Adding value before making over payments

MichaelDH · 2 August 2017 at 2:18PM

I’ve spent a couple of weeks lurking around other people’s diaries so thought starting my own might help me (and in turn my partner) stay on track with reducing outgoings and saving money.

Our situation is somewhat different to most of you that post on this board. Currently, we don’t make over payments on the mortgage, although this is our long-term intention. For now, any spare cash is saved (and often spent) on renovating our house. Our current mortgage deal ends in one years’ time, 90% LTV over 30 years, fixed at 2.45% for 2 years, and we are hoping that the value we will have added to the house by then will allow us to remortgage with a LTV of 60-65% with a reduced term if possible.

We bought our house in August 2016 for £188k, which was an absolute bargain to be honest, so we were very fortunate. Up until now we have spent in the region of £15k on works such as replacing all of the windows and doors, installing central heating, knocking down a wall and putting in a steel support, electrical work and some plastering. We still need to put down flooring and replace the skirting boards and door frames, as well as new internal doors, redecoration, and replacing carpet upstairs. The kitchen, bathroom were replaced by tenants who lived in the property for a year or so before we bought it, long story but they thought they would be able to buy the house then couldn’t, so we don’t plan to replace them yet.

Once our current program of works is completed we intend to start saving towards replacing the garage with a single story side extension to expand the kitchen, add a small utility and downstairs toilet, create a room for the dog, possibly dogs by then

, and we will also reconfigure the bathroom to combine the bathroom and separate toilet.

Similar properties in our road have recently sold for £69k, £77k and £102k more than what we paid 12 months ago, so we are quite confident that once completed we should achieve the same (possibly more

)

We currently save £1k each month between us, although this is spent on the house as and when needed, but going forward anything left in the current account at the end of the month will be moved in to savings. We are aiming to reduce our outgoings as much as possible to increase the amount left in the current account at the end of the month.

Kittenkirst · 2 August 2017 at 3:08PM

Yay you've started your thread

I shall subscribe and cheer you along the way.

What's next on your renovations list and when does it start?

newgirly · 2 August 2017 at 3:36PM

Fantastic news MichