Future Proofing my life: Deposit saving then MFW journey in under 13 years

dawnybabes

Tesco own label marmite is GF (others are available !). I think it’s only the real stuff that isn’t suitable 🤣

savingholmes

Good luck with the DIY

Keep chasing the invoices

LadyWithAPlan

KajiKita said:

How about turquoise for the walls? It's cheerful and it looks good with off white cupboards - that's what we have done in our kitchen.

KK 

Sounds great ! However my bathroom is a dark turquoise so want to go elsewhere colour palette wise.
The kitchen cupboards are a gold ash colour, so with the free dark black/grey slate effect tiles to put down .. now thinking purple or a green... hmm. decisions all for the new year 

LadyWithAPlan

tx @dawnybabes will try it
@savingholmes getting some money back but more to go...

Hope everyone is doing well and not overspending their xmas budget - its hard.. I have moved cash into my planned cash Xmas spend and its quickly getting whittled down as I move it to my CC pot. So easy to overspend..I wont but ouch ..
I have given up tracking my grocery budget as treats, xmas food and gifts keep creeping on it.

My niece has the most expensive xmas wishlist I have ever seen - like £4k of stuff .. including things I have never heard of like a Dior lip oil (£30) !!, lip plumping ..., and loads of label tracksuits all weighing in at £150+ and she is only 14... Teenagers are so marketed at but she will learn that brand is not the most important thing in life..  

I have noticed lots of brands are doing sales alreasy - Mac the cosmetics company have 25% off their very fabulous already gift sets in store.. their eyeshadows and foundations are amazing.. no so much their lipsticks though

I just got £15 of free points from Boots due to me complaining .. a present has been stuck in transit for a week and they are saying there is nothing they can do! I argued so much and kept getting 'my system wont let me cancel/check/reorder' so I asked for free points

I quite enjoyed the cold weather, wrapping myself up like Anna Karenina.. but glad its warming up for the heating bills for everyone. 

Trying to get some bits of work finished up this week, heading to family Thursday. I have been doing lots of advent comps but all I have won so far is £8 gift voucher for a coffee chain!

I will use the xmas/ny week for reflection as well - need to make some changes in my own habits for 2023. 
Though I have 2 lots of family members asking me for diy help when I go back including wallpapering - a 3 hour session does not make me an expert ...
Next term is probably carpentry and plumbing ...

London house prices are apparently falling more than elsewhere and forecast to fall more in 2023 - especially as Londoners have to borrow more cos of the prices vs their income and I gather lots of sales of London rentals as mortgage rates go up meaning BTL on a large mortgage is less profitable. I am definitely waiting til next summer at least to look.. more and more people will have to re-mortgage at higher rates in the next year, the insane covid house price surge meant lots of people got into 2 and 3 year deals in 2020 which are coming to an end.  

SandyShores

I know what you mean about enjoying wrapping up LadywithaPlan, I bought a coat in the early spring but didn't have the opportunity to wear it until this cold spell - I felt so snug.

With pressies, in the Shores' household we're lucky that these days we don't do many - a few small tokens and some bank transfers mostly.  I save up Boots points all year and am off to spend them later on their 3 for 2 gifts - well done on getting the £15 worth of points.  

You sound in a similar position to us re. the falling prices - with a H2B loan it would be in our favour for prices to drop, so we are in the very fortunate position of watching and waiting.  I do worry a bit about what mortgage rates will look like further down the line but there's nothing we can about that except to keep earning and saving as much as we can.  We love our house and there's nowhere else I would move to (unless I came up on the PBs big time of course), so I think its great that you are waiting for just the right property to come along.  

ps I'm with you on the habits and reflection for 2023 too

LadyWithAPlan

SandyShores said:

I know what you mean about enjoying wrapping up LadywithaPlan, I bought a coat in the early spring but didn't have the opportunity to wear it until this cold spell - I felt so snug.

With pressies, in the Shores' household we're lucky that these days we don't do many - a few small tokens and some bank transfers mostly.  I save up Boots points all year and am off to spend them later on their 3 for 2 gifts - well done on getting the £15 worth of points.  

You sound in a similar position to us re. the falling prices - with a H2B loan it would be in our favour for prices to drop, so we are in the very fortunate position of watching and waiting.  I do worry a bit about what mortgage rates will look like further down the line but there's nothing we can about that except to keep earning and saving as much as we can.  We love our house and there's nowhere else I would move to (unless I came up on the PBs big time of course), so I think its great that you are waiting for just the right property to come along.  

ps I'm with you on the habits and reflection for 2023 too

Well done on  the boots points - I just bought some of my favourite toner for free last month via points (Origins mega mushroom - a bottle lasts a year) and now have £35 more in there )
Hopefully by the time you need to tackle your H2B markets will be flat. I didnt want the h2b loan as it made me nervous not knowing how much I would owe (I am buying on my own so its all on me and my earning power which does make a difference to my life decisions) 

Hse deposit finally hit over £103k!  £103,040.01 to be exact 20/12/22
Hse savings Dec £517.12 - good in the Xmas spend month
I have just withdrawn £55 cashback from TCB   and as I am getting more invoices paid I have been also adding 15% to my SIPP as well
I could add more but I am not sure when I am yet again getting paid so I am currently apportioning monies that come in  (rounded up) as
 20% money into Tax savings (tax savings goes into my Premium bonds for extra hope!) 
15% sipp
15% house savings - as split between Premium bonds and baby van isa
plus left rest as  EF float and Jan bills

I have just coloured in my brick wall I have £500 increments and as I am also adding to my sipp and slow invoice paying in 2022  its been slow going. 
My current pencilled out portion goes to £104k (I had drawn a 2 floor  2 bed flat with 2 balconies) and this £104k part is 1/3rd of it. Once I complete the next £1000 then I will start blocking the next section 

Still I want to party -  £103,000 is a huge amount I have saved on my own in the last 3 years plus added some to Sipp (only

SIPP 21/22 - only added £2100 this tax year so far - have to up that

FIDELITY ISA INCREASE CHARGES
I have an old Fidelity 19/21 isa as part of my hse deposit savings but they are raising minimum fees to £90 a year  from £35  from Feb 1st if portfolio is under £25k - limit for charge was £7.5k before so I paid 0 - apart from monthly fee £5.59 last month. As I have only £20k in there and have a 21/22 isa at Vanguard already I will have to...

a) wait to April 5th, so pay 2 or 3 x £7.50/month plus I think the monthly fee  whilst I wait and move it into another s&s isa that will take lots of stocks and funds - advantage is I dont really want to sell stocks now  and dont want to add to fidelity in April as they expensive. Disadvantage is moving s&s isas is not easy - they mess up a lot!

b) - get it transferred to my current year isa - with Vanguard - this will mean Fidelity first selling a lot of funds that are not Vanguard - I only have one ETF which would be charged a sale. However now does not feel like the right time to sell. Plus Fidelity were a nightmare last time - though hopefully a simple sale should be less complex. I will thus have to try to time my sale/transfer ..

c) Transfer my 21/22 Van isa to Fidelity and add to it - I dont want to continue with Fidelity so NO!

Last time I moved my isa from Harg lands to Fidelity (was as Cavendish as they had a great deal)  it was a mess, it took months - and many funds could simply be moved in name rather than have to be sold - Fidelity lost some funds (literally!) and in the end I chased so many times to no avail  they gave me £150 as goodwill as it was a mess

I will wait til next week and look at prices - unless I can find a really good (as in cheap monthly fees) general s&s isa to transfer it into and make that my new 22/23 isa I will just need to transfer the fid into the Vang and accepting they will sell all my funds.. I have some great ones I have had for years such as Reits which I dont want to really lose..
Looking at my fid funds I do have 7 Vanguard ones so I assume at least those they can transfer directly without having to sell. 

KajiKita

I am finding Christmas spending quite interesting this year. I've never had any discipline or structure to managing this before - just bought whatever I felt like (and sometimes quite extreme things!). I did a spending review in August and one thing that showed up really, really clearly was where i spending a LOT on others - either to treat them or help them. I decided that it was getting silly and I needed to be a bit more 'selfish' and put me and my financial security first rather more. This year I am tracking everything (person, spend, present(s)) I have bought, so 'hidden things' such as magazine subs show up - I have a nasty habit of forgetting what I have already got for someone (I often start in September as I see things) and then buying again and again for the same person.

I set a very loose 'budget' of £500 worse case, but would have liked to stay within £200. I am currently at £240, so pretty good and probably a LOT better than previous years, and I have really consciously held back on who I am buying for and what I am buying. I am coming to the conclusion that I would rather put funds and effort into celebrating their 'special person day' (i.e. birthday) rather than Christmas, so the cost is a bit more spread.  

KK

LeighofMar

Congrats on the 103k deposit. That is truly amazing. I hope that by the time you're ready, between your deposit and London prices hopefully falling a bit that you'll be able to land the flat of your dreams. 

savingholmes

Glad you've had some monies in and can make progress on your goals. 

Wallpapering is not too difficult - as long as you remember to buy more than you need - all of the same batch number and keep the receipt to take any unused rolls back. It's time consuming more than anything. I don't want to ever wall paper again though as getting it off is the pits.

DrCarrie

LadyWithAPlan said:

Still I want to party -  £103,000 is a huge amount I have saved on my own in the last 3 years 

This is completely extraordinary! Incredible work, congratulations.