SLLM (Single Lady Large Mortgage)

Sandyra

 £480sK to the £470sK! 🤝

Amazing  You'll be MF in no time.

frankersBri

yesterday morning I was so over the moon to learn that my mortgage had moved from the £480sK to the £470sK! 🤝

This is awesome! Well done you, bask in that golden glow of progress

Sistergold

🧚🏾‍♀️ Thank you ladies! 

sofarbehind

Well done SG! I congratulate myself and celebrate inside every time I get rid of 10k, you have to celebrate the milestones during longterm goals. Imagine how it will feel when you get down to a number that begins with 3! It will be no time at all at this rate. I'm going to treat myself to something significant when I get there - always wanted shutters downstairs so perhaps I will do that.

I personally prefer blinds to curtains but shutters are the dream. Maybe have some curtains as a milestone reward? Otherwise for now I've just kept the plain blinds that I inherited with the house.

Very impressed with the single lady kitchen refit - you are making me think I need to try more DIY things. 

Sistergold

@sofarbehind that’s true that every £10k deserves a celebration dance 👯‍♀️. You know what I can smell the £300Ks even though it’s a mile away at the moment! The thing is all along I had not bothered to check the balance since I started on this mortgage and knowing that the figures have changed in character I just found it felt so gooooood! Yes I have seen houses with shutters and they do look beautiful when looking on the outside. I think when there is a chance to celebrate the mortgage going down I will celebrate with another OP! I know I am going OTT. It’s really addictive!

Sistergold

sofarbehind said:

Well done SG! I congratulate myself and celebrate inside every time I get rid of 10k, you have to celebrate the milestones during longterm goals. Imagine how it will feel when you get down to a number that begins with 3! It will be no time at all at this rate. I'm going to treat myself to something significant when I get there - always wanted shutters downstairs so perhaps I will do that.

I personally prefer blinds to curtains but shutters are the dream. Maybe have some curtains as a milestone reward? Otherwise for now I've just kept the plain blinds that I inherited with the house.

Very impressed with the single lady kitchen refit - you are making me think I need to try more DIY things. 

Good morning 
I am just observing that £90sK is within sniffing distance for you! Please may we swap mortgages?!
welldone you! 

Xx

Sistergold

Good morning laddies 
I did mention in one of my posts that I do plan on getting a lodger. It was something I accepted as a possibility even before I bought my house. Previously in marital home without the children and husband was working away I did have a lodger I think for about two years. This helped with some adult presence in the house. For me it was not so much for the money but the money did come in handy I guess. I was also in a small town and the rentals for room were not great but I can not say it made no financial sense. 

Anyway like now financially I really don’t need a lodger, but I am a MFW so financially it makes sense to have a lodger! If I get a lodger I will put the money aside for OPs or savings. 

I dread it from the point of view that accommodating someone else is not easy but for the sake of the bigger picture I can do it. 

I have already been working on it as 

1. I am teaching the children to be more tidy 

2. I have been watching on YouTube Living big in tiny houses. This has made me mentally aware that as a person I don’t need this much space. 

3. The so said lodgers room is a dumping site at present full of bin bags and boxes not yet unpacked since moving in, so I have been slowly looking into that. Knowing I can generate money makes me motivated to free this room. 

4. Have identified a small under-counter fridge freezer(lovely one at Wayfair.co.uk) which I will put in the lodgers bedroom so that I don’t worry about the children eating her food by mistake or she doesn’t worry about that too. 

5. On top of the fridge she will have a tiny microwave to warm up food once in a while when she does not want to come downstairs to kitchen. I will also put a small kettle in the room for tea making

6. She will have full use of kitchen
7. it will have to be a single female over the age of 35years but preferably over 40. 

8. She will have use only of the said bedroom and have use of kitchen and garden but not the rest of the house. 

We will share bathrooms 

9. The person has to be someone who wants to live a quiet life so room is for single occupancy and visitors are not allowed. 

Please ladies feel free to contribute to this list of must dos and don’ts! 

