Five Year Fix, Five Year Plan

Moneyfordreams

Yes, I agree with SH - you are "worth" so much more your house equity especially 

FlacosFloozie

Definitely allow some wiggle room in your budget for sick days and working late. I do batch cook and freeze things but sometimes a quick microwave meal or take away is what's needed after a long late shift.

Its such a lovely feeling when you see your net worth improving. I'm still a long way of retiring but it makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere. I also don't include house equity when I'm working it out as I need somewhere to live and am not likely to downsize anytime soon.

Merlin's_Beard

savingholmes said:

Merlin's_Beard said:

Long term wise:

Total net worth did a climb towards zero for the first time since buying the house! That's pretty exciting. Such a massive difference when your mortgage goes towards you rather than rent going to someone else. Total net worth now £-205,500.

Pensions: held steady in October (ie what I put in offset the drop).

I wouldn't calculate your net worth like that. The house is presumably worth what you paid for it - so your net worth is currently the value of your deposit, plus EF and what you own free and clear e.g. a car. I would calculate net worth as what you'd have after everything was liquidated/sold. Therefore your pensions also potentially feed into it. I would minus any credit card spend or non house loans off net worth but not the mortgage - unless with the current turmoil you end up in negative equity.

Good luck with resolving your to do list.

Thanks, I do appreciate it, but... I know my "real" net worth is more than that - but this is the easy version that lets me keep track that's made up of debts (mortgage, student loan) and easily calculable assets (money, pensions). There's a lot of arguments to include/not include lots of thing (student loan isn't "real debt" by any stretch of the imagination, pension isn't accessible for at least 20 years, so why include either; house is a sellable asset so why not include that)...

And I could argue that I'm not likely to go back to renting until I need a nursing home so the assets in the house are non-accessible and only important if I'm planning on moving...

But at the end of the day the things I want a graph of in YNAB are in the calculation, and the nebulous "god who knows" things aren't, because I like life to be easy.

(The next iteration of my house plan got reduced in price this week, and rule-of-thumb is that a house loses its new-build premium when you move into it, so if I were tracking my house price I'd be guessing at having lost at least £10k in the last week - so I guess my other "real" reason is that I would much prefer to ignore that while it's not relevant to my life!)

Merlin's_Beard

FlacosFloozie said:

Definitely allow some wiggle room in your budget for sick days and working late. I do batch cook and freeze things but sometimes a quick microwave meal or take away is what's needed after a long late shift.

Its such a lovely feeling when you see your net worth improving. I'm still a long way of retiring but it makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere. I also don't include house equity when I'm working it out as I need somewhere to live and am not likely to downsize anytime soon.

I do agree in theory, just a bit rough in practice when it happens multiple times a month! (and I definitely said stuff it and played into it for the last week of the month).

Apparently I may be getting overtime for staying late though, so it might pay itself back. Have submitted a sheet, will see what happens (and you thought my new contract was weird before I said that!)

savingholmes

Good luck with the OT claim. 

At the end of the day you can track it how you like. I do have a spreadsheet broken down into £100 chunks and I get to colour them green instead of red once they are repaid. So I track my net worth in lots of ways.

I sympathise on the new buyers premium. However - it's unlikely to be an issue as long as you keep your home for at least a few years. 

Merlin's_Beard

The newbuild house down the road from me has been reduced by the developers to £312k, so £8k less than I bought mine for. So presumably I'm currently down £8k, plus newbuild premium.... Definitely not the only house around my area that's gone down - as well as the newbuild ones that the developer has suddenly reduced and added offers for, quite a few non-newbuilds being reduced in price, and not just the ones that were optimistically priced either.

Work has slowed down as well (when I say slowed down, I mean, we've had three days of what would be a reasonable prepandemic day instead of running around fire fighting, although ironically it did give me time to read the fire protocols that I got asked to do 6 months ago). We'd written off the last few weeks as half term lull, but it's not picked up. Will be interesting to see if it's the beginning of something or just a blip. 

On a brighter note, Black Friday deals are also in the air and I got a bargain board game that I've sent out as a birthday present. Not saved myself any money but able to buy a much nicer thing than I would have done. Very pleased with myself.

For saying I've had a reasonable week, the weekend is starting off incredibly lazy... breakfast has sort of happened at lunchtime. 

savingholmes

A lazy lunch sounds just the ticket. 

On house prices - we bought our current one in 06 and ended up in negative equity in 08 but given that we didn't sell we've more than made up for it since. You can't follow it too slavishly as you're not in control of pricing. Three out of 4 of the houses I've bought were new builds. One made nothing in 5 years. The next made £22k in 18 months - equivalent to almost a third at the time. The next house not a new build more than doubled in five years. This house has had a slow rise until the last 18 months... where it's gained a lot! 

Although they talk about new house premium it's rarely literal - as most people are glad to buy a nearly new home that already has a garden, fence panels, curtains, blinds, flooring etc... 

Merlin's_Beard

savingholmes said:

A lazy lunch sounds just the ticket. 

On house prices - we bought our current one in 06 and ended up in negative equity in 08 but given that we didn't sell we've more than made up for it since. You can't follow it too slavishly as you're not in control of pricing. Three out of 4 of the houses I've bought were new builds. One made nothing in 5 years. The next made £22k in 18 months - equivalent to almost a third at the time. The next house not a new build more than doubled in five years. This house has had a slow rise until the last 18 months... where it's gained a lot! 

Although they talk about new house premium it's rarely literal - as most people are glad to buy a nearly new home that already has a garden, fence panels, curtains, blinds, flooring etc... 

Given the downgrading of prices around me, I'm very grateful that I started with 25% equity as I think it's a symptom of the wider economic picture and that isn't projected to improve for another 18 months or so. I think the quietness at work is another pointer in the same direction. So I'm fully expecting the house to not be worth what I paid for it for quite some time, I think. Just very grateful that I snuck in when I did - despite the increase in mortgage amount, if I bought the 'cheaper' house now it would be costing me £300-400 a month more with increased mortgage rates.

Tough times ahead, I think.

Merlin's_Beard

Spendy day off, but small gardening tools purchased, and some spring bulbs ordered for the front garden to go under the builder-proscribed hedge. About £25 each.

Just need to wait for them to arrive, then I'll get out there and do a bit of gardening, pull up the weeds, and plant my daffodils and crocuses. IF the weather wants to co-operate at the weekend. No progress on the back garden, just a lot of reading about small trees, and raised beds with no dig.

Massive windy rainstorm last night and had to retrieve the recycling boxes and bags from down the street. So I also need to have a look around to see where I can get numbers for them - was gifted some for the big bins but wasn't expecting the smaller ones to need them.

In pure money news, SP rebate has hit the bank account. SP having a wobble about how much they want me to pay a month - DD was reduced to £187 because that's what they asked for, now they're recommending to increase it to £202. Will ignore it for now and see what it says after I've submitted my next readings.

BoS regular saver (4.5%) opened as well, and set up for the next 12 months. Will be using it as an offset mortgage fund.

savingholmes

Well done on the mse activities. Like that you've started with your garden too.