SLLM (Single Lady Large Mortgage)

Sistergold

Sistergold said:

Good morning laddies

I have now this morning gone on and done my first Mortgage Sweep! Have now just payed £116.32 to bring the balance to a neat, tidy, sparkly, awesome @£472200 Remember I chose the 00 challenge #12. 

Good evening 
Remember yesterday I mortgage swept balance to £472200 but when I checked my balance today it had gone further down to £471999! A whole £1 saved in an instant! Looks like because of the ‘sweep’ they had to recalculate interest or something? Well can not complain will now need to mortgage sweep again at the end of the month to bring the balance down to zeros! 🙅🏽‍♂️

Sandyra

Morning SG
Just catching up on your diary

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.

Good way to look at it/ to be. I didn't need a lodger, I kind of fell into it, with accommodating my brother. After that, I picked when I wanted a lodger, normally in the Autumn months when I'm less at home. Anything I got was a bonus and used it to OP. My advice would be don't keep it sitting it the account like I did 🤦🏾 and OP straight away, just leaving the deposit. 

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.

Its been weird because I'm used to interacting with at least 100 people a day, so to be on your own is hard to adjust to, but I'm being kept busy. Living in a flat has it ups and down. I have a communal roof terrace which is amazing but not something I would use now, and I have a south facing balcony on the 3rd floor which means its nice and bright. My flat has a unique layout for the block and in general, as it has no corridor, but what I would call an atrium with all the rooms leading of this massive space. It makes it more homely and definitely a surprise when new people come and visit. This means only one medium sized reception room, which is difficult as, I do zoom zumba everyday not only due to the space but my boyfriend has been relegated to the spare bedroom. One thing I miss is the garden. I do need to spruce up my patio, with a parasol - no shade at the moment so cant be outside for too long, upgrade of a garden set, perhaps something to do over half term 🤔.

2. Any of you got affected by this lockdown mortgage wise 

Luckily I have a secure job and savings fund that I was using to save up for a wedding 🤞🏾, some time in the near future once my partner gets his act together, but as he's been furloughed, I would feel more comfortable using that money for stability. One good thing in this current situation is that my mortgage has gone down (tracker), with my interest only being £300 as opposed to £420 😮, which means more of a shift to capital. So I have continued with my OPs + difference in drop. The only reason I opted for a tracker was I didn't want to be stung with ERCs as I/we were planning to move somewhere bigger, which has proved beneficial now.

3. What positive things did you manage to do because of more time at home? Eg gardening, cleaning, renovations, exercise 

I'd like to say more exercise, zoom zumba, walking and cycling but unfortunately putting on weight 🤷🏽‍♀️. I think its because I'm on my feet all day at work, and not doing nowhere near the 25,000 steps I would do a day before.

After Lockdown.
Has the lockdown prompted you to want to move?

Yes, was planning to anyway, but I think until I feel the market is going to pick up, I'll stay put. I need enough equity in my property to move to a house. I want to really move into my forever home, so I'll have to be patient like everyone else.

SandyRa x

Sistergold

Sandyra said:

Morning SG
Just catching up on your diary

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.

Good way to look at it/ to be. I didn't need a lodger, I kind of fell into it, with accommodating my brother. After that, I picked when I wanted a lodger, normally in the Autumn months when I'm less at home. Anything I got was a bonus and used it to OP. My advice would be don't keep it sitting it the account like I did 🤦🏾 and OP straight away, just leaving the deposit. 

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.

Its been weird because I'm used to interacting with at least 100 people a day, so to be on your own is hard to adjust to, but I'm being kept busy. Living in a flat has it ups and down. I have a communal roof terrace which is amazing but not something I would use now, and I have a south facing balcony on the 3rd floor which means its nice and bright. My flat has a unique layout for the block and in general, as it has no corridor, but what I would call an atrium with all the rooms leading of this massive space. It makes it more homely and definitely a surprise when new people come and visit. This means only one medium sized reception room, which is difficult as, I do zoom zumba everyday not only due to the space but my boyfriend has been relegated to the spare bedroom. One thing I miss is the garden. I do need to spruce up my patio, with a parasol - no shade at the moment so cant be outside for too long, upgrade of a garden set, perhaps something to do over half term 🤔.

