The Last Leg; 6 years later, debt free in 2021

greensalad

Just spoke to the mortgage broker, such a nice guy and was so happy that a lot of what I was already hoping and planning he agreed on, so that's really great!

He's going to send us over details to fill in with our salaries etc and said that the Barclays Springboard Mortgage product could be a good fit but possibly me having slightly adverse credit may put a dampener on it. But for us it's only really an accelerant rather than the final possibility, so I am not too concerned about not being able to get it. He said possibly my adverse markers are long ago enough that it won't be a concern but that he'd need to see everything first to know for definite.

Crazy to think that we could have an Agreement in Principle soon. Also I'm so happy to find out that they do the credit check at AIP stage, I don't know why I had it in my head that it would come at offer stage. But it means we'd get a yes or no much earlier in the scheme of things which puts my mind at rest.

Just awaiting the forms to fill in now, so exciting!

lantanna

Good luck let us know how you get on, I have a default which will drop off next June. I may see if I can get a mortgage before this is I can get my savings up and credit card paid off. It is exciting! 

greensalad

Submitted all the forms and info they are after, let's see what they come back with.

Also picked up an extra shift on Valentine's Day doing pro-active monitoring. How romantic, but it's an extra £500! (or £215 once the tax man has collected). 

greensalad

Heard back from the broker, eek it's all so exciting.

They're putting us forward for a £500k purchase price, £25k deposit, 35 year mortgage at 3.25%. They're sending off an early request for an Agreement in Principle which will include a credit check and that will tell us if my credit is really "adverse" or not. The broker is confident it isn't based on the criteria that Barclays put out (he said it's something like 3 consecutive missed payments in X number of years). My last missed payment is 2.5 years old, but they're not consecutive and are not for loan/cc/mortgage but rather unarranged overdraft which he said is less impactful.

He said we're a shoe-in for the affordability checks, it's just the credit check that is unknown. Getting the AIP in now will tell us yes or no, so at least we'd know early on. He said if we're unsuccessful there's nothing stopping us applying for another AIP in the summer when we're actually ready to go because by then the adverse markers would be even older.

Apparently Barclays were willing to offer up to £720k purchase cost which is beyond insane to me! But the Springboard product is a maximum of £500k and that number brings us under £2k mortgage payment per month which is my comfort zone. 

I have no idea how long an AIP could take so we can only wait...

lantanna

Congratulations, sounding good and as you say you can apply again if it doesn’t come off this time. I have nervous buffer flies about the whole the date seems awfully close now!

Sarahwithlove

I think AIP are usually fairly quick unless there's anything that means it has to go to underwriters. Fingers crossed for you. 

greensalad

Apparently he referred it to his colleague this afternoon. Wonder if we'll get it tomorrow or will it be next week.

greensalad

Up at what felt like the crack of dawn to me at 7:30 today. Don't think I've got up that early since the last day I spent in the office!

Been online all day for work monitoring. Pretty easy work just keeping an eye on things and basically doing what else I like (which for me is nearly always poking about on the computer doing not a lot anyway!) 9hrs 1.5x overtime plus a £50 bonus for this shift which is so good. Will put me up nearly £1,000 pre-tax for this next pay cycle due to being on-call for next week too. 

Didn't hear about the AIP on Friday but just got an email today (I guess they're busy and working weekends!) asking for some details so let's hope tomorrow or sooner maybe?

Bed sheets in the laundry. Need to do some cleaning. House is so cold so maybe headphones and cleaning once my shift is over will warm me up.

Chilli plants put out their second leaves and I really need to pot them up but I need some newspaper to make my pots and I can't find a scrap in the house! Cannot be bothered to go out today but will pop by the corner shop on our lunch walk tomorrow and grab a Friday-Ad or something. Also need to send back a jumper I bought and didn't like so that's another chore I can do tomorrow. 

Currently doing a mass categorising and photographing of all my fabric and sewing patterns. I've been quite good of late not buying too much but I am at a stage where I have so much fabric that I can't readily see my stash (why do you think I was in debt before, haha!) so having it all digitsed will help massively with reducing my shopping habit. I bought 3m of a gorgeous print in January but didn't buy anything in November and December which is pretty good for me. Just need to stick with it for the rest of the year.

Also knitting a jumper at the moment that I've had on the needles for yonks. Done the body and one sleeve. Need to find a good trash TV show to binge for the second sleeve. Yoke will be more fun and involved so maybe a podcast to finish that part!

And finally... am a third through Book 8 of the year. Really enjoying it, Lonesome Dove, which is a Western adventure type book set in 1860 USA. Not what I thought I would enjoy at all but it's just great. I think it won a Pulitzer so was unlikely to be bad but didn't think I'd enjoy it this much. It's on loan from the library and I've still got about 600 pages to read before it's due in 9 days so I think I need to push myself a little more 

greensalad

Just cancelled Wednesday's Ocado order. We can definitely get everything we need at the supermarket for under £40. Aim is £30, which included toilet roll and I usually buy a big one so let's try and keep it in budget! Going to go on Wednesday.

greensalad

My Mum spoke to my Grandma yesterday (she's in a bubble with them now). I don't know if I mentioned it before in my diary but they said they were willing to gift us some money (though via my mum, for some reason, something their financial advisor has recommended) to use for the house. It would be £10,000 and effectively pay our stamp duty plus possibly some left over (which would go towards fees). Absolutely amazing and we're so grateful. Mum just confirmed it again with them and they said yes. So just waiting to see what happens now, I won't ask for it until we're actually in the last stages.