I will need probably till end of year to get my head round it but I will do it no matter what.
At the moment I have preset OPs of £417 and then I make other ad-hock payments and the rent will be more than my set OPs at this moment so I can not ignore the financial gains. Even if I get a bad lodger I can give them notice to go at least it’s not a whole house rental situation! Once they go I just get another lodger, periods without a lodger are not a problem as really the money is just for the sake of not having an empty room which is a wasted space full of junk! 🤔
laddies I think I can do this no need to live so privately while looking for money everywhere to make overpayments! 

I want to see how long it will in-fact take me to bring this mortgage payment to zero. 

Laddies a lodger is my next target! 

On another note when I finished at university I did become a lodger for about two years in 2/3 different properties.  I had a fridge and microwave in my bedroom and I used to share kitchen with owner of house and other lodgers. In the first property I stayed, owner of house did not go to work but had about 4 of us lodgers. All of us were so quiet and discreet and I only met anyone a few times while I lived there. In other properties landlord was not there and main issue was untidiness in the common areas but other than that it was not that bad. Where landlord is there upkeep was better. I saved tons of money and weekends I could just travel and do other things as my accommodation was so affordable. My earnings were very good but out of principle saw no point getting a flat or house by myself to rent. Being a lodger was good cos I could easily move and arrangements were not too involving. 

Xx

Sistergold

Lockdown Reflections
Good morning laddies
Looks like the property market will soon be up and running as more and more offices are opening. I hope more single ladies will be able to complete their purchases and join us SLLM. I really do feel for anyone who got caught up in this unfortunate turn of events with the world being forced into hibernation. This really forced us to spend so much more time than we would ever have dreamed possible in our houses. 

For me this whole COVID-19 problem has really brought home the fact that time and chance are really important as this period last year is when I was processing my purchase. House viewing was in February and then surveys and paperwork then exchanged end of May to complete first week of July. So if I look back if I had waited to buy this year I would have been bitting my nails during the lockdown wondering if the bank was still going to release the money, I would have just ‘died’ from the Shear anxiety of this whole wait! 

Lockdown Questions 

1. How was it for you being “stuck in your your house” I say stuck but not in the real sense as in stuck stuck but stuck in the sense that we all had to stay home.

How do you feel about your house choice now that you spent more time at home. If you knew about being in lockdown will you still choose you current house, What do you wish you had in your house to make being stuck at home better or easier or more enjoyale?

2. Any of you got affected by this lockdown mortgage wise For example remortgaging not possible,  moving house delays or stopped, house purchase Delays, fell through, house sale not possible, etc. Were you left without a toilet or bathroom or kitchen because of lockdown say if builder had just ripped out your kitchen and now could not carry on with the works? would love tro hear about it. 

3. What positive things did you manage to do because of more time at home? Eg gardening, cleaning, renovations, exercise 
please share any Lockdown related stories as we are all now feeling better in that there is a bit of easing with the lockdown. 

For me being stuck (once I take Out the whole problems of worries about the world coming to an end) at home made me appreciate my house more. I really did not have any regrets about anything and  I really just had a chance to be at home more than normal and just enjoyed the whole setup. The children were okay as they could play in the garden or just watch lots of tv and there was no stress as such at all once I managed to stock up for food. I have an open plan L-shaped lounge/dinner but I installed a folding wooden sliding door system to be able to separate the two and I converted the two into lounges as to be honest I preferred having two lounges rather than a dining room. I do have a pull out table in the kitchen for meals and I hardly have time and chance for very formal family meals due to my work schedules. Having two lounges means since I moved into this house I don’t have to be referee as to who is now to select the tv station as with two TVs in two places its easier to satisfy all the children somehow. I found with the four children and the two lounges there is bound to be a two by two agreement in tv channel choice so two watch together in one room and other two go to the other room and less quarrels result so there is more peace. I must still say I still don't get to choose channels either way just to keep the peace. I do have have SkyQ and do have 3 boxes since i moved house its expensive but with children I just felt it will be easier to keep everyone happy. The 3rd sky box is in my room but I have not bought a tv for it yet almost ten months on. 
Lockdown positives for me

