Half a House

Silence101

Hello!

I realised I hadn’t posted on my old thread for almost a year, so thought it best to start a new one, as things have moved on a bit since I started the old thread.

Our situation: we bought a shared ownership house 3 years ago, buying 50% of the property and renting the other half. 

We were debating whether it was better to save up to staircase or overpay the current mortgage. We’ve decided to overpay as having a smaller share should make the house easier to sell in the long term. 

This year we’ve been O/P £50 a month, and then adding dribs and drabs as we go. 

Our current mortgage is due to finish in 2052, but hopefully we can bring that number right down!

I’m currently at home with MiniSilence 3, who was born at the beginning of the year. I’ve been at home since eldest was born, so I am a bit worried about finding work when the time comes, but I guess that’s something to worry about closer to the time. 

Squirrelz92

Welcome to the MFW crew! Best of luck in overpaying your 50% share x

Silence101

Thanks! I thought I better restart a diary as I’ve been spending a lot more recently and needed something to put me back on track. 

Silence101

Urgh, the day has started well with a broken down car. We’ll have to see what we can get from scraping it. 

becky170

Sorry about the car Those dribs and drabs off your mortgage will soon add up. Are you aiming on taking a certain amount of time off your mortgage term or just seeing where your mortgage overpayments take you? 

Squirrelz92

Oh nooo what a shame Is there no way of even part exchanging it for a few hundred pounds for something on finance?

Silence101

Re: the car, it’s really really old, and we can’t really afford cars on finance, so we’re currently looking for a cheap one on eBay. Our house is where old cars come to die, but we weren’t expecting it just yet...

Re: the mortgage, we’re seeing how it goes, we would like to be able to buy a bigger house at some stage as we now have 3 kids, but the area we live in is expensive, so we’re just putting money towards O/Ps. I calculated that if we could O/P £100/month we would finish paying this half of the mortgage when our youngest is 18 instead of 32. But £100 is a big chunk to cover, so I don’t know how realistic it will be. 

FtbDreaming

Good luck with your journey and just pay off what you can and it’ll soon come down. I think you’re doing the right thing building up the equity as it’ll give you a bigger deposit for if you do manage to upsize. 

Hope you got a car sorted.. I love that where old cars come to die 😂 very charitable lol. 

Silence101

Thanks! We managed to get a “new” car, Mr S is picking it up tomorrow. We will now have 2 small cars, where we can’t all fit in as a family, but at least he’s got the means of getting to work, and I can takes the kids to appointments, etc... In the long term we’ll probably need to buy a bigger car, but the prices were eye watering so we’re going to have to improvise for the time being.

We’ve just renewed our broadband deal, with a cash back site. I only started using them last year, and I am always surprised at how much cash back we can get on things we’d buy anyway. I tend to use the money towards O/Ps, so that’s another plus. 

It’s an expensive time of the year with birthdays and Christmas coming up, and we’re still not in the habit of making a proper yearly budget for those expenses. I know people recommend YNAB (?) but I tried it with their free trial and just couldn’t get to grips with it. That was a few years ago, so maybe I should give it another go.  

I’m TTing at the end of every day, but still spending more than expected. I did buy quite a few Christmas presents, so I’m hoping the next few months will be easier on the bank balance.

Silence101

In an attempt to save more money, I’ve opened a savings account linked to my mobile banking. I’m hoping that seeing the numbers going up there will help me keep the money there instead of spending it. I’ll transfer the leftovers to the ISA once a month as the interest rate is slightly better in the ISA.