Moving on with things

Smudgeismydog

I’m also in the repayment camp. It can provide a huge amount of peace of mind knowing you own your home outright, and as Sarahwithlove points out, your BTL might take time to sell.

I can also understand your wife’s view on increasing income now while your outgoing are higher, so it means you can live a bit. My daughter has just aced her A Levels and will be off to Uni in September. It goes so quickly. These are the times your boy will remember, so creating memories together is hugely important.

mark55man

You've got the smarts and the resources to do it either way @alt80 - my only thing is that I played silly games when I was younger and I still have a year on a mortgage for a house I've lived in for 28 years.  I so wishI'd kept the period shorter, you don't actually save a lot by prolonging - my vote would be repayment and keep to 20 years - or if you really prefer some safety margin go 25 but try and aim to make some repayments or build a mortgage neutral fund

alt80

Thanks all. I’ve just ran my numbers through my spreadsheet and through the mortgage calculator on here on the assumption of the rate staying at the 4.19% / 4.49% for interest only. I can't say I'll trust ChatGPT again haha. 
I would like to think this is realistic- we all know the c1.5% days are over but I think an assumption of remaining at the low 4% mark is reasonable. 

Anyhow, here we go:

20 years Repayment: £3,480 (full repayment £835k)
25 years Repayment: £3,040 (full repayment £912.5k)
25 years interest only - this is at a higher rate of 4.49%: £2,110 (full repayment £1.2M), doesn't feel like much of a deal tonight haha
All assume no overpayments etc. even for the interest only option which means this is something of an arbitrary exercise. 

@Sarahwithlove
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't have made most of my life choices with hindsight ha.

I'd like to think if I took the interest only option that I'd clear down the principal well before the bank came knocking. Equally I am aware enough to know there is most likely an element of wishful thinking. 

@Smudgeismydog
Can’t really imagine not having a mortgage but I think it would do wonders for my peace of mind; I can definitely see that if I can pay off this home mortgage and have no personal guarantees it would be nice. Realistically I'll be 65-70 before I found out. 

I’m less bothered about time to sell, more bothered about getting the money out - held in Ltd. Tbf I’d prefer to have the income in perpetuity and not have to sell any of my properties so that would very much be a last resort. 

Congratulations to your daughter. I know time flies and I want to spend as much time with my boy as possible making memories for him and for my wife and I. I need to come to terms with the fact that I can’t give them everything that I’d like to- it’s a catch 22 situation between seeing more cash in our pockets now and them having more for the future.

@mark55man

I certainly wish I hadn't played silly games either. The amount of money I've wasted over the years had I been more sensible about, I'd be in a really excellent position now but I can't keep going over the past. 

I'd like to opt for the 20 year repayment, it just seems a lot and will basically force me to draw more with the knock on being less contributions to my wife and son's future. We can't give up on our time (and time away) as a family over the coming years to concentrate on paying down the mortgage at a more aggressive rate. These next years are going to be expensive to put our son through school, I had to laugh at the day they were given a list of a load of trips for the coming year including a £2.5k ski trip which is optional but my son wants to go so we're looking at £4k in trips alone this coming year plus our family holidays. Everything is extra, !!!!!! uniform takes a whole wardrobe. No idea how the hell anyone affords more than one kid.

I dread to think how hard things would have been had we not got serious about sorting our personal spending out. 

alt80

Summer seems to have flown by and by the end of this week my boy will have started his senior education. We’ve had a great time over the past 8 weeks, managed to get away for a few long weekends after our holiday, lots of good weather, wife and son have had some days out on the bike.

Decided to go with the 20 year repayment. It's a two year fix, so there's room to change our mind later but rn it feels right. We're still better off on a day to day basis than when we were paying the card balances off which will allow us to finally tackle getting a personal emergency fund together rather than the current arrangement of having to rely on shifting money about, credit cards or director's loans when anything unexpected crops up. I'm done with that. 

Picked up the C63, it’s an absolute weapon. 100% I’d lose my license if I still drove regularly ha. 

My wife and I watched a documentary about the diamond trade the other night. We’ve both been trying to move on from placing far too much value in things. Since my wife has been in counselling she has completely quit social media, she's started watching a lot of these documentaries critiquing the culture of consumption and deleted what was quite an extensive list of wants. We still like nice things but it's not the be all and end all.

Always see September as the last push before Christmas even though Q4 starts October. 

ryanm8655

alt80 said:

Summer seems to have flown by and by the end of this week my boy will have started his senior education. We’ve had a great time over the past 8 weeks, managed to get away for a few long weekends after our holiday, lots of good weather, wife and son have had some days out on the bike.

Decided to go with the 20 year repayment. It's a two year fix, so there's room to change our mind later but rn it feels right. We're still better off on a day to day basis than when we were paying the card balances off which will allow us to finally tackle getting a personal emergency fund together rather than the current arrangement of having to rely on shifting money about, credit cards or director's loans when anything unexpected crops up. I'm done with that. 

Picked up the C63, it’s an absolute weapon. 100% I’d lose my license if I still drove regularly ha. 

My wife and I watched a documentary about the diamond trade the other night. We’ve both been trying to move on from placing far too much value in things. Since my wife has been in counselling she has completely quit social media, she's started watching a lot of these documentaries critiquing the culture of consumption and deleted what was quite an extensive list of wants. We still like nice things but it's not the be all and end all.

Always see September as the last push before Christmas even though Q4 starts October. 

Checking in again.

Sounds like you’ve had a fantastic summer.

All sound like sensible and rational decisions.

Not been keeping up with all updates but is it the older V8? If so that is one of my realistic dream
cars (I.e. actually affordable in my lifetime ha. I’ll never forget flying round a roundabout in my Cooper S and exiting to join a motorway and then having a C63 fly past me like I was stationary and roaring like a banshee, it even vibrated my chest as it went past ha. 

Sounds like your wife has come a longway too. Social media is so toxic but being out of London I have become less materialistic and depressed about what I’m earning/have vs people around me. Learning to get satisfaction from the little things in life again, like playing sport etc. And popping into London every now and then to socialise with mates and not taking that time for granted.

Must be a strange situation with your son going to secondary school, wild how quickly time passes. I’m at my uncles still currently (house purchase collapsed and now buying another) and cannot wait for my cousin to go back to school. He’s got to the age where he’s a royal pain in the !!!!!! with no consideration for anyone else. In fact, I’ve just been woken up by him shouting at the top of his voice playing ps5 in the living room at 1am (hence being awake). 

alt80

@ryanm8655 good to hear from you mate. Shame to hear about the house purchase falling through but it’s good to hear you’ve found another. We have had a nice summer thanks, one of the best.

Yeah it’s the older V8 - we got one of the last ones, only had 6k on the clock. If you get the opportunity, you won’t be disappointed.

Being overly materialistic / depressed about what you do have and comparing yourself to others (always the ones with more eh?) is a sure road to some real problems in life, I know this all too well. It’s something my wife and I have both had to get professional help for. Keep on the road you’re on, building some real self worth from the little things whilst still being able to enjoy a social life too - you’ve got a good balance there. 

Ha, that’s ridiculous, fortunately not at the stage of our son wanting to stay up yet but time flies. Today has been tough, it was my son’s first day. Not really a new school, it’s just a different part of the same school but still different. He’s had a great time but we’re struggling with him growing up, really worried about his future. 

warby68

@alt80 I haven't been posting much lately (real life getting in the way) but I do want to say how lovely your summer sounds and how 'settled' you and Mrs Alt seem to be in so many areas. Your brain seems to be giving you a proper break at long last. Still not easy I'm sure, but the number of changes you've both made and are happy with is remarkable. 

And of course, last but certainly not least, Alt Jr's transition to the 'big' school today. I remember it well. One of those times when you're torn between wanting to push them on and wanting to hold them back. I'm sure he'll walk it. You're setting him up well to be a confident boy with wide interests and the knowledge he has you both right behind him all the way. But have a cry too, they never go backwards, or even stand still.

alt80

Not too much happening here at the moment, just getting back into the swing of things after summer and trying to have a low spend month apart from the inevitable iPhone upgrade. I have managed to get my wife onto a 2 year change cycle rather than having a new one every year.  

This year will be the first time my wife is buying hers through her own business. I’ve managed to get her a few awesome jobs to keep her busy until the end of the year, still her unpaid BDM / admin / dogsbody ha. I’m so proud of her, she’s enjoying it and if she’s struggling with the clients she tells me early enough for me to deal with them but she doesn’t really get problems with them. The nail girls were a !!!!!! nightmare so I’m quite glad she just does two mates who don’t take the !!!!!!.

Working on some new business that is going to be quite exciting if it all comes together. I’d been struggling to enjoy business, tbf it wasn’t just business, my mental health was so shot I spent a while not being able to do anything other than the absolute minimum needed to get by. Getting a bit of enthusiasm back has really boosted me although some days are still tough, I definitely had a breakthrough the first time I managed to believe that I deserve to have my family - it started to feel like I am working for us rather than punishing myself. Some of it was really !!!!!! up, hurting myself and my family but not realising it because I believed punishing myself was the right thing to do for them. Now I’m looking at it with hindsight I know why my wife was struggling too. Idk I really hope that I am over the worst of it. These past five years have been equally awful and wonderful, not all been bad - we’re coming up to our wedding vow renewal anniversary soon.

 

@warby68 I hope real life is treating you well. Things are starting to look up for us - money without your health is pretty !!!!!! meaningless. Still plenty of ups and downs, I always struggle with the autumn / winter, almost certainly have SAD but really engaging with the pros has helped in other areas. I’ve had to accept that my brain doesn’t exactly work like most people’s, it never did. If I’m honest with myself I always had problems with obsessiveness and anxiety but I made things a lot worse for myself and worst still those around me than it could have been. Hindsight is a wonderful thing eh? 

We’re both so proud of him but we went home and cried our !!!!!! eyes out. I’ll never stop wondering what damage I’ve done to him until he’s grown, happy and secure. I’d do anything for him now but that wasn’t always the case and it breaks me to think about how I should have done better, sought help for my addiction and mental health much sooner. His tutor has told us that he has been brilliant with helping kids to settle- there’s new kids who didn’t come from the junior school and spent their primary years at local state schools tbf I think there’s been a bit of a culture shock for a few. 

Unfortunately our son has got my wife and I invited out this Friday evening. I’m really dreading it and we’re going somewhere that I used to frequent precovid because I couldn’t bring myself to potentially spoil my son’s new friendship by basically telling them I avoid going out with anyone under pensionable age that isn’t family and to bars generally. They’ve already said we’re more down to earth than they thought we’d be based on what they knew about our boy. I’d have laughed if I hadn’t been in a state of shock - I’ve definitely never had anyone mistaking me for a stuck up !!!!!! before and I was equally surprised they think my boy is some kind of posh lad lol. 

alt80

Been on here over five years now. It's true what they say about time seeming to accelerate as you get older - it really doesn't seem like five years since covid times, or like we should be half way through September but here we are. Dread to think where I'd be had we not had those enforced lockdowns tbf. 

Keeping myself busy with the business and family. I’m at a point where the day to day personal finances just run themselves - tired of trying to figure out some quick fix. I don’t want the money we took for the car to linger so have worked out what I need to overpay to pay the money back in four years total and set the standing order up. The car finance deals were terrible so in the end I did wind up borrowing additional money to pay for it from my home mortgage. I know it’s not ideal but I’m treating the standing order as a 4 year car loan and won’t pay anywhere near so much for it so long as I stay disciplined and don’t get tempted to stop the overpayment and wind up paying for it over the 20 year term, which I don’t think I will- fought to get to where I am now with no credit cards / car loans etc learned the hard way so would like to think that I’m not just going to wind up on the next round of stupid. I know I don’t ever want to be juggling various debt obligations around again. At the time I think that I thought I was being clever in some way or another but it just brought another level of stress and anxiety on top of everything else. It’s not worth it.

Went out Friday as planned and it confirmed the old days of drinks after work on Fridays leading on to not getting home until the early hours Saturday are long gone. I can't find the enjoyment in it anymore, I missed reading to my son at his bedtime, and just being home. If that puts me firmly into the stuck up !!!!!! category then it is what it is. Idk I’m proud of the fact I didn’t use it as an excuse to slip up, I can’t say that it didn’t cross my mind but I’ve got my list that is too compelling to choose to turn back although the irony wasn’t lost on me that I spent the night sitting through them telling me I need to loosen up a bit ha.  

alt80

I hadn’t anticipated how busy September would have been; I don’t really know where it went, but here we are, Goose fair down and having welcomed October already. 

My boy is settling into senior school a lot better than we could have anticipated, he’s done great welcoming kids from other schools and seems to have found an interest in the academic side which is a surprise to us all. They had their year 7 welcome weekend away team building so my wife and I managed to go on a spa break. Got a really nice deal and learned our lesson from our last indulgent stay by keeping it alcohol free save for a bottle of wine with dinner. C63 performed faultlessly. It’s like a supercar in a coupe body, really impressive and a true last of an era car imo. 

We were going to go in the Mk2 but it needs a bit of tlc over this winter. My wife has the estimate from the garage - we both thought it’d be a few hundred pounds but it’s more like a few thousand, idk that car has needed a bit more love than anyone thought it would. 

Christmas seems to already be in full swing in the supermarkets and garden centres around here - mince pies have been in our local Sainsbury’s for the past month and the garden centre we went to today was in full winter wonderland mode lol. All a bit too early for me and a reminder summer is well and truly over. As most of you know I’m no fan of the Autumn/ Winter seasons. 

We are ticking along financially - business is steady and I made the first payment of the full repayment and overpayment to clear the additional taken for the car. My wife suggested that we could continue to sustain the overpayment after the car has been paid for and that would mean that we’d own our home outright sooner. Also started to put away £1,000 each month into an interest bearing account- it’ll eventually make up a personal emergency fund. 

My in-laws invited all their family to a bit of a get together for their son’s recent engagement, it was one of the hardest days I’ve had in a while - a couple of my wife’s relatives had to bring up the past. I wish that I’d have dealt with my demons long ago - if I had been honest with myself, I knew that I was in a bad place a long time before I even started to get help. However, all I can do now is make the most of the present and be mindful of the future. We’re in a much better position, worked on building a great marriage and aren’t struggling to get by. 

My wife said the other day that she is sorry for pressuring me to buy her things over the years and telling me that I needed to earn more when she knew I was struggling with chronic stress. I know neither of us have been saints but I still have times when I think she should have more for putting up with me. There are still days when I struggle to feel that I deserve my little family - luckiest man in the world ha.