1. During the lockdown for the first time I managed to do some gardening. I managed to harvest some wild garlic which grow all over my garden and I managed to store in freezer quite a bit of it. I have also been using the frozen wild garlic in stews and scrambled eggs laddies the taste is out of this world! 🤤

2. During the lock down I went into the garage and managed to do some tidying up. During the garage tidy up I discovered that I had left boxes of food in there since August and now there were rats taking over the garage and it was like infested! Rat droppings were everywhere and they were jumping as I  tired to tidy up 😾Once the lockdown is over I will call an exterminator to look into the problem as I don’t want the rats to move into the house. I went to the dump site to dump some of the items from the garage but dump site was closed for lockdown so I could not do much. So after the lockdown the plan is to declutter the garage and be able to park my car in there as at present is just full of stuff I have not needed therefore not looked at since last year when I moved.

3. This lockdown has also made me want to move towards minimising stuff as I have come to conclude that I have too much stuff and it costing me my joy, money, space, and time. Costing me money as I have a spare bedroom full of Who knows what which I could rent to a lodger and get money or use as guest bedroom, costing me space as in the garage full of Who knows what in which I could park my car and costing me time as in the time taken over time shuffling around all those boxes which again are full of who knows what ?

4. During this lockdown I started taking walks, very long walks. I have discovered parks, recreation areas, river bank walks in my area and have really connected with my neigborhood which I had not yet done since I moved into this area as it has been just work work work. 

After Lockdown.
Has the lockdown prompted you to want to move?
Has the lockdown prompted you to want to add anything to your current house to make it a better house for your needs?
Has the lockdown changed anything in your life going forward?

frankersBri

Thanks for the really positive post @Sistergold! I'm just taking a break from work and it was nice to read something trying to find positives in this situation that we are all in. 

1. Being in lockdown has helped me really appreciate my garden. It's big. It's unkempt with patio slabs that wobble a lot! The fence at the back is falling down and there's plenty of weeds ruining my lawn! But it's my garden. It's outside space. It's a sun trap in the afternoon. I've really enjoyed pottering around de-weeding, trimming the hedges, planting and nurturing tomatoes, raspberries, spring onions and some herbs. I want to work out how to replace the fence (old concrete fence posts seemingly set in more random concrete) so then I can start attempting to landscape and make it an even nicer space. Lockdown has also made me realise I want to separate the livingroom/diner, as it's the only downstairs space and it feels like everything always has to be done with my housemate, else we have to go to our bedrooms. Annoying when someone wants to watch TV but the other is on Zoom! 

2. Linked to this, lockdown has meant I've put my downstairs renovations on hold though. I shouldn't be spending all of my savings on a remodel, new kitchen etc when a recession is coming. So that is frustrating as I have really been looking forward to doing it for years and buying my housemate out of the house was supposed to be the first step!

3. But I have started decorating my bedroom! Been here 4 years and for 4 years I had Marvel wallpaper of a little boy's bedroom! Ripped the whole room out and am now contending with doing it back up, discovering many DIY hurdles and lack of motivation but I am enjoying it! I also have adapted my exercise habits. Got back on my bike for more than just commuting and pootles around town, and have done a bit of running. Meaning I've lost about half a stone during lockdown and that feels great!

4. In terms of positives, I have really learned how important times of solitude are to me. I love my friends and family, and I miss them dearly. But I also love my independence and find enforced socialising (so many Zoom calls!) quite tiring. It's not always easy, and what I wouldn't give for a night in the pub with friends or something similar, but it's important to know that solitude rebalances me. And also that i can work from home! My company has always allowed it and I've always said "I can't work from home". Which is not true! I enjoy it less, I enjoy seeing my colleagues in the office and not working where I live/relax, but I can do it. So that gives me the option of more flexibility in this role and any future jobs going forwards!

Sistergold

@frankersBri

Nice to hear that you have also gotten some positives in these rather difficult times! Well done for losing some weight!

Xx