The Unexpected Mortgage-Free Wannabe

Betharooni

The title of this diary may make no sense to you, so let me explain…

I’ve lived in my current house on and off for the last 35 and a half years, since just before I turned two years old. My Dad passed in 2012 so I had been living here with my Mum and my eldest brother (DB1), up until August 2024. At the end of August, my mother suddenly and completely unexpectedly passed away, leaving the house equally to me and my three brothers. As my other two brothers have their own properties, families and other responsibilities, they are keen to get their inheritance as soon as possible, meaning that DB1 and I are having to arrange a mortgage for half the value of the house, once probate has been completed, which will likely be some point in the next six months, as the probate paperwork was submitted last week.

DB1 and I both paid “housekeeping” to my mum which was not a huge amount, so we’ve gone from being footloose and fancy-free to being responsible for all the bills in the house.

Having been a keen saver most of my life, the last couple of years has been a time when I’ve let my hair down and spent a lot of those savings, making new friends, having amazing experiences, going on trips abroad, watching some fantastic concerts and basically just enjoying myself and not worrying too much about money. I suffer with chronic migraines and had a very bad period of time when these were completely debilitating so, when these seemed to calm down, I used my savings to live a little and make some memories.

This year has been particularly expensive, with eight trips away and several concerts attended. I actually only returned from one of these trips, to Austin in Texas, four days before Mum passed. These trips have been for conventions for a TV show that I really love, Supernatural, and I do not regret a second of these conventions, I have had the most amazing time with some brilliant friends.  I have four booked for next year, but intend to be more sensible and conservative with them than I have been the last couple of years. 

We have started having meetings with mortgage advisers to discuss getting a mortgage, while we are waiting for probate to go through. Once we have a mortgage, I would like to make overpayments to get the mortgage cleared ahead of its term (which seems likely to be around 20/21 years based on the meetings we’ve had so far, due to DB1 being in his late 40s). The house will need a lot of work done to it as well, as it is clearly a house that has been owned by the same people for 35 years, needing some updating and a lot of TLC. My Mum was a bit of a hoarder as well (and I have some of those tendencies), so the house is full of stuff, a lot of which will need to be gone through by the four of us in time and moved on where necessary, although there is a lot that is just mine so I can review and clear that stuff much more easily.

My intentions are to carefully review my spending and saving, in order to get as much into savings as possible so we can make overpayments where possible, and I can continue to also do the conventions that I love and spend time with my friends. I am quite crafty (my mother was as well so I have inherited a considerable craft stash) and I enjoy gardening and have had my own allotment since March 2024, but have not had time or energy to use it to its full potential. I am keen to lean in to these skills and develop further frugal skills to enable me to live my best life, rather than just surviving and paying the bills. Together with my brothers we will need to heavily declutter the house as well, although I suspect this is going to take quite some time. DB1 and I will also need to save to get work done on the house over time.

Although I don’t actually have the mortgage yet, I thought I would start a MFW diary now, to encourage me to start being sensible with my money, saving what I can and clearing some of my own rubbish out of the house.

Betharooni

So, a brief run-down of things I’ve done so far towards this:

• I have been putting a little bit more than the amounts we’ve been quoted as likely mortgage payments away into savings, to prove that I can manage that amount easily enough. This has been split between a regular saver and premium bonds, both of which I can access easily enough but which will keep the money out of the way for now.
• DB1 and I have been slowly going through a few bits round the house. We arranged for Mum’s bed to be taken by the local council, as it was the world’s most uncomfortable bed. We took Mum’s chest of drawers to the tip a couple of weeks ago as it was buckled so couldn’t be used, as well as some bits of our own that we didn’t need and weren’t in good condition. We also donated a set of suitcases of Mum’s (after checking DB2 and DB3 didn’t want them) to the charity bit there, much easier than transporting those to a charity shop.
• I have spent some time looking at what “spare” money I have and how to reach some savings goals I have. Using a savings snowball calculator, I have planned to save money towards my conventions for the next three years (a bit each year), money for some repairs to my car, topping up my emergency fund to more than 3 months expenses, saving for a big holiday for a friend’s 40th birthday celebrations the same year I turn 40 (so it will kind of be a joint celebration, at least in my mind lol) and saving some mortgage overpayments, all over the next three and a half years.
• I do a monthly budget to separate out my salary for savings and bills, which I’ve been doing for more than a year. As well as the savings snowball mentioned above, there will also be money going to savings for annual payments like car tax and insurance, a little bit of “fun money”, Slimming World (I have a bit of extra weight that I still need to lose), clothing, etc, so other things are still covered easily. Between DB1 and I we’ve been managing all the bills ok, but I want to review the bills when I have some more time (possibly over Christmas, as I have some time off work then) to make sure we are getting the best deals for everything.
• I have cancelled a minimally used gym membership (I do use it but not enough to justify what I’m paying) and a Patreon membership that I’m not really using to its full potential for a podcast that I can get elsewhere, so they will be about £75 back into the budget - I’ll have the last gym membership payment of my 3 months notice going out in January and then that amount will be back in the budget to allocate elsewhere. Patreon has been cancelled so I can use it till the end of December but no more payments will go out. I’ll aim to get some use out of the last month and a half of my gym membership until the end of January.

