I'd like to pay off more each month, if possible, but it's not interest-bearing so I'm not too concerned. With my pay rise, it should be completely doable and won't change my finances for now.

My other concern is my mortgage. I'll be on a 2 year fix, after which I'll have to remortgage otherwise the rate will be ridiculous. The plan is, after 2 years, my OH will buy in and we'll buy 100% of the property (currently buying 40%). However, we'll have to get a big enough mortgage to cover the remaining £198k (current value) of the property and a deposit to go with that. So we have to try to save roughly £20k in the next 2 years, whilst I'm also paying £700/month. Our combined annual salary will be £70k so it should be possible, but it will be tough. We've also pretty much decided we want to get married in the next 2 years so we have to consider that too. It's gonna be a big ask! Can we save £20,000 per year for the next two years? That's £1,667 per month. Our basic housing costs are £1,100 and commuting costs us £350 per month.Theoretically doable, but improbable...

Re: getting married. In an ideal world, he and I would just march down to the registry office and sign a piece of paper and be done with it. No family, no friends, no party, no mess and no money. However, familial pressures means that we can't do that. One of his siblings already did that and his mum was devastated, if another one of her kids does it I don't think she would ever speak to them again. My parents would react similarly. However, I do want to spend as little as possible.

[Deleted User]

That is a pain that you left your Oyster card, lesson learned - make sure you sort that as soon as you get home.

It's so hard to kick the coffee habit but once you do you'll be shocked you ever spent so much on it!

You can defo do the savings if you are really strict with it.

Congratulations on the wedding plans!!

In my opinion I wouldn't spend the £20k on the wedding but this is coming from someone who is divorced so my whole opinion on weddings is a bit skewed so maybe don't listen to me ;-)

You could still have a small registry office wedding and keep the numbers down really low so that you don't spend that much??

I love researching stuff like that so let me know if you need a hand.