Lolu's Mortgage Free odyssey

misslolu

savingholmes said:

I went with landc from here link. They asked re savings 

Thanks, will keep that in mind.

gillynomad said:

misslolu said:

Every decision DOES feel like the wrong decision, you've got that right. Who's your lender? I've been looking at Natwest's tracker as it looks to have the best rates. I've just paid £1700 towards the debt which has got me in the low 2k range, had the money in an easy saver that needed £16 in interest over the year. Hopefully though, with the next few payments, I'll get it low enough to be negligible. I do think i'll be overpaying the CC for now though, it feels like a bit of a noose around my neck i'd like to get rid of.

My lender is Nationwide. 

That's awesome though. Yeah sometimes the mental win makes it the better decision!

i'll have a look at them too!

misslolu

2022 In Review

Now the new year has started I can finally look back on 2022 and really think about how crazy it was. I started the year down, dejected and losing hope and I ended it on such a high that I couldn't believe the difference.

Major Events
-getting my job after I was crazily made redundant at the end of 2022
-hitting my savings goals after said redundancy
-getting to be part of four of my closest friends/family weddings & events
-meeting my OH for the first time in person after being introduced by friends in 2020
-getting into a relationship with OH after he surprised me on my birthday
-getting my house together to the extent that i was able to host 3 dinners and 1 NYE party
-turning 30 and going on an amazing girls trip
-starting invisalign

Goals Progress
I'm super unimpressed with how poorly I did with achieving my goals, but also I know I needed to cut myself some slack. Even the best laid plans can go awry and I generally tried my best.

House  - 

• I got my beautiful dining table & chairs as well as my dishwasher and bedside table.
• Also got a monthly cleaner for the deep cleans.
• Decided to hold off on other decorating as I reprioritised my finances.

Finances - this is where I definitely fell off by reprioritising finances and doing so many expensive things

• Mortgage is now £186,006 so about £3.25k off 85% LTV. 
• Pension is still at 6% even after a modest payrise.
• I increased my investments to £300 a month which i'm super happy with, savings are also £300 a month but swallowed up by debt repayments.
• Student loan is ticking along nicely
• Managed to increase my net worth from £33,562 at the end of 2021 to £56,336 (though some of this is based on house value.
• Decreased CC debt from £4400 to £1600 even after spending £4k+ on my summer & birthday shenanigans.
• Didn't do any driving lessons, but did drive while abroad.

Overall I think it was a good year, the second half was definitely more exciting and promising than the first. And it looks like there's more excitement to come.

misslolu

Plan for 2023

I was speaking to a friend about her goals of the year and she mentioned how exhausted she was and how she didn't want to add pressure on herself by creating unnecessary goals. To an extent, I definitely got where she was coming from but I also know that for my own progress, it's better for me to have a goals to work towards even if they're not finalised or set in stone. So here are my goals for 2023.

House 
It's looking likely OH will move in towards the end of the year, because of that i'm going to have to do some major decluttering and being ruthless with clothes. I'll also have his help to do some of the 2 man jobs for decorating like moving my strangely placed radiator, taking off wallpaper and painting the office room. Right now, I can comfortably say I've bought all major pieces of furniture we'll need (except bathroom medicine cabinet) this means we don't have to spend much more money on getting it to where we want to be.

Finances
I've been super lazy about going to a mortgage advisor and finding out what my options are for remortgaging. I think part of it is sticking my head in the sand about how much more I'm going to have to pay when my interest rate goes up. I need to do it regardless. The major things I'm focusing on are:

• Remortgaging to a decent rate, probably a tracker at this point 
•  overpay as much as possible to get an 85% LTV
  
• paying off my remaining CC debt before it starts bearing interest in February (currently ~£2600 so looking good).
• Saving up for some big expenses I am anticipating later on in the year (hint, hint)
• Actually being able to live and enjoy my salary without having to squirrel it away for debt payments or large bills and expenses.

Relationships
This is the part of the plan that I never would've envisaged this time last year and it's probably the first time I am actually putting it to paper. OH and I have been in serious talks about our relationship, where we see it going and the timeline for our future plans. He's on his way to his 40s and i've just turned 30 so neither of us wants to waste too much time. So the plan is, we're aiming to get married by the end of the year 🙈 and start a family sometime next year. From the outside looking in, the timeline seems a bit bonkers. He has liked me from the beginning, but because we lived in different countries I wasn't willing to give it a shot. I always thought that the compromise would be too much for one of us and it would end in tears. But now we are in the same country it's been amazing, we still have the great friendship we've had for the past two years but the romance makes it 10 times better.