This is a small start but at least I have made a start. There is a huge amount more to do, but if I keep posting here regularly, I’m sure I will get there eventually.

powerspowers

Welcome Betharooni! I’m sorry for the loss of your mum. It seems like you have got a good plan in place to balance owning your own home and living your life. Keep us updated x

redofromstart

I am sorry for your loss.

Just wanted to say good luck with your plans, hope you keep posting as the support from the forums can be hugely motivating.

LadyWithAPlan

Sorry to hear about your loss, I am sure your mum would be proud you are both stepping up to make your house a MF home 

to echo redo there is lots of wisdom in these forums and posting regularly goals can really help - such as items decluttered, monies saved 

some people track their daily interest £ on their mortgage so as they overpay they can see that amount going down 

Betharooni

Thanks for your comments @powerspowers, @redofromstart and @LadyWithAPlan. I am intending to post regularly here and have been reading other diaries to get bits of inspiration, subscribing to a lot of them as well. 

I will be doing things like tracking daily interest etc when I get the mortgage, probably to an obsessive extreme lol. I really hate having any kind of debt, even overpaying my student loan to get it paid off incredibly quickly as I couldn’t stand to have anything hanging over me, so I will likely be going after that mortgage hard. I don’t have any other debt - I have a credit card but that gets paid off IN FULL every month and gives me rewards so is reasonably beneficial atm, I’ve never had any loans other than my student loan and a car loan (the car loan was paid off with travel money I’d saved during COVID). TBH if we’d had any warning that Mum was ill, I would have started saving towards what we have to pay to DB2 and DB3 for their inheritance of the house, but Mum literally became ill and collapsed in the morning and was gone that evening. She was the kind of person who we thought was going to be around for another ten or twenty years, so it was a massive shock (which I’ve not really coped that well with so far). I can save hard when I want to, and this will definitely motivate me to save incredibly hard.

I had been previously saving for a house a few years ago but then house prices in my local area went completely mad (and still are) so started using the money I’d saved to make memories, and make memories I did! The last couple of years have been amazing, and I think I definitely made the right decision.

Plans for today, once I’ve finished work, are to go through some photo albums - I think they are all empty and unused but need to go through and check them all and then will offer them to DB2 or DB3 and, if they don’t want them, I’ll bag them up for the charity shop. I also want to look for some highlighters that I know Mum had in a drawer - I’m making up a pencil case for DNiece2 who will be starting high school next September so putting together some unneeded stationery for her from the excesses we have here based on a list her Mum gave me of what she’ll need. Have managed to find a few bits off the list from stuff we have lying about the house, so hopefully it will be a good start for her. I also need to photograph a few other bits to offer to DB2 and DB3 and their friends, some is mine, some is Mum’s but I’m offering them first refusal on everything, and one of DB3’s friend’s sons has just got his own place so might be able to make use of some of the house stuff.

