SLLM (Single Lady Large Mortgage)

Sistergold

Hello ladies
I hope you all had a wonderful week? Mine has been quite okay and this month has been a busy one for me. 

1. Mortgage update
As I have mentioned before I am with the WestBrom and yes we are still in the dark ages where there is never a clear picture of where I am with my mortgage! Never the less I plod on like many other brave girls and make do with what I got as long as I have my house! 

Anyway as I am reorganising my finances I am getting a clearer picture of my mortgage status. I called today and was told that my mortgage balance is £445869- and that the new product will infact start on 01/06/2021 and not 01/04/2021 as I had said in my previous post. 

I managed to overpay £15870 as I am really trying to push myself hard before the end of my current product. I just felt paying more will not do me any harm as this is part of my holiday fund and not earning much interest. So I have now done two lump sum payments this month and as there is £30 OP which goes with direct debit my total OP for March are £6338 plus £30 plus £15870 making total OP of £22238! This is the best I have ever done! All I wanted was to be able to bring my balance as low as I can and also I was pushing to bring my minimum payment to under £2000. 

I am happy to say that my new minimum repayment will now move from ~£2043 to ~£1962 until 31st of May 2021.  On the 1st of June it will move further down as my interest rate will be going down from 1.49% to 1.39%! 

I just wish you ladies were here to pinch me as I feel like I am dreaming and we could also have gone out to celebrate this milestone! My mortgage balance will move from £445869 to approximately £429999. I should get a letter in the post with the exact figure in a week or so! My mortgage is now under £430k I can not believe it! On my original offer letter I would have reached under £430k in year 5 and I have gotten there before end of year 2 thanks to overpayments! It’s better for me to save on interest through overpayments rather than leave all money I have sitting in poor interest accounts! 

Emergency fund is still intact. Building fund is building up. Still have April and May to make more lump sum OP before I am restricted to a maximum of £1k OP a month with new product! I am likely not going to overpay for a while as I just wanted to push this money in to benefit most from saving on interest rather than overpay gradually since I could spare the money at present. This is money I would have used for holidays but since I have had to write off holidays for over a year now I might aswell put it to good use and start putting back into the holiday fund when my restrictive new mortgage product starts. 

2. House maintenance 
While I am doing well on the overpayment front I have not been doing so well on the house Maintanance front. My back fence is rotting and is breaking down at a faster rate than I anticipated. Yes it’s rotten but what is making it worse is that my boys play football and now when the ball hits the fence the panel planks are just flying off leaving gaps! Well I guess that’s the whole point of a garden that people can stay active! What I need is a new fence but I can not restrict children from playing. Putting a new fence will be good as I can now install a gate so as to have access behind my fence. There is a private road there and I plan to get in touch with the lease holder of the road and arrange to pay a fee to get a key so that I can also drive into my back garden if I should choose to. It will also mean builders vehicles can easily access house from back when I start the planned extension. To get a key for the main gate for back access I understand I will need to pay a fee of £100 a year. Anyway installing a gate will also mean we can retrieve balls and maintain fence even if later I choose not to pay for road access. 

My outside sensor lights (3) need replacing! 

My kitchen tap has been needing replacing but I have been holding off as I need new kitchen! 

Oh this life of house ownership! So many troubles! 🥺😩 But hey you know I love it really and would not have it any other way! If I was renting I would have just complained to the landlord 🙃 🤔everything will hopefully get fixed, but then my rent would never have been going down! Now mortgage down from £2202 when I started to £1962 today!🎉🥳🤑

3. Family
The children are doing well! They are now back at school thank goodness! I am just keeping my fingers crossed that they will not have to stop school again! My daughter who is in secondary school has had two weeks of COVID testing at school and this coming week they will now be testing twice a week at home that will be fun I guess🙄😬?  

Mr Ex is still not working so now help still but hey as long as I am not responsible for him the lack of support is a lesser evil than him being there to look after too. 

4. Exercise and mental well-being 
I started doing walking workouts at home and that has been really good especially that time it was snowing. I have been carrying on with home workouts as that has seemed to be easier to commit to as not weather depended! I must say as exercise has been consistent mental well-being has be good too all round under these lockdown conditions! 

Making the overpayments and the change in mortgage outlook has also had a very positive impact on my mental well-being! Just knowing that I am now closer to getting the mortgage to be under £400k and also having the repayment under £2k seems to have taken some kind of financial burden from my shoulders! I feel more confident that at this rate I can bring the mortgage to a more acceptable level!

Have a lovely day ladies!

slm6002

That is a fantastic overpayment and you have made your goal of payments under £2000.  You should be very proud, and i will virtually pinch you and celebrate with you lol

Sistergold

slm6002 said:

That is a fantastic overpayment and you have made your goal of payments under £2000.  You should be very proud, and i will virtually pinch you and celebrate with you lol

Thank you for the virtual pinch and celebration 🎉  I really needed that! Never thought these figures will be happening this year! 

Sandyra

Amazing stuff SG 👏🏾. It’s great that you set your mind to it, to achieve your goal as well as maintaining the other plans. Very impressive xxx

frankersBri

Phenomenal OP and progress in general on your goals. Well done SG! 