2. Any of you got affected by this lockdown mortgage wise 

Luckily I have a secure job and savings fund that I was using to save up for a wedding 🤞🏾, some time in the near future once my partner gets his act together, but as he's been furloughed, I would feel more comfortable using that money for stability. One good thing in this current situation is that my mortgage has gone down (tracker), with my interest only being £300 as opposed to £420 😮, which means more of a shift to capital. So I have continued with my OPs + difference in drop. The only reason I opted for a tracker was I didn't want to be stung with ERCs as I/we were planning to move somewhere bigger, which has proved beneficial now.

3. What positive things did you manage to do because of more time at home? Eg gardening, cleaning, renovations, exercise 

I'd like to say more exercise, zoom zumba, walking and cycling but unfortunately putting on weight 🤷🏽‍♀️. I think its because I'm on my feet all day at work, and not doing nowhere near the 25,000 steps I would do a day before.

After Lockdown.
Has the lockdown prompted you to want to move?

Yes, was planning to anyway, but I think until I feel the market is going to pick up, I'll stay put. I need enough equity in my property to move to a house. I want to really move into my forever home, so I'll have to be patient like everyone else.

SandyRa x

@SandyRa
Thank you on the advice to just OP with the lodgers rent rather than deposit into some account. Once sitting in a pot there is temptation to go on holidays I guess? I really can not afford to be putting extra money to anything else other than OPs until the mortgage balance is way down! 

I hope you will be able to have your wedding soon! Xx

beanielou

Also agree to just OP the mortgage with the lodger money.

Sistergold

Good morning laddies
Hope you have a nice, fun filled Saturday planned for today? I am just going to be at home and see if I can catch the sun if it’s warm and it’s sunny. 

For now I have just been looking through main bank account to see if I can find extra money somewhere. I have just realised that my direct debit for council tax has gone down from £247 to £173 so gone down by £74. I was paying a higher figure as when we moved in I did not register to pay for a while and by the time I got round to it I had to pay extra as the billing year had moved along a bit so they needed me to catch-up. Now that I have caught up my payment is now down to £173. 

When I was renting I had a delivery direct debit payment with Tesco for my online shopping. Since I moved I have not been using this facility and have hardly even been buying from Tesco. So for past 10 months I have been paying about £7 for a Delivery service I am not even using! 🤗🙇🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️ Anyway that’s stopped now.  Have called sky and paused sky sports so sky bill from £109 to £94 = £15 saved. So from this month I have an extra £74 from council tax, £15 from sky and £7 from tesco making a whooping  £96! 🥳🧚🏾‍♀️. Will round it up to £100 and now increase my monthly OP. Will add it to stop order payments. 

🥰

Sistergold

Diary friends 
I hope you have all had a lovely weekend? Mine has been great so far and looking forward to being at home tomorrow being a bank holiday. Took a walk with my two younger children to a wetlands/recreation park. They had fun “locating pokoman” as we were walking to the place. We then took time to play some football and sat by the “lake” watching some ducks. The sun was out but not too hot as it  was almost 7pm when we got to the park. 

We have really had a fulfilling day as for the first time since we have lived in our house we managed to catch the ice cream man when we were at home this afternoon. We heard the typical ice cream man van melody and we all ran around in a panic hoping to catch him in time. 💃🏾💃🏾 We were not sure which street he will be at as there are quite a few street around. We then also spotted some neighbours also rushing for the ice cream van. Well needless to say there was a little queue when we got there.  We then got our icrecreams and our day was perfect from then on. Phew I have never seen so much excitement in my neighbourhood such as that caused by the ice cream van! Lockdown has made us appreciate little things like that. 

