julicorn's journey 2 - Moving Up 1 January 2022 at 11:21AM in Mortgage-free wannabe 470 replies 14.2K views

julicorn

Hi everyone!

I'm in a bit of a different position than when I first started my previous diary, and given it's the new year, I thought I might as well start a new one. 

My partner and I started our mortgage-free journey in April 2018. Since then, we've reduced our mortgage by £113k, from just under £202k to under £89k. Living in a one bed flat, we always knew that we wouldn't stay where we are forever, and now the time has come to turn that dream of a bigger home into reality.

We're currently in the process of packing up some of our things to put into storage, hopefully making viewings (and selling our flat) that little bit easier. The whole process of selling and buying at the same time seems pretty wild and a little daunting. There are many different areas that we'd consider here in Brighton & Hove, and I hope something good comes up when we've found a buyer. 

With a house purchase savings pot of £30k, the equity in our current flat, plus the biggest mortgage we could get, we can probably stretch to a little bit above £600k, and we're ideally looking for a 3 bed house. That would mean getting a mortgage of over £400k though, double compared to what we took out back in 2017. Again, a little daunting, although we know we can afford it. I'm also a keen budgeter, and have been using YNAB throughout our mortgage journey so far (I'm convinced we wouldn't be where we are now without out), so I know that what we're looking to take on is comfortable. 

So, why start a new journal now? I've started to neglect my old one, and am hoping to use this fresh start as an opportunity to share the next steps with you, from staging our house, to viewings, to hopefully selling, house hunting, and buying a more long-term home. Expect musings on long-term plans and mortgage neutrality, but also day to day ramblings on trying to meal plan for the 800th time, pictures of home-baked bread, and reports on my latest hobbies (currently sea swimming and aerial yoga ). 

Happy New Year everyone!  

Juli x

FatJock

Good Luck - Hope it all goes well.

julicorn

Thank you @FatJock !

South_coast

Yay, new diary 😀😀😀! You've done so brilliantly well so far, I'm really looking forward to hearing about the next stage x

Coffeekup

Food for you.. as usual I'll read more threads but not post..
Thx for your help in mortgage overpayments also.

julicorn

South_coast said:

Yay, new diary 😀😀😀! You've done so brilliantly well so far, I'm really looking forward to hearing about the next stage x

Thank you so much! I promise I'll try to update here a little more  

It currently feels a bit like we're moving already, the bedroom is full of boxes with stuff to put into storage, haha! It's gonna feel quite different by the time we're done, we've always had quite a lot of 'stuff' (nice stuff, but still on the maximalist side). We'll have a few little DYI projects to do before listing the flat too, nothing too big, but finishing all those little jobs that we started but not-quite-completed over the years  

julicorn

Coffeekup said:

Food for you.. as usual I'll read more threads but not post..
Thx for your help in mortgage overpayments also.

Thank you, I appreciate it! Those challenges are such good fun and really motivate me too - I just hope the 3-year one runs smoothly too, this is the first time I've taken that one on  

StoicLass

Good luck @julicorn . You sound very organised and determined, and I look forward to hearing how you get on.  You've also inspired me to look into YNAB.  

julicorn

StoicLass said:

Good luck @julicorn . You sound very organised and determined, and I look forward to hearing how you get on.  You've also inspired me to look into YNAB.  

Thank you YNAB is absolutely amazing btw, don't even get me started on that one - I turn a bit evangelical when talking about it, haha! 

rugbymadfamily

That's super exciting! Wish you the best of luck with it and look forward to hearing how the buying /selling goes!

julicorn

rugbymadfamily said:

That's super exciting! Wish you the best of luck with it and look forward to hearing how the buying /selling goes!

Thank you so much! We've been planning for so long, it feels quite weird to finally be making a start.