Forever home... not a forever mortgage

powerspowers

Love this thread wp although the gardening more than the finances! Our veg patch is 1.5m2 and we still had a glut of kale 😂 
sorry for your loss WP, I think cheerful flowers are the way forward. All the best for self employment and your mortgage journeys

willowparrett

Thanks @powerspowers
Good progress made on the front garden this weekend - started planting the shady bit with foxgloves, ferns and hellebores.  I badly need to pot on a lot of the biennials/early hardy annuals that are looking sad in the greenhouse, so hopefully they'll be growing well when I plant them out in the spring.  The veg plot still needs a good tidy up and all the green manure turning over so the frosts can break down the soil a bit.  I'll get there!  Hopefully there's a bit of a dry window this coming weekend. 

Mortgage-wise, not much news.  It's going to be a pretty tight month with Christmas leave and then taking a fortnight off to support mum with funeral arrangements and all dad's admin.  One of the downsides of self-employment!  Should still be okay to make the planned OP for both mortgages, but only just.  

I've taken the decision to just self insure my cat after she turned 8 and the premium (with much comparing) more than doubled!    Did a bit of research and the average/max pay outs for a cat are achievable from savings (and frankly, are barely above the excess), so I'll put this year's premium in a savings account and keep my fingers crossed she stays healthy for a couple of years so this can build up a bit. 

Feeling a bit flat this evening; and I still have some work to do - but I thought I'd give myself half an hour to read some diaries and chat into the ether.

WPx

powerspowers

Hello from the ether! 

Good plan re the cats insurance. I remember my mums dishwasher broke and she spent the dogs money on it, she kept calling it the dogs dishwasher and telling the dog to not get poorly any time soon  😂 

willowparrett

Looking forward to making the 10% over payment on the small mortgage at the start of next month, which should see it sitting just above £22k.  My 'transfer' finger is itching!  Not much other MSE news.  It has been a cheap January thankfully, with just standard payments going out.  I found myself applying for my bank's standard credit card this morning.  I don't need one, and suspect I will never use it, but I've noticed my credit score falling slowly, and the only thing on there that is a 'negative' is the low amount of available credit.  As it's with my existing bank they were able to 'pre-approve' me, and it took about 10 minutes!  Hopefully after the credit score dip from the application, that will see things improve over all.  

Self-employment ticking along (I was pleased to see that this hasn't affected the credit card application).  I'm still a bit behind after a fortnight off, but everyone is being very understanding.  

Garden-wise I'm doing a little bit of potting on most lunchtimes and slowly picking away at it.  Desperately need some dry weather to get the veg beds prepped for spring sowing (broad beans and parsnips are first up next month).  Otherwise the garden is looking decidedly spring-like!  Some areas still need a tidy, and I still need to prune the roses, but I've planted a lot of wild bulbs in a 'wild' bit of the lawn over the last year in various forms ('in the green' last spring, autumn in the ground, in pots in Nov and planted out a few weeks ago) and they are just starting to show their heads.  Snowdrops are really starting to show in good numbers, and the daffs and snakeshead fritillaries are (when I search and have a poke around!) definitely on their way!  It is such a good feeling.  And I noticed yesterday how light it still was at 5pm  .  My next addition will hopefully be wild garlic (I love wild garlic pesto!), but I need to wait until we dig the area for a pond before I plant anything (it'll just get trashed if I plant now ).  I want it to be a predominantly white/shady/wet woodland garden.  Has anyone grown wild garlic at home?  It is possible?  I've seen you can buy bulbs online so I'll give it a go.     

Enough rambling and back to work.  Hoping for good Wednesdays all round.  WPx

willowparrett

Woo, that's the 10% OP for this year made, bringing the small mortgage down to £21,971.  A lovely feeling to be able to make it as soon as the allowance became available.   Hopefully with standard payments for the rest of the year that should leave it around £20k - it clears about £85 a month off the balance with the normal payments.  I'm just waiting to check what funds I need for the rest of the month before making my main mortgage OP of £417.  Should be fine, but I don't want to eat into savings for the OP.  

It's a really busy period of work, which is nice - though it is stopping me spending as much time in the garden as I'd like!  That said, the weather has been wall-to-wall rain and drizzle, so its far too wet to do much in the way of digging or ground prep, which is what I really want to be getting on with.  A glimmer of spring this morning (though checking the forecast, rain is due back by lunchtime!), so I spent a good half an hour outside enjoying it.  I might try and get out for a coffee break to achieve something (I need to check my calendar, but I think sowing of leeks, onions and a couple of the slower brassicas could be on the cards). 

Right, back to work for now. WPx

willowparrett

A quick note to record the main mortgage OP for Feb of £417, I'll update on the MFW21 thread too.  Mortgage now stands at £95,205.  I've just noted with pleasure that despite taking a £30k additional mortgage at the beginning of last year to contribute to this 'forever' house, my total personal mortgage (£117k) is now less than I started with at the end of 2016 (£120k) ... so I've (with regular payments and OPs) brought the total down by £32,824 over 4 and a little bit years.... Feels kinda good?  I've probably said above, but the main aim is to get this total down to below 60/65% LTV by the time the mortgage deals end in 2024 and I (probably) need to take out a BTL mortgage.  At the current value this would be c. £101-109,000, so £8-16k reduction in three years - should be doable even with a reduced income.  Secretly I'd love it to come down below £100k but that feels like it might be a push once everything reopens post-covid and we start doing things again... we will see.  

All fairly quiet otherwise, too much work on to do too much - I managed to clear an area in the front garden at lunchtime yesterday to plant up some spring bulbs that I've had in pots since the autumn - tulips, daffs, and snowdrops, which should make it a bit cheerier over the next few weeks!  Also sowed come cauliflower and onions yesterday evening - currently sat in the office waiting for them to germinate before they go out to the greenhouse. 

Lunchtime here.  WPx

willowparrett

Good morning all, 

I just made the £417 OP to my main mortgage - MFW21 now standing at £1251.  I'll go and update the MFW thread shortly.  February has been a quiet month financially - no big expenditures, and ticking along with work.  I've got a self-employment workshop coming up later this month which I'm looking forward to - I've done a couple of similar things and they're helping me feel a bit more connected with work, and I usually leave with a bit more knowledge or at least confidence that I'm doing the right thing.   In a couple of weeks it will be a full year that I've been full-time self employed.  Sometimes I love it - sometimes I really don't.  I don't know how much of the latter has been covid/lockdown related though - a tough year to 'go it alone' probably. 

We're gradually gearing up for the gardening year.  I turned over the main veg bed of green manure at the weekend - fairly back breaking stuff, but hopefully it will help our hideously heavy clay soil.  This area will be home to peas and beans this summer.  A smaller bed still to be dug and some general tidying up, and then that'll be the allotment up and running and ready for sowing in a few weeks.  I actually sowed some parsnips in the ground at the weekend too.  Under a cloche so hopefully they'll germinate.  Last year was hopeless for parsnips, but I was using up old seed.  Generally getting going with various flowers and veg growing in the greenhouse - I sowed my tomatoes yesterday evening.  I also had a few hardy plants that have been sculling around in pots all winter, so I planted them out in the front garden on Monday's lunchbreak - hopefully they'll get going now that it is starting to warm up.  The front is mainly going to be annual/biennial flowers that are currently growing in the greenhouse.  

Right, I had been wrap up and get back to work - enough gardening rambling on a mortgage thread!  

WPx

willowparrett

Very brief update to put the MFW2021 OP of £417 across.  Next month feels like it might be quite tight as I have a couple of weeks off for Easter so won't be earning for that.  So, I wanted to make sure this payment went across before it gets ear-marked for anything else!  We'll see how we go.  

A few unplanned expenses this month; my laptop finally keeled over, after threatening it for months.  So I've gone for an all-in-one PC as I'm now WFH full time and have a desk set up.  I love it so far!  Also my rental property needed some electrical work doing.  All very tax efficient, but the way my boyfriend talks about it it's like both of these are paid for with 'free' money!!  I'm not sure he quite gets that if I hadn't had to spend it it would have been mine anyway, just taxed...

Anyway, main mortgage now standing at £94,122, which is great news - with the regular payment in a few days it'll drop down well into the £93ks!  

WPx

willowparrett

A good few days on Prolific, with £8 to cash out this morning.  I managed May's £417 for MWF 2021, which drops the main mortgage to £93,231.  June's regular payment will (just) drop it into the £92ks!  

I'm really pleased overall with how this mortgage is dropping - we should be down into the 80's by the end of the year.  I can't access the main mortgage total easily, but it must be about £233,000.  The small mortgage is a bit dull as I've made the max. 10% OP, so it only drops by about £80 a month now.  I think when given the option, I might move this on to a more flexible mortgage, even if the interest is a little bit higher - I'd love to see this dropping more rapidly; it feels more within reach than the others!

In the garden we've had a productive few weeks.  The veg. garden is up and running, and we've got a full water butt system in place now (yesterday's storm was a good test!).  Just waiting for the last frosts (hopefully) later this week, and then I'll be on a big planting out exercise.   

Back to work for now. WPx

South_coast

Have you looked into whether it might be worth continuing to overpay mortgage 2 and just paying an ERC? With that balance it's unlikely to be a high charge, and might save you money over continuing to pay the interest on a larger balance every month? I think you've said that mortgage has the highest rate?