Sistergold

Sandyra said:

Amazing stuff SG 👏🏾. It’s great that you set your mind to it, to achieve your goal as well as maintaining the other plans. Very impressive xxx

Thank you @Sandyra, I feel I have put holiday money to good use! Xxx

Sistergold

frankersBri said:

Phenomenal OP and progress in general on your goals. Well done SG! 

Thank you @frankersBri XX x

Sistergold

Rumblings
Hello Ladies
Just wanted to check in. Nothing much going on in my finance or personal life so one could say same old same old? How are you all doing? I think we are all kind of getting fed up with lockdown/COVID and all and now just waiting for that day that it will all come to an end? Who ever thought we will ever live through such times? So many lives lost, and so much stress in us the living and yet the grind of buying a house is still going on? 

So many single ladies/people finding it difficult to get onto the property ladder? Reading about what challenges mortgage wannabes are facing makes you thankful that your problem is about mortgage payments and overpayments isn’t it? I would hate to be trying to buy now with the frenzy created by the stamp duty arrangements?

I think I am a bit lax on money I don’t know but I just can not join in in all this and if I were to buy a property I would just wait until the stamp cuts were over. I do know that in as much as there are bidding wars involved due to many people trying to buy sometimes you just have all things fall into place and you easily get a property offer accepted in which case you can buy? But honestly speaking it seems to be too much trouble at present, and I would rather wait? 

As I have mentioned before I have been saving in different places and as lockdown has gone on for so long I have now been thinking of buying a second property? Well it’s still on the cards and on track but I am not going to really get serious about it until the stamp duty holiday is over. I just can not be bothered to stress about the whole process at present. Another thing is I am hoping house prices might go down after the stamp duty but if not I still don’t want to stress about that as life is truly a gamble and I don’t mind an increase if the stress of beating a stamp duty deadline can be removed. 

All along I had been looking at buying the said second property in the midlands/north but I am also looking at buying in London but I guess I will truly decide when the stamp duty holiday is over?! 

Mortgage front

On Monday my mortgage is going out, I called in some days ago to increase my overpayment to £540 as I had in past months reduced direct debit overpayments to £30 while I was making the lump sum overpayments. I want to go back to things working like clockwork and thus increased OP. My minimum monthly payment has gone down as mentioned in previous posts to about £1955 which is great so with the OP of £540 I am just under £2500 which is fab. 

I can not wait for the new lower interest rate to kick in 1st of June! I will also need to get used to not being able to make large OPs from the first of June. 

Family

Mr Ex is still not working(May God help him) I am now used to not getting maintanance money so that’s not such a stress anymore. He has the children for a week as they are on break and will bring them back next week so I am home alone and am getting used to it. 

As I am writing this I sitting alone drinking some red wine which I love from time to time. So much peace and quiet I am enjoying it for as it won’t last. 

One thing I must say is that for some reason me and Mr Ex don’t seem to be fighting at all? It has been months and this is quite unusual I think it’s because I have no expectations from him at all and he has also been humbled by not working and maybe he now feels more human after all. Anyway it’s good as I don’t dread talking to him when we have to, but I am still glad he is out of my life so this by no means mean reconciliations! 

On the Home front

My back fence is falling apart. The posts are concrete which is good but the panels are wood which needs replacing. I am thinking of getting scaffolding boards and cutting those and sliding into the concrete post and staining them? Do you think that would be nice? Who knows? Or should I calm in someone to replace panels? I think that’s doing the scaffolding fence myself would be a nice diy job for this summer? Well I will let you all know if I summon the courage to do the fence myself. 

Sometime last week the children were playing in the house and the broke the room divider between two open plan lounges! I was really depressed by this as these were custom made and cost almost £3k. On inspection it looked like the workmanship was a bit flimsy, yes they should have not been pushing each other around like that but I guess children will be children but they could have made them stronger for the price surely? After much deliberation I managed to get my power tools out  and I think I managed to fix them. I am just hoping to get a few more years out of them if not I guess I will know replace them with something else. I think the screws I put are better than the staples they had used? Who knows? 

I will post of picture of the room divider below, all fixed hopefully only time will tell? 🦾
 

Enough rumblings for day! 🥰

slm6002

Good morning, as of Thursday evening i now own my house, and the XH has been removed off the deeds.  I am now looking for a mortgage and new home if i can get the mortgage needed.  I am not too worried about the stamp duty at the moment, i just want out of here.  I have the money set aside for the stamp duty if i need to pay.  I have a lot of painting to do and decluttering  before it can go on the market.  Although i have had plenty of time throughout lockdown i haven't had the umph to do it, and probably wont until i know i can get a mortgage, and then it will be all go.

Queen_of_the_Hive

slm6002 said:

Good morning, as of Thursday evening i now own my house, and the XH has been removed off the deeds.  I am now looking for a mortgage and new home if i can get the mortgage needed.  I am not too worried about the stamp duty at the moment, i just want out of here.  I have the money set aside for the stamp duty if i need to pay.  I have a lot of painting to do and decluttering  before it can go on the market.  Although i have had plenty of time throughout lockdown i haven't had the umph to do it, and probably wont until i know i can get a mortgage, and then it will be all go.

Congratulations @slm6002 what a weight off your mind and now your time to move on.