Green Pastures for Pennies

GreenWithPlantsNotMoney

Well. For cents actually! I am Ireland based, but it didn't have the same ring.

I am a near 40s PhD student mostly working from home.

I was part of this forum, gosh, in my mid 20s over ten years ago! but I have long lost access that that account. Back then I bought my first flat solo in the UK in a city and paid 10k back towards a borrowed deposit plus some overpayment made. 

Fast forward to now. Home is an acre of land with few houses around, a rural life in Ireland with my wife, two fluffy cats and a very fluffy, fur sheading golden retreiver. 

We had great dreams for our property purchase here, but poor timed flat sale and Covid prices led us to our current home after a few years of renting. I could bore you with all the stress and heartbreak of that journey and negatives of broken dreams, but! I am at peace with reality, and every day focus on gratitude to be at home in our green plot.

Gratitude and positive planning are the goals of this diary!!

Financially we are midway through a 5 year fix. I will drum up the real balance, but we origionally borrowed 240k with 40% deposit. Remortgage will be possible on just wifes salery, leaving us wiggle room (as I will explore later on!)

We have no other debts.

We do have some savings: mine held back from the deposit and the wife's being built monthly. Mine is most likely towards a new car after the remortgage. Although married she wants to match my deposit, and is aiming to overpay 20k every 5 years - we cannot overpay monthly.

That all sounds neat and simple. However! Financially we need to remain fossued.

Goals for now:

- Pay for solar panels being installed next week!
- Work out what pensions we have and if we should over pay these.
- Explore wiggle room options - update house, move?!? Or buy rental property.. or other? We are very set on staying, but who knows.
- Explore income options for me. The wife has already started. I am mid way through a PhD and so earning bare minimum.
- Get busy with some DIY and garden bits. I have a lot already purchased but not started.
- Focus on food. I am a horticulturalist and have some fab fruit and veg I need to get into the ground ASAP to save us some money. I also made some new years resolutions to learn to make several things we buy ultra processed. Money saving and health focused.

Thank you for welcoming me, and I look forward to exploring the other diaries here!

redofromstart

Hello, sounds like a plan to me.  Good luck with your journey.

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary. 

GreenWithPlantsNotMoney

Thanks everyone!

I can't imagine posts will be frequent with me. But the aim is to keep on top.

I want to update on my outstanding mortgages and our new shiny solar panels fitted last week!

Mortgage borrowed: 247K in 2022 on a 5 year fix of 2.45% (33 year duration).
Outstanding: We have been paying for 3 years so rough calculation is 231k
At end of 5 year fix: 221k is my estimate
LTV would be about 60%

Our aim is to increase our BER to get a green mortgage - hense solar panels will push us into a high enough rating.

Current mortgage rates are 5 year green fix for 3.3% (1009pm) vrs 4.8% for a normal 5 year fix (1197pm). That's 188 a month difference. Phew! Hopefully this is still running in 2 years when we refix.

Solar panels installed last week were 8k after government grant. Already seeing money trickle in the app. It is all very snazzy and addictive. My calculations were 4-6 years payback without the mortgage savings, quicker with. I can't comment much until I start seeing bills and a year has passed. But I will update on this. 

In other gardening news we built a 3 bay composter last week, so I will be generating my own compost for the acre site and hopefully saving buying it in.
Perhaps not so frugal was a 400 wood shredder. We produce so much garden waste this will be invaluable for mulching and hopefully be able to be mixed with the copious amount of lawn clippings - it is a big site! - to make compost and not smelly silage! Wood chip is a few hundred a tonne and compost adds up, so interested to see how much I produce. 

Testing the chipper this weekend, that's the thrill for this week!