SLLM (Single Lady Large Mortgage)

Sistergold

@Queen_of_the_Hive you are right mothering and work is a minefield trying to know what to do. I think the best advice for young wannabe moms new in the job is to find a way of still practicing in ones profession if one has trained in something. Part time is never a bad idea. I have cut down my hours at times while I was married but always with live in help as even on reduced hours my job is rather demanding. 

@badmemory, I have found with most people live in help seems far fetched but for me every penny was well spent. I have four children as you know and I have paid for a live in help right from start until July 2019. At that point I decided it was enough as my last child was now going into year 5. I have spent thousands in live in help. No regrets at all. 

badmemory

I had no regrets about a live-in either, in fact I am still in touch with the first one & my son is 40 this year.  She left to go into nursing so whilst I was sad to lose her she deserved her success.

gozaimasu

Sistergold said:

@gozaimasu, your dad sounds like a wonderful man and if only we could have many more like him! Yes the world needs to move forward and treat both sexes respectively knowing that not only men are capable of all things. 

What? I didn't anything about my "dad."

Sistergold

gozaimasu said:

Sistergold said:

@gozaimasu, your dad sounds like a wonderful man and if only we could have many more like him! Yes the world needs to move forward and treat both sexes respectively knowing that not only men are capable of all things. 

What? I didn't anything about my "dad."

Sorry 🤭 @badmemory mentioned about her dad going with her aunt for her to be even allowed a mortgage previously. 

JennyJukes

Well that's me in my home now  not without a hitch but that's to be expected I suppose!
Firstly the toilet is broken!!  Toilet flushes but then won't stop flushing?!! I have to lift the cistern cover and pull the float up to get water to fill back up to stop it flushing?  As far as I'm aware, the seller is liable for repairs in the first 5 days?  I will send my solicitor an email to fix this.  Good thing in Scotland we pay a flat rate for our water, not water meter, so not going to cost me much in water costs but obviously my concern is that it'll be a big repair if not fixed.

Internet won't work but I guess that's to be expected with virgin media (I mean, what am I even paying £40 for?!).  I was told to just take my box with me because virgin media is already set up here and it would work. nope.... no wall bracket to plug it in so need an engineer.  Internet is an absolute necessity for me I answer phone calls all day every day at work which comes through our computer software and still working from home and need to be home to let engineer in anyway so can't even go to an office to work!  I was only paying £18 per month but that discount ended in March and I didn't want to find a new provider until I bought my place but once I've got it sorted it'll be on my list to change! 

TV aerial doesn't work either.  So sat here unpacking and using my mobile data just to check in!

Other than that though I'm so happy.  Met my neighbours who were really nice and most importantly explained where my clothes lines were for me lol.  The guys who moved my stuff were really nice efficient and quick and reasonable price.  I've been for a massage and food and some other stuff this week so not just boring house moves.  Going back to the rental to clean it up tomorrow.  I saw my rental back on market for £55 more per month than I was paying! (£60 more than my mortgage).  Wow!!  Glad they didn't increase my rent but also glad I got out whilst I could.  Now I have a beautiful 2 bedroom house and nicer neighbours and it's all mine.  Is it sad how excited I got seeing my mortgage in my bank account?  It doesn't even scare me, after renting for so many years and seeing my money going nowhere, I love knowing that it's just going to go down and down!  Cheers everyone  

slm6002

Happy that you are in your new home.  Re the toilet, look on you tube on how to mend it.  I managed to replace a bit to sort this out after wasting a lot of water (months worth) as i thought it was going to be a hard job.  Turns out it was under £10 and very easy (must be as i had never done any DIY before due to XH not letting me).
I cant help with the internet i'm afraid but i hope it is sorted soon.

Sistergold

Oh @JennyJukes, you have just reminded me of the great, lovely, most awesome feeling of getting the keys, going to the house and realising it’s really yours! The feeling of moving and truly having it sink in that the process is complete! And well the inevitable breakdowns? How you find the leaks or whatever just stops working as if just to test if you are a worthy homeowner?! I don’t think the home ownership feeling could be quite complete without something needing fixing and just seeming like it will dampen the feeling of finally being there! With all that you know you bought the right place if you don’t have any regrets and still feel happy even if the roof blew off! So congratulations @JennyJukes! Thank you for letting us into your experience! Happy settling in! Xx🥰

Sistergold

Good morning laddies
I hope you all had a lovely weekend? Mine was good and full of activity just so as to improve chances of a more organised week. But before all that I am happy to announce that mortgage went out today. This is the first payment on my new 2year deal. 

I called about two weeks ago and set a new OP of £840. I am not sure how long I will keep this amount but well every amount helps and if it becomes too heavy a decrease is only a phone call away. Well a journey of a thousand miles begins with a step and I must say with this payment I am £2400 closer to paying off my mortgage. 💪🏾. I am going to try and keep an OP as close to £1k which is my maximum allowed OP with this new deal. My repayment is a lower £1955.06 👯
In the spirit of curiosity I talked to my not so good builder to get an estimate of how much it will cost me to put a wall as replacement for the fences that I am responsible for (left fence and back fence if facing the garden from the house). Left side is 18m and back is 11m. On the back I am planning to put a gate of maybe 2.4m as it’s completely fenced at present but I want back access so a gate will be nice. So for calculations sake he used 18m + 9m(as there will now be a gate) giving 54msq. He gave a quote of £9k to £10k for materials and £8k to £9k so around £20k for a 2m wall? Well I am now scratching my head concerning how much it will cost as I don’t want to have a wooden fence to maintain on an ongoing basis. I am going to now start saving for the wall and get 3 more quotes in the meantime. Do you think it’s worth me buying the bricks over time? Apparently I need 7000 bricks(double brick wall) and that will cost about £8k. So if I checked the minimum order for delivery I could maybe buy that while I am saving for labour and once I have all the bricks I then have the works started? 

Well back to what I did over the weekend. On Saturday I managed to book a slot at the recycle centre for Sunday. So I then started decluttering from Saturday and did more of that on Sunday until I had a car load. There was such a queue to drive in but managed in the end. 

Sunday in between the decluttering I managed to go to Lidl got weekly groceries of mainly meats. After the recycle I came back and cooked three different stews which we will eat inbetween the roasts. So the plan is to have chicken stew Monday, beef mince on Tuesday, roast chicken pieces on Wednesday sirloin steak on Thursday, salmon on Friday, beef stew on Saturday. Well that the rough plan. My son may cause that not to go to plan as sometimes he takes packed food but I think there is a bit of excess anyway. All I know is with this batch cooking there will be enough food to avoid takeaway as last week I spent £244 on take always! Never again but it was worth it at the time as I had not cooked in advance and I was as coming back late and tired from work. While on the subject of overspending I also had to buy a second vacuum as the shark I have was getting grubby if used In the kitchen. So I bought a vax @£99 which I think the mechanism will be better suited for the kind of dirt in a kitchen. I prefer vacuuming to the brush especially with the children and it means you don’t raise dust. 

All laundry was done between Saturday and Sunday. 

This morning I cooked some rice and so all can eat when they choose.

Have a wonderful week ladies! XX 💋 

MaddyHale

@Sistergold Excellent work on getting all these meals ready. I need to have this level of organisation.

Sistergold

@MaddyHale, thank you. It was a pain while doing it. Time wise it was efficient use of time though as I cooked all three meals at the same time. Washing up was a hustle definitely. Tonight though was Devine as I just came home, very tired and late(got home 8:45pm) children had eaten, I just ate and relaxed a bit, bathed and was ready for bed. Each person just washed their plate. So no pots till weekend. Xx