Betharooni

Can’t sleep at the moment so figured I’d do an update here instead. Neighbour does karaoke (very badly!!) most weekends for an hour or two but had a party tonight and carried on wailing either this friends until 1am, and is still moving about and making noise 😕😕

Interesting news-we’re getting a 7 month old kitten this weekend! My brother DB1 had been begging my Mum for a cat for ages but she refused, as the last family cat we had went missing one night about 30 years ago and it broke her heart, so I don’t think she wanted to go through that again. She also said that we left all the looking after to her, but bearing in mind I was only 7 when the cat went missing and my brothers were teenagers, I think us now in our 30s and 40s are a bit more responsible. Anyway, I’d turned round when DB1 said about it after Mum passed and said I had no issue with it, and he’s been looking and thinking for a while and he finally saw one on the C4ts Pr0tect1on website that he’s fallen in love with just from the pictures. We’re going to meet her tomorrow morning and then will bring her home on Sunday. So all v exciting, and unexpected that it’s all moved so quickly.

Re the plans I stated on Thursday, I went through the photo albums, found three that have been used (including my Grandma’s album from her second wedding, an album of my Aunt and Uncle’s wedding that had been given to my Nan - which I will scan and then give to my Aunt as she only has proofs of her wedding photos, so pictures with a massive P on them - and a photo book of DB3 and DSIL1’s wedding that they’d given to my Mum) and have about a dozen unused and unwanted albums, which were offered to the rest of the family and DSIL2 (DB2s partner) is interested so I’ll be dropping those off to her later today (Saturday). She needs to go to the house she rents out to do some decorating and their car is not working so I’ve been asked to give her a lift up there in a few hours, first thing on Saturday. They have said they will give me some money for petrol though, so that money can go towards my savings, as my petrol should be sufficiently covered this month and next from my budget.

Re the other two jobs I’d planned, I didn’t get round to them, so will need to do them this weekend. Other things to do this weekend include going to visit my nephew who’s unwell in hospital (which we’ll do after meeting the kitten); wrapping Christmas presents for my two littlest nieces which will be exchanged on Sunday, as they are going away over Xmas with DSIL2 (DB2 couldn’t get the time off work) to Ireland, where DSIL2 has family; delivering local Xmas cards that are too close to justify posting; some tidying up, hoovering and organising ahead of the kitten’s arrival; and a bit of reorganising in the kitchen to make it work a bit better for us (moving tins and jars from a low cupboard into the tall larder cupboard which has just been used as a basic storage cupboard). 

This does not look like it’s going to be a relaxing weekend 🤦‍♀️😂 Thankfully I just have this week at work and then I have a couple of weeks annual leave, which are very much needed. I have a telephone hospital appointment on Tuesday afternoon after work, but that’s the only major thing this week. I’m hoping to go over to the crematorium where Mum and Dad were both scattered towards the end of the week or next weekend, as it would have been their wedding anniversary on the 19th 😢😢 Other than that I think this week include will be a lot of organising and decluttering still, preparing for Xmas and playing with the new kitten and spending time with her to get her used to me.

beanielou

Sorry about the loss of your mum. 

Happy shiny new diary. 

How lovely to hear that you are getting a kitten. 🐱 

redofromstart

Oh how lovely about the kitten - hope she is a good match.  

Betharooni

Thanks @beanielou and @redofromstart ❤️

So we got the kitten!! She is the sweetest little thing. Incredibly friendly and affectionate already, extremely cheeky and loves chasing a feather toy that we have. I’m completely in love with her already 😍😍 I had to take her for her 2nd vaccination today, she was really good getting in her carrier and in the car. She’s been quite lethargic this afternoon and early evening though, which I was warned would likely happen, and she had a sleep on my lap a couple of times this evening, though she did just wake DB1 up as she knocked something off a shelf - so unbelievably cute but such a little pickle as well ❤️❤️❤️

DB2 and my two littlest nieces visited on Sunday, loved their presents and loved the kitten. I gave their Mum DSIL2 a lift up to just outside London Saturday morning and she arrived home when they left on Sunday evening. 

My nephew seemed a bit better when we visited him at the hospital, which was a relief. Am hoping that he’s released in the next few days so we can all spend Christmas together.

Due to the crazy weekend, we didn’t get round to tidying up the house (although we got the couple of rooms that the cat is using cleared), we didn’t deliver the Xmas cards and didn’t move things over from the small cupboard to the pantry cupboard, although we did clear out a load of out-of-date bits from there. Planning to sort out the tidying tomorrow so we can start letting the kitten roam the whole house.

I’m keen to get through the next few days at work as it’s been so crazy the last few days that I need a bit more of a rest. At least I have kitten snuggles to get me through the days though…

redofromstart

I find kitten snuggles can get me through most things.