The few friends i've told are cautioning me, thinking I may be rushing things, which is very possible and I'm happy to be warned off from it, but how long is really enough especially when you have known the person for awhile already? Who really knows. Either way getting married comes with a major expenses, a lot of our family live abroad and it's likely we'll have at least one wedding ceremony abroad as well. This means we definitely have to save a pretty penny for the wedding.

Car
As time goes on, I'm definitely seeing the need for a car. Recently, I've had some hospital appointments at the hospital that's only 30 minutes away by car but it takes 2 1/2 hours by public transport. Unfortunately for me I've had some appointments on strike days which has increased the journey times by 1 1/2 hours which just isn't sustainable. Also when the OH goes to work from my place it can be very frustrating because of weird public transport times especially if he has an early shift. He has a license so we're considering buying a (very cheap runaround) car in a few months time.

If all goes well, all my credit card debt will be gone by February even though the money saved there will likely be absorbed by my increased mortgage costs, and I'll be on a tracker mortgage with a good rate. That will mean I will be able to start saving and investing properly and I can be a bit more lax with disposable income. OH moving in will mean a reduction in expenses since we'll be sharing bills so that also be a positive to the household expenses.

I've never been so ready for a year to begin!

South_coast

Oh wow, lots of exciting things happening for you, Lolu 😀😀😀! I'm so pleased for you! All the very best for your plans, you sound so happy and positive x

misslolu

South_coast said:

Oh wow, lots of exciting things happening for you, Lolu 😀😀😀! I'm so pleased for you! All the very best for your plans, you sound so happy and positive x

Thanks! I feel super happy and positive too.

powerspowers

Thanks for the update misslolu!! So many exciting things for you this year x

savingholmes

Great improvement in your financial net worth. 

Your relationship sounds like it's working for you.

misslolu

powerspowers said:

Thanks for the update misslolu!! So many exciting things for you this year x

Thanks, it really does look exciting, I can't wait!

savingholmes said:

Great improvement in your financial net worth. 

Your relationship sounds like it's working for you.

Thanks! I'm hoping to grow it to £100k this year (which is a very far away dream but a girl can hope)

In other news, I finally bit the bullet and talked to a broker about my mortgage. The funniest thing is that everything was done super quickly, and it wasn't even scary so I don't know why I was pushing it off. To be fair it was my first remortgage and I wasn't sure what to expect.

I decided to fill in the L and C questionnaire early this morning and got a phone call shortly after. After confirming my details he said he'd be in touch tomorrow but he called again just after 5 pm with the deal I had researched already and was hoping to get. I'm going for a tracker with NatWest because of the high fixed rates, it's 4.49% with the option to switch to fixed after six months. Most fixed are in the 5 to 6% range even though they do seem to be dropping slowly.

The good thing is that if by the time my fix ends the rates are low enough to fix I can always apply again since I've left enough time in between. And my ERC is low enough that I don't mind paying it off if I do find a fix when it's already started. One thing I do have to ask is if the offer will be affected if I take on more credit which may be a possibility in the next few months. Worst case scenario, I take on about £10K but more likely it will be around £5 to 6K, which is doable but still a hefty amount.

Now I just have to accept the mortgage, after reading documentation but I'm a bit scared because I have no one to talk it over with. It's funny because everyone in my family comes to me for financial advice, but it means that I have no one I can talk to you about my own financials which is a bit sad. Oh well, it sounds like these I need to stop being anxious and believe in myself and my ability to make decisions. After all I bought the house by myself so why can't I remortgage myself too?

We'll see how it all goes.

misslolu

Relationship wise, OH had some devastating news over the weekend, so i'm trying to support him which is super hard over the phone. He seems to be taking it well but I know men tend to hide their emotions so I'm just keeping an eye on him and making sure he's ok. It's tough because it's come at a time where our schedules clash over the next 2 weeks so I won't see him for a while. We'll get through it though.

Finally i've had a terrible cold for the past few weeks, it started off quite innocuous but got markedly worse towards the end of last week. By the time I wanted to see a doctor it was already too close to the weekend to get an appointment. Then I remembered I get private healthcare through work but somehow wasn't able to log into the portal. Luckily I was able to login during the weekend and get the same day appointment and I've got some medicine that seems to be working quite quickly. Hopefully I'll be well enough to work tomorrow, I've got a lot to do.

savingholmes

Glad you got your GP appointment and are on the mend.

I think ERCs and upfront charges are the main thing to watch out for on the mortgage - and the cost of redemption at the end.