I do need to lose some weight but hey ice cream can not be skipped in this lockdown as I have not had much temptation my way so hey a little treat is not going to add a stone. Diet wise I do eat healthy as I need to be healthy enough to pay this mortgage! 

Summer is coming and in typical British style I will need to do some home improvements! Not sure where I will start but whatever I do it will certainly improve the house and my skills. 

I do need some art pieces for the house as I have blank walls. Not too much of a rush but that could liven the house a bit don’t you think?  

Well enough for now catch you all later! 

💋

Sistergold

Reflections for today 
Talking about stress
 I read somewhere that surveys have revealed that buying a house was so stressful, second only to divorce. Well I have been through both, the stress of buying a house and the stress of divorce. 

How I felt about the stress/pain of divorce
With divorce for me it was like a death. It was like someone had died but worse as they were still alive this made it feel like a daily death so you can not like bury the person and so no closure. It was like an open wound.  It also felt like I was the one dying except I still had to live. At the time it was really horrible. I was basically just going through the motions of life as I could not even take a break from life. I had to hold it together for my job and at my job. I had to hold it together for the children. I had to hold it together for myself. It is the worst when you want to hibernate somewhere but really you can’t! All of a sudden all bills double it’s all down to me at a time I could really do with a slowing down. 
 Life for the children was carrying on as usual except it was not usual for them as they missed their dad and it felt like it was all my fault. Except I knew that it was mainly not my fault. Well it was my fault in that I moved out but it was not as I had in fact lived a life of pain just to keep it together for the sake of the children. If there is one secret to a long marriage the answer is have children, but I can not tell you the secrets to a happy marriage! 😼
Yes I am sure many of you single ladies have experienced first hand the pains of a broken relationship. For those who were married that breakup is more painful as one party can use the paperwork to torment an already grieving partner! IF ever I say I have met someone new remind me that I said I will not legalise anything and I will protect all my assets and they should also protect theirs! 😂✍🏼 Well I don’t want to be homeless again at this old age! 

If a partner dies I understand it’s better as they are now gone and it’s easier to accept but if they are not with you but alive it’s really painful.
One might ask how come the pain if I moved out, well it’s every girls wish to have a happily ever after it’s because it’s really bad and you leave against your better wishes so it’s still as painful as if he left me as him not being a good husband still felt like I was not good enough and so in a sense he had left me emotionally as if he was committed I would not have left. 

When I went through divorce I thought I could never experience such stress/pain again but little did I know about how the single mortgage process will be like. 

How I found the stress/pain of buying a house
Laddies I am not sure if I agree that mortgage stress is second to divorce stress. It might just have been my personal experience but I found buying my house so much more stressful at worst and similar in level of stress to divorce at best. I found it more stressful than divorce because by that time it was like a matter of life  and death. At that time I had accepted that the marriage was over and what I am doing now is for me and down to me. It was more stressful as truly I was now all alone. It was stressful as being a single parent every time I got rental property I would have been rejected several times just for being single. To rent I had to pay deposit plus six(6) months rent in advance. 

I would lay awake at night thinking of how getting a rental property secured was going to be more difficult the older I got. I would picture how horrible it will be at 70 years still renting from one property to another. I would lay awake thinking of how I would probably be a problem to my children needing them to accommodate me when I am in between rentals. I would lay awake at night wondering how I could continue at old age keeping up with ever rising rent! 

The stress was crippling as I could not afford to fail, also if I failed to get a mortgage it was like I was now an all round failure. I considered my marriage succeeding a must just like I considered a home very important. 

I had already failed in the marriage but in fact married or not I still needed a roof over my head. I felt without a house I was truly finished. It felt like not buying a house would have been the final nail in the coffin! 

The honest truth is if asked now, owning a house I think is more important than being married. If I were to start life again I would say while young get a house then get married to a man who has his own house already then the two of us get a family home(joint) we rent out our individual properties then if the marriage fail we all go back to our first houses! 😉🤔 I feel the process of breaking up will be so much more tolerable if both did not have to work out where to live on top of coping with the stress. 

What probably made mortgage stress more stressful for me than divorce stress was 
1. Having moved to London from a smaller town. Can you imagine divorce, single mom with four children moving to London. Our joint property was less than a quarter of the value of London properties. My situation would have been much better if I was moving form London to a smaller less expensive town. 

So if you have suddenly become single and have children if you can avoid it you do not not need to move to London at this point but hey it’s not like it can not be done but be prepared for a raved up stress! 

2. Taking up a highly demanding job to go with the London move! 

3. I knew what I wanted and I was going to try all I could to get it. 

4. Not getting to know a mortgage broker before finding a house
5. Wanting the best when I am at my weakest point
6. wanting the highest mortgage I could get
7. Buying my house before joint property was sold. 

When I bought my house my ex was playing around delaying the sale of joint property so I decided not to wait for him. The divorce was final but he was hanging on to staying in the property probably to frustrate me and anything I want to do and also he was staying in it for next to nothing. The mortgage on the joint property was low compared to the London rates and he was just out to fry me. 

My mortgage application was difficult as for me to get my mortgage the lender also took into account that I was already in another joint mortgage. I think the joint mortgage complication will be something I need to discuss on it’s own so that it might maybe help some single lady out there find some hope that you can still have a mortgage even with the past hanging over your neck. 

Conclusion
I personally found mortgage stress higher than break up / divorce stress although different in nature. 
How did you find it ladies! What was worse for you breakup/divorce or securing a mortgage? 

Sistergold

Evening laddies
I hope you are all in high spirits as you OP your mortgages. For those who have been waiting to start or complete the house purchase process well the wait is almost over as estate agents are now back in business! Hopefully more single laddies will be able to join us in this world of house ownership where most of the time you are scratching your head on how to overpay! 

Well besides overpaying there is the rest of life to manage where you have to spend when all you want to do is save and OP! At the moment my heart is being drawn to thinking of having a kitchen refit! Well I had a bad experience with builders when I had the rest of the house done which is what sent me to do some diy courses. Now I think I have cooled off and I would love my kitchen to be done so that it can at least be in keeping with the rest of the house. 

I did get two quotations one for Wickes and one from Howdens when I bought the house. I think it was going to cost about £15k to £22k so at the time I just left it. I had spent a lot already and I did not want to be left completely penniless at the time. I still don’t want to spend that much but will see. 

Sometimes I wonder if they look at the street they come to measure the kitchen and then charge you by postcode and just expect you to just pay? 

Either way I will need to get it done one of these days. So in my mind I will need to allocate around £25k and then start seeing if I can have it done for cheaper and whatever I save I will send to OP. Having a nice house surely comes at a price! 🙇🏽‍♀️

I contacted a metal fabricator as I want a steel framed kitchen. I was just thinking to myself if I am going to spend that much I might as well see how much it will cost me to have a steel framed made to measure kitchen. I am also planing to have the boiler moved from the kitchen into the garage and also have the whole kitchen rewired so that it all brand new including electrics.
Am not a dishwasher Person as such so was thinking of not having a dishwasher or will I regret this later? I just find that it’s quicker to wash the dishes by hand and was thinking of having a double sink instead as at present I have a single bowl sink. In my houses before owned or rented I have always had a dishwasher and yes I have used it but most of the time I just do the dishes by hand as I don’t really like storing them until dishwasher is full. Well I will need to make up my mind about that? 

The washing machine is in the kitchen and it will have to stay there for now but later I am hoping to have an extension and then have a utility room so will move it into that maybe at that point I can put a dishwasher where the washing machine was and my children can use the dishwasher if they want to? Who knows maybe as I get older I will appreciate a dishwasher? 

Other than that I am excited about a kitchen but I am hoping I can be patient enough to just have a design agreed and I can then be given a quote and see when I will do it. If it’s much cheaper than the howdens quote then I will do it this year but if still expensive I will do it next year. If I feel courageous I could buy a cheaper one and have a go at fitting it myself? 🤔 it’s not that I am not confident to fit it myself but with working as well it might drag for too long waiting for me to finish and that might cause some stress? 

So much to think about and so little time! 

Conclusion 

I would love to have a kitchen but am not in any hurry to. At present whole house is renovated but the kitchen is still stuck in the sixties. I did buy a new stove and fridge and have a microwave so all is safe and functional, thus no hurry. 

Questions for you
Ladies are you planning to have your kitchen done? Or have you done it already?
How much did it cost you and how did you go about it? 
How long did the refit take? 

How was the process? Enjoyable or stressful? 

If you were to do it again what will you do differently? 

Fixtures and fittings 

Fittings you chose that you find useful and would recommend? Like type of sink, tapes, cabinets? Etc 

frankersBri

Oooh your kitchen plans sound exciting! But what is a steel framed kitchen,m do enlighten me! I think the kitchen is the heart of a home and I put it high on the list of things to sort out. I'd like to do mine too, but that's something I'll be putting on the list for 2021, although I have had an engineer round to do calcs for a beam to replace a wall I want to knock down, and drawn up the floorplan, planned the cabinets I want from DIY Kitchens and I bougth a Belfast sink on prep in a whim.. but yeah, 2021!

You sound like you want to get it right, and I think that is the right approach for such a large outlay. I'd suggest speaking with the designers at Howdens, Ikea etc. Even if you don't want to go with their style, they may have some good ideas that get you thinking. For example, the Ikea lady helped me consider fancy induction hobs with a built in extractor so I don't have to have an ugly one in the middle of the room... 

I don't have a dishwasher, haven't since I lived at home when I was 18. But I would put one in, if you have space. Even if a narrow one. Firstly, I think it is a mod con possibly future buyers may want. But also with 4 children perhaps having one will become helpful later as they get older and there's just more mess? 

Sistergold

@frankersBri hello and thank you for your input😘
Yes I already had Wickes and Howdens come took measurements and did my designs last year and that was the £15k and £22k quotes I mentioned. Wickes didn’t  give out the design unless I go ahead with them they just showed it to me at the meeting I guess they don’t want you to take it away and just do it yourself. Howdens did send me the design and plan and list of all items they charged for and I did print it but whether I will still find it or not mmmm thats another matter as I can be terrible with paperwork and also I might have thrown it away because of price who knows?! I will look around for the Howdens plan see if it’s somewhere in the house. 

I have not yet finished visualising/deciding the whole concept but so far I want the frames of the kitchen to be industrial steel and it will be visible. So far I am inclined to wood insert for the rest of the body of the cabinets like doors and sides but have not decided yet. So far I am also not sure if I then want the wood inserts painted or left natural but gloss painted? I also have to decide on the top cabinets whether to have them with glass insert door and so have lighting inside or not or have some wood and some glass will see. Might also have the frame of industrial steel and the rest of the body as silver/stainless? 

Worktops I have not decided on yet, whether granite, wood covered in stainless steel, just normal Natural glossed wood, or laminate normal countertop worktops who knows? All I know is it will not be a standard kitchen it will be different! My hope is I that will like the finished product as it is all experimental! If I then hate it I will have to tolerate it for some years try to forget how much it all costed and have a builder install a Howdens kitchen years later when I am over the embarrassment of the cost of my kitchen! 🤣 
My kitchen is certainly not too small about 3m x 3.7m or is that small or is that big🤔? I find though for most average kitchens by the time there is the washing machine AND a dishwasher AND bin space there is not much cupboard space left. Or is this just me? I just end up feeling like so much space goes to a dishwasher and washing machine and bin. I know I can cope without a dishwasher but I could never cope without a washing machine! I know once I have a dishwasher I will accept the space taken and try and use it! I know I will find the dishwasher convenient and I know the children always want it! It’s just that I lose space for my pots and pans! 😼 

But @frankersBri you are right I should probably have a dishwasher as the children have said they would want it and now they have received another vote from you and already I am outnumbered! 

Hey ladies more votes please DISHWASHER OR NO DISHWASHER what do you think?