Buying a little piece of Middle England; Manifesting my way to mortgage free.

debtfreewannabe321

I did the ironing and listed four items on v1nted too 😃
Also washed up and put another wash on and hoovered. Woo. Go me. That's the first jobs list I've actually completed this week - and possibly last week 🤣 I keep getting distracted.

We've had an email to say our mortgage offer has been sent out for signatures! 
Everything going in the right direction... praying for our seller to find his next home quickly now and I think we can get in before September 😃

Right off to walk dog and find some dinner for later.

debtfreewannabe321

Okay I've been online this afternoon and found some companies that will give a rough quote on removals so I know what I need to budget for a little better. The quote even top end is well within what I was guessing at (I kind of added extra money as a just in case, would rather budget too much than too little).

I'm just sitting down to start planning next month's budget as I have already eaten into it a little bit with the money for the searches. But that's okay even with that taken into consideration I have budgeted £300 for the EF/MF, £300 for the YBS (my new EF), and £150 for birthday and Xmas fund (I have a 16th and 15th and DDIL all next month 😐😬🤣) so that was one pot I didn't want to skimp on. Everything else is cut back. So no health or clothes top ups and no take outs etc. If we want any of that it needs to come out of our pocket money fund which I've kept at £100 each so we can pay for any extra things we want. 
I think it will be tight but I think it might be doable and going by the quotes by the end of my June/July month of budgeting I should have enough money to pay for conveyancing, removals and the EA fee is obviously coming out of the sale of this house. So all good, in theory. 

We will keep decluttering and selling and saving though, the more money we have the less stress I will be in I think!

debtfreewannabe321

And obviously if we move in August we should still have some money to budget there....which would be a nice cushion amount. 😃

slm6002

I totally understand your DP frustration at trying to get through to child maint.  I too have been on hold in the day and not been put through.  Like him if the information could be done online, I would be doing it online.  I need to try again but will get comfy doing something else while I wait.

Well done on getting the fees saved up.  I am sure you will make the multiple movers too

debtfreewannabe321

slm6002 said:

I totally understand your DP frustration at trying to get through to child maint.  I too have been on hold in the day and not been put through.  Like him if the information could be done online, I would be doing it online.  I need to try again but will get comfy doing something else while I wait.

Well done on getting the fees saved up.  I am sure you will make the multiple movers too

@slm6002 he rang them back when in the car after a meeting and would you believe this, he got through after 40 minutes and then drove through a black spot and it cut off AGAIN I think he was pretty peeved by this point. He rang them back again when he knew the roads and that there wouldn't be any more black spots and we finally have some answers.

Turns out that it was a generic letter sent to DP as an end of year review and we were not late paying anything - which we knew but we thought something had gotten messed up their end- and that the CM should stop in August unless of course his DD stays on another year and CHB not being claimed will trigger it either way as they are all linked. So all good. I don't begrudge DP paying what he owes for CM - I mean I receive it too (although my ex has free access to see his kids, DP sadly doesn't, as his ex is bitter, I think this is why he begrudges paying any more after she has turned 18)....anyway hopefully all sorted and I cannot do anything about budgeting for it yet as we simply don't know if she is staying on with education yet.

Oh and DP has asked for the amount to be reviewed as he has appealed their decision. They took into account the almost 10k for car allowance which doesn't benefit us financially so why should it be used in calculations for CM....it pushes our income from 40k+ to 50k+ which I believe then pushed us into the higher paying bracket. It would cripple us if we need to pay the amount they have stated - it is almost as much as our mortgage!! I will need a job just to pay for that. The lady on the end of the phone though said to appeal as she said they wouldn't have looked at that and she agreed with him.......so I am not going to worry about it just yet. I think it will be okay.

I had another removals company message me and I asked them ball park what is top end and low end of a move like this...and explained how much stuff we had (size of house) and distance to travel and again they were similar to what I had already had in so I am happy I nearly have enough. If I can save the goal I was originally after though I will have enough spare to move in and pay for a carpet cleaner, some paint and any little bits that need doing straight away like new locks on doors etc (our glazier lives round the corner and has said he will come straight over to do it for us - he did it here as well)..and it will be the first move I have ever budgeted for from start to finish and I will feel like a fully grown adult at the end who finally gets it  

I think I will get started on the garage today, I feel like I need to organise it, get rid of anything that is broken or old (dried up paint tins etc that we missed on our sweep through before) and once that is done I can pack it and use the huge space I WILL MAKE to start bringing things out from the house to store in there ready for moving. I left packing too late for this move and it was highly stressful. The date was on and off for the move and by the end I was fraught with anxiety and I had 4 days to pack an entire house, shed, loft and still carry on with school runs, daily life etc and I absolutely do not want that happening again.

But also I think that packing a house up a month before and living in empty rooms devoid of life is possibly the other extreme- although perhaps a more comfortable one mentally and emotionally speaking anyway haha.

NSD again today, it has to be I have around £100 left in my current account and that is for the last week's food shop so I will certainly be racking up plenty of NSD's this month today should take me up to- oh I have lost count again...I will read back and update signature - I also need to update on food spends I have gotten slack with doing that. I am still within budget though which is good!

debtfreewannabe321

9 NSD so far- 10 if I can make it through today as well!

debtfreewannabe321

I have just had my mortgage offer through in the post, it states, 'This means you will pay back £1.88 for every £1 borrowed' Owwch. This reminds me that when I move I will be straight back on to OPs even if small ones!!

We have £23k agreed for 5 years at 4.59%
We have £97k agreed for another 3 years at 2.49%

I can't find the amount of the first payment but I believe it is around £900...so I need to factor this in to my savings plan as well as everything else. 
We will own just over half the property from equity which is great, that's the first time I have ever owned over half a house from the first day  

debtfreewannabe321

Ok I have exhausted all available surveys, cashed out another £5 in vouchers, I have two more close to payout - I have a small list going that I want to use the vouchers for so I don't need to use my budget- things for the new house and things for this house to replace what I want to take. All in I should only need £50 tops. I am up to around £15 I think now. 

DD is off school, only one more day left of exams for her- Friday- I am expecting a call to say she should be in, as they don't do study leave at home during exams at her school. It is ludicrous, she is exhausted and spent half her half term in school all day long revising so I will be saying no to her going in today or tomorrow. She's only just stirring now she is so tired. 

Right I shall be off, mortgage offer accepted and I have emailed solicitor to say all is okay - they are on the ball they received it also this morning and messaged me asking me to read through it before agreeing to it- so that is done. And I am off to make breakfast for kids and then start on the garage  

debtfreewannabe321

In one hand and out the other. Kids want to go on a camping trip, £60 each. Needs paying by Friday. 😐😐
I'm sat here looking at the savings, looking at the budget (empty) and like 😩
I've decided to pay it out of the Christmas/ Birthday budget and they will have to see sleeping on the forest floor for a week as a birthday present 🤣 so that's paid now

....and praying that the trip actually falls in the week we move that would be fantastic! Free childcare (well okay not free but cheap) whilst we move and clean without teens moaning about every little thing would just be amazing! 

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, well I took the dog for a long walk yesterday afternoon as we finally had a dry afternoon. Wasn't exactly hot but warm enough. Bumped into several people in and around town who wanted to stop and chat for ages 😅 so my plans for starting on the garage went out the window. I stood enviously listening to a guy recount his entire holiday to Ibiza for me 😆 all ten days of it.....

Anyway even after a very long walk DP wanted a Walk yesterday and took the dog again (even though dog wasn't too bothered by then) and he bumped into one of the mum's of the people buying our house. So I guess divine timing and all he was supposed to take the dog out for a second extra long walk. He swapped numbers with her and she passed it on to the two actually buying the house. So I'm now expecting second and possibly third viewing requests.....which means cleaning the house again to showroom standard 😬 and I have two kids home all day now! DD has only one more day of school left (well technically one lesson today and all day tomorrow last exams). So I've no idea how I will manage this.

As DP was telling me about his walk his phone pinged and it was the lady buying (I went to call her girl then as she's the same sort of age as my eldest 🙈 I have to remember they're all adults) and she said she was super excited to move in and they'd had their mortgage offer through- oddly as we had too on the same day!

We messaged our seller to see if he'd had any joy finding a new home and he said he had more lined up to view today and tomorrow...he didn't say whether he liked any yet (we have everything crossed he did and he's just viewing these to confirm his choice a little like we did). 

So anyway that's all the house move stuff out the way.

This morning I got up and have emptied out the cleaning cupboard (ya know the messy under the sink one) and filled up pots of cleaners (I have lots of smol products so topped everything back up) it's cleared the cupboard out somewhat and I also re-folded all tea towels and tidied it up. I don't have a mass of excess stuff as I first thought lots were half empty so I added one to the other and threw away the excess bottles and tea towels thrown here there and everywhere just made it look worse than it was. I've enough cleaning stuff to clean this house for at least a month or more so that means I am putting myself on a ban from buying more cleaning things till we move...unless of course I do run out but my intention is to use all that first.

I've also done the same with toiletries. I will use up all excess as I went to put a cream in my basket on Amazon this morning and realised I have a lot of small freebies ones that could be used instead so my mission is to run that all down too.

Another NSD here. Once again it has to be for me to have enough money to pay for food next week. I don't need anything anyway so that's fine and good.

The sun is actually shining today so I am going to go out in the garden and make a pile for the tip (we've lots of rubbish behind the bins that we really need to clear out and old slate tiles etc...dont think we should leave all that behind for them to clear). Will do a dog clear up too and fill up bird feeders. 

I've had a few messages about small items I have for sale so may make a few quid by the end of the day/ week. And clear out a little more 😁...okay off to do the garden before the sun disappears again.