From apartment living to buying my forever home

AgathaSquirrel

Exciting times. Enjoying following your story so far. Your plans all sound very sensible, including your thoughts about a 4 bedroom house 🏠 

Flick85

Well, it's been a busy and hectic week.

I managed 3 NSDs, and the only other spends were 1 coffee on campus and a grocery shop. I've worked through my diary and did a food plan until the last day of the month, and shouldn't have to spend any more than £20 next week to get through, for a total of £130 for the month. Arguably that's still quite a lot higher than it needs to be for 1 person, but it's a lot less than I used to fritter away on groceries, so I'm pleased with that. 

I also received my £125 switching bonus from Nationwide. Gotta love a bit of free money :-)

Annoyingly, I finally received details from my apartment management company after taking ownership of the flat, and learned that the outstanding service charge needs to be paid as a lump sum rather than monthly. I'd budgeted the service change as a monthly expense rather than annual one, so that was an unexpected bill of £1223.16 for 8 months until end of July 22. The good news, is that I was able to pay this out of my savings accounts by taking £1000 from my longer term savings, and 223.16 from the extra Nationwide bonus and my Annual expenses current account. So, no extra debt incurred to manage it. As this now means I'll have to stump up approx £1850 in August 22, I've adjusted my savings plans so that I save this amount in advance into my Annual expenses pot rather than treating it as a monthly bill by putting £200 a month into the Annual expenses account.

So, current balance on my savings has gone down, meaning that including interest accrued my position is now...

Savings:

Nationwide Start to Save - £200 

Nationwide Current Account - £1501.22

Marcus - £1000.53

Premium bonds - £500

Skipton eISA - £525.10

Total Savings: £3726.85

Other:

Virgin Current Account - £1007.77

I actually used this unexpected big expense as an opportunity to revise my budgeting spreadsheets. I have 3 of these that plan my spending until the end of 2025!

The 1st spreadsheet assumes that I don't move out of the flat in this period, which is unlikely tbh, but I wanted a baseline to work from. Then, I've got a version that assumes house reservation in July 22, and completion in Jan 23 at which point I should have £16,500 in savings to spend on house things. The 3rd assumes reservation in Dec 22 to complete in Jun 23, with 21,500 in savings for house stuff.

There's a balance to be managed here, because the longer I wait, the more I can save. But, house prices may rise faster than I can save! As I'm primarily looking at new build properties, I'm obv beholden to the developer timescales. I have found a specific house style and plot that would work really well for me and that I hope won't be over my max budget, I'm not expecting that plot to be available for reservation before summer 2022, and it will probably be after that. Ideally, I'd move out of this flat before my job changes in Sept 23 but we'll see what happens! If a non-new build house comes up at a good price in the interim, I'm open to that. But, in the area I'm looking, new build seems to be better value for money.

I've worked out my budgeting for after the house purchase assuming £850 a month mortgage and including estimates for larger utilities. council tax, petrol and other bills. And, according to my numbers it all seems to work out okay and these spreadsheets reassure me that I will be able to manage the expense of a big house on my own while still having a little bit of a life. Phew!

Anyways, enough long term planning for now. This weekend, I'm having a quiet one which will involve a lot of tidying and cleaning because my mum and stepdad are going to be in the north this week so are visiting me. We'll be going out for dinner, and I've taken the day off on Thursday so mum and I are going to explore the Christmas market while stepdad does his work stuff. I'll prob do some work this afternoon as well because I've got to give a presentation on Tuesday for work that I'm super nervous about. I think I'll also try to find time to head up to the allotment tomorrow for a bit of pottering and to get my onion and garlic sets in for over-wintering.

According to my plan for the week, aside from my regular therapy session on Monday (£50 - it's worth it, but ouch), I shouldn't need or have opportunity to spend any other money until the Christmas markets on Thursday. I probably won't purchase any gifts this early, but will use it as an opportunity for some inspiration and I expect I will indulge in a mulled wine and treat myself to something delicious :-) I've still got money in my entertainment budget for this month, so no issues with that. 

Right, time to make some lunch. Homemade chicken noodle soup is on the menu today. Delicious!

South_coast

There are so many things I enjoy about living in a flat, never having to cut the grass, or paint the outside of the building, or worry about the roof or boiler (we've got communal heating here) - but forking out the service charge to pay for it all is the pits! Ours is collected monthly, I don't think I could cope with handing it all over in one go 😮😮😮!

Have you spoken to the developer if you've got a specific property in mind? You might be able to earmark your interest in it ahead of it being released for sale

powerspowers

Hi Felicity! Welcome and good luck on your house buying journey!
I can completely see your reasons for moving, especially after spending lockdowns in a house with no outside space! We moved in April and it was the best thing we’ve ever done. 

I’m not trying to talk you out of a four bed but some things to consider- have you taken into account the difference in council tax, energy bills, water, insurance? As a potential adopter your finances will be raked over and you need to show security- could you afford a years adoption leave? what if you needed to drop your hours to support your child? Have you budgeted for life insurance/income protection? Again not being negative! I’m sure you’ll get there, you sound determined and are doing great already 

Flick85

Excellent points @powerspowers, thanks for commenting. I think I've done a reasonably conservative estimate of the additional costs associated with a much larger home including council tax and insurance, but obviously these things can vary.  

Essentially, I've worked out that paying £850 a month on mortgage is doable while still increasing my savings modestly on a monthly basis. I'd prefer less outgoing per month of course, but that would be sufficient for me to purchase a £420k property @ 2.75%. And, I don't think I'll need to go above £400k to get what I ideally want, but there's also a good chance I can get a 4-bed that I like for closer to £370k or less. Lots of variance of course. But, I'm confident it's all within manageable parameters.

I've just done a few AIPs and even without going through a broker with a slightly less than prime credit history, they'll lend me £225k with £200k deposit. So, if I put all my future savings into moving costs, stamp duty, conveyancing etc. I should still have some cash in the bank. And hey, maybe I'll win something on the premium bonds to help ;-)

In terms of the adoption, I do need to check details of our Adoption leave policy, but iirc it's fairly generous, something like 18 weeks full pay. So, not overly worried on that front. I wouldn't want to be starting that process for a few years anyways at which point I really hope I'll have been promoted. When that happens, my salary will start increasing yearly again so I should be able to reduce my hours, if necessary without too much of a hit on the income.

All super excellent points though, and I appreciate you highlighting them to get me planning and thinking things through carefully and thoroughly.

powerspowers

Sounds like you’ve done a lot of number crunching and that will hold you in good stead!! Good luck with it, excited to hear how you get on ☺️

Flick85

@South_coast now I come to think of it, I don't think I've ever actually cut grass, except with shears at my allotment... which is slightly different I guess! It was certainly a surprise to get an annual bill, but I'm pleased I was able to manage it and rejig my plans to compensate. If that had happened a year ago, I'd have been in trouble and probable would have had to take out a loan or negotiate monthly repayments with them. Eeek.

And yeh, in many ways flat life is pretty great. I'm on the 3rd floor, and no one overlooks me at all (the block next to us is 1 storey shorter), so it feels quite isolated even though it really isn't! Not having to pay for repairs to the roof is nice too :-)

I'm excited about prospect of 'going upstairs to bed' though. Is that weird? And, having a garage to park my car in, so that I don't have to defrost it. And, an outside tap so I can clean it without going to a petrol station. And not having to run downstairs when the doorbell rings because the intercom is broken, and the delivery people think I'm out.

VelvetFreak

Sorry to hear of your unexpected bill. But yes, at least you have the cash to pay for it. Living in a flat and not having to mow the lawn in great, but my body corp fees are $410 per quarter!! I think it's the biggest bill I have, other than council rates.

Sounds like you've got a really good idea of the type of house you want to buy! I wish I had that much decisiveness. My friend kept linking me to housing listings last night, and although it's always fun to talk about houses, I've been deliberately not looking lately because the prices send me into a panic. It's good that you have the option of a new build that you like. I don't like the new build areas around here, I'd rather stay living in a one-bed flat. They are all so cheaply built and cookie cutter, with hardly any trees or gardens

Flick85

@VelvetFreak I guess body corp fees are similar to our service charge. It's a joke. I was looking at the bill, and it includes an amount for window cleaning, which is fine obviously.. except, they can't actually clean 2 of the 5 windows on my flat because there are tiny utterly useless balconies in front of them. So, I'm paying the same as everyone else who gets all their windows cleaned. Gah! And yup, got a pretty good idea for houses... In part this is my (not formally diagnosed) autistic trait of getting obsessed with 'special' subjects. Since about July by obsession has been houses and finances, so I think about it a lot. Definitely worse things to become obsessed by! But, probably makes me a bit of a bore at the moment.

In other news, I should stop saying here that I'm going to have x number of NSDs, because it always fails. Today I've been going through old paperwork, and shredding much of it. Cue, my very old shredder going over to the dark side. So, I've just ordered a new shredder. Sigh. Taken this from the 'misc' budget for the month, which is now over allocation, but I still should have enough to end with my flexible spending at less than allowed for. Unless of course there are more unexpected expenses in the next 9 days!

Also, when I was going through my paperwork, I discovered some letters about a Post Office Savings account from 2013 which apparently has £3.5k in it. I strongly suspect I will have transferred that money out and closed the account, as I have no letters from them afterwards, and it seems unlikely they would not have written to me since then. At the time, I was in my last funded year of my PhD where I received a stipend quarterly (being paid quarterly was a nightmare...). My best guess is that savings account was used to store my stipend, and I'd have transferred smaller amounts to my current account for monthly spending. But £3.5k was more than I got paid each quarter, and at the time I was also very unwell with hospital stays. So, who knows what was going through my mind? I was really unwell and pretty low income, so I can't imagine I've forgotten £3.5k as that was a huge amount to me then (and still is tbh!). But I can't seem to figure that out without calling them. So, maybe, I *do* have £3.5k sitting in that savings account, forgotten about until now. Anyways, I'll call them tomorrow and we shall see. Keeping my fingers crossed for sure!

Speaking of paperwork, what sorts of things are worth keeping? I've got P60s from 2009. Do I still need those? Hmz.

VelvetFreak

Omg imagine if you have 3.5k sitting in some random savings account! Fingers crossed!