SLLM (Single Lady Large Mortgage)

Sistergold

Reflections for today
Hard floors to love or to hate? 

How do you feel about hard floors? Well for me it has been a dream of mine, always vowing to myself that I will install hard floors through out. Well I have a love hate relationship with carpets. I love them in that they are soft to the feet, warm to the feet, soft on the bum when sitting on floor, muffled noise when walking etc, beautiful design and such variety of the pile and weave! Are carpets not just so lovely? When you walk on a carpet you don’t get dirty feet easily so well I can walk around on bare feet no worries! My “hate” for carpets has developed over years of motherhood! Children always have a way off spilling sauce or something on the carpets, adults also spill the red wine on the carpets, anyway an accident is bound to happen on a carpet so I have concluded. 

So in an ideal world I really don’t hate carpets but in the practical world I do “hate them”. 

The cleaning is what gets to me. My first rental property it was carpet from entrance hall, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom all rooms carpeted! I could not believe it! Yes I love carpets but hey someone will one day need to explain to me the logic of carpet in the bathroom and toilet? My last rental had an almost white carpet from entrance and in each room expect for kitchen, bathroom and toilet so that’s not so bad, but ladies an off white carpet for a tenant? 🤔😳🙇🏽‍♀️ Talk about wickedness? 

Honestly I don’t even want carpet in the dining room as such but in a way they do make sense in the bedrooms for the person who has to clean them. If I was a man I will probably want carpets any day but for me I have now just decided enough of the Vax carpet shampooing and in with hard floors! 

So here I am wishes were granted as I am now in control! Don’t you love that? Now in control! 😉💪🏾 so before moving in I had all laminate flooring installed and for the first time I am having to deal with a house with NO carpet at all. In our family house with Mr Ex we had installed laminate all downstairs that is lounge, dining, kitchen, vinyl in bathroom and carpets from stairs and all bedrooms, that in fact was not a bad balance but I think carpeted stairs are the most difficult things to clean don’t you think? 

So now it’s all laminate on every floor including stairs and every room with vinyl in bathrooms. Well cleaning is truly a breeze. Vacuum/sweep and mop could never been easier. The only downside has been that when you have not swept the dirt is quite obvious and it seems to show up quicker than on a carpet🤔? If I walk barefoot feet easily I pickup whatever is on the floor so I always have to wear something on my feet. During winter the floor was colder, and can not really sit on the floor and enjoy the fire or anything like that. 

Now that I have had whole house with no carpet do I regret it? No I think for the ease of cleaning I will not have carpeted floors again as the current floor save me time and effort! 

So for a single parent with children not having carpets is really good but if one does not have children well carpets are really lovely and have a lot of advantages for warmth and all. 

I do have rugs and some smaller carpets to add warmth to the house and this has also made it better with the hard floors and am enjoying the easiness of it all. 

Conclusion
I do love carpets but I do appreciate and love hard floors for their convenience of cleaning. 

What did you decide on carpets or hard floors?  

Do you regret either or? 
 

Moneyfordreams

Kitchens, that our next job. I'm hoping within the next 3 months or definitely by the end of the year. Our kitchen is quite snug. 3.1mx2.1m. I want to spend a maximum of £6k, however looking around Magnet, with all of their discounts I could get a good one for around £7.2k... but that was last week. I really want a local firm, but I am reluctant to get quotes in case they are not favourable. I wanted an island unit as it opens where we had the wall removed to the diner, but after drawing on the floor and using other objects to take the space it may not fit. There are some fantastic exdisplay ones in the South on ebay, which makes me think We can get it cheaper. Many of them you need to drive to pick up and dismantle which is off putting. I was never good at using a dishwasher, toying with the idea again.... My Washing machine is under the stairs. In my last house it was in the basement , then moved to the small bedroom to create a laundry . 

Sistergold

@Moneyfordreams
Hello there. It’s always exciting to do a kitchen! I also can not wait and I hope I can have it done by end of this year if not then hopefully next year depending on what the money looks like. My kitchen is really a mess with some vinyl being held together by duct tape! The previous owner duct taped it down and I have just been living with it like that postponing then COVID came. It’s also amazing how you can live with something in this case a run down kitchen and you then accept it. I should have just bit the bullet when I did the rest of the house and should have had the kitchen done then but the renovations went out of hand and I had to put a stop somewhere and it was the kitchen as it’s the one room/space which can cost a lot! 

Yes ex-display the collection is really for the very brave! 

Xx

skye_blue

I had a new kitchen fitted last year and I had the choice of a sink and a  half or a dishwasher and I am now the happy owner of a dishwasher.  I know i live alone but after cooking a meal for myself the dishes used to get me down so now its lovely to cook and the dishes are done.  I had a private local company recommended and they planned and installed including all new white goods and they were great and i had  jobs in other rooms done at the same time.  Plastering over artex ceilings,  plastering walls, new skirting boards, new flooring etc.
I used most of my savings and I should have paid it off my interest only mortgage but I needed a pick me up at the time (it wasn't a rush decision) and thought if I have to sell in a few years then i may as well enjoy my home now.
No regrets and i love it!!!

Sistergold

@sky_blue
it is good that you did your kitchen and other renovations as true you need to enjoy them so that it’s worth it if you should sell as renovations don’t always add value but at least make selling easy. It’s nice to have enjoyed the property yourself for a good while before selling I think. 

I am also impressed that it was not a rushed decision for you, I did my renovations quickly and have regretted it a bit. I now need to get over the regrets and finish off with the last room which is the kitchen. This time it’s not rushed but like you I can not focus only on the overpayments as I also need to enjoy the house! Hopefully I can have it done soon enough but I will also think carefully before starting. 

I have savings which if I renovate now will mean I have not much  savings left except for the emergency fund but I am thinking I should save for specifically the kitchen then renovate?! I just don’t want to use the money! But sometimes one needs to just feel good?! 🤔

Sistergold

Hello ladies
Reflections for today
Overpayment discouragements
Well I also have fallen in love with the overpayment calculator and live to play around with different OP figures and seeing how it will reduce my mortgage term and tell me money to be saved. 

My dream though at the moment is to actually reduce the amount I pay per month! So I have also been playing around with the overpayment calculator(NatWest or nationwide Not sure which) but choosing option to reduce monthly payments. Now that is quite discouraging. I do know in the long run it will work out to be significant but hey it Will take a long time and interest saved is lower than when reduce term. I do understand the maths that reducing monthly payment will still result in higher interest but it’s just that seeing it in black and white it’s very discouraging. When I started I was paying £2202.- and now am paying £2098. - due to the interest rates going down. So my hope is to pay less than a £1000 a month to reduce term but once a year pay £20k or more and reduce monthly payment. 

I am hoping if I can reduce it to about £1500 a month and still overpay a lot but just the reduction will be like a safety net just in case life happens and an obligation for less is good. Now I don’t know whether to just stick t the high monthly payment and bite the bullet and stick to reducing term and hope for the best? 🤔 from the calculator overpaying £20k will result in a reduction of £89 per month in my monthly payment so it will now take forever to be able to go down to £1500 monty payment! I know slowly does it and God needs to give me patience as I guess £20k is not much in the grand skim of almost £500k well. Maybe it’s something I will just need to do and not go to the over payment calculator about and reduce my monthly payment every year at the rate of £90 every time I pay £20k! 

Oh what a life! 

Well that’s my moan for the day done. I will now stick to the overpayment calculator for reduction of term as that’s more encouraging for MFW like me. 

Xx

conclusion
Although it was a bit discouraging I know that each time I pay the balance will be going down despite the low reduction in monthly payments. So I am still going to pay lump sum each year to reduce monthly payment but I will use the money saved to add to current monthly OP, which will reduce term. I am not totally discouraged but it was just well, less than I hoped. 

I now have reconfigured my expectations that it’s about the whole balance going down not about the reduction in monthly payment I also know that the big reduction I wish for will then catch up with time after several lump-sum payments. All I need is to keep chipping away and one day it will all add up! 💃🏾💃🏾💪🏾🧹

Xx
Has anyone been overpaying  to reduce monthly payment? Please share your experiences 

Sistergold

Diary friends 
I have managed to mortgage 🧹 today by £99 moving balance from £471999 to £471900. 🧚🏾‍♀️

Balance looks better with 00
xx

Sandyra

Hi SG 👋🏾

Unfortunately not much to add on the curtain front. Mine are John Lewis jobbies and one Sanderson which was expensive. I’d love to get some engineered wood flooring when I leave. At the moment I have some cheap oak laminate and carpet which has been there since it was built. I dreamed of my kitchen for years and hope to have an island and dishwasher. So definitely get the dishwasher in my opinion.

As for mortgage OP I always opt to reduce the term as there’s a greater interest saving. Santander online mortgage account before you overpay allows you to choose between term and monthly payment and the interest savings attributed to both. 

Excellent work on the mortgage sweep. Payday tomorrow so I’ll be doing some 🧹 🧹 too!

Sistergold

@Sandyra
Yes once you choose beautiful curtains it looIs like you just have to cough up as they can be expensive. But yes the house will look magnificent! 

Yes that is the thing reducing term the savings in interest is almost double! So really best choose  reducing term as reducing monthly payment and keeping current term makes overpayment advantages very small. My dilemma was where my mortgage payment is over £2k I would have just felt better about it all if I reduced it to under £2k and then reduce term more aggressively later. 

Makes more financial sense to reduce term like you said. 

Maybe I will need to increase my mortgage emergency fund (for psychological peace of mind concerning my high monthly payments in case of life happening) and then make OP towards reducing term thus reaping the interest benefits? 

Thank you, you have helped me come up with a better strategy with regards to OPs! 👏🏾

Well looks like another vote for dishwasher! 

Have a lovely day 

Xx

Sistergold

Good morning All my diary Friends 
Have just been bothered of late because my credit score has gone down from the lower end of good when I applied for mortgage to fair for a few months now. This morning I went to check it again on Experian and it had gone down further by 52 points. Still fair but going in the wrong direction if you see what I mean. 🤔

So anyway I have gone on and restarted the Experian subscription I had stopped after house purchase to see how I can improve my score. I am not planning to buy/borrow anything but I have never had this lower score of 824 on Experian and I don’t want it to go down any further.  So after paying for full service on their website I checked and found that the only adverse effect which has reduced my score is that I am not on electoral roll. Well I did register to vote when I moved and in fact voted on my current address. I then checked that on Experian my current address was the old address of our old house with Mr Ex. So I have now updated my details to my own address and I hope this will eventually improve my score back to it normal good score! With correct current address details hopefully everything will normalise back to what I expect as I am definitely registered to vote here.

Did any of you forget to update your current address on Experian? I know we are all meticulous when we are in the process of buying a house and don’t worry too much about updating everywhere else once its all done! Credit score will still be important for any future loans and remortgages so best keep it looking good! 

Conclusion
my credit score is not bad but it can be better so will now work towards getting it to its best. My current mortgage deal ends end of May 2021. 

Are you keeping an eye on your credit scores ladies? Have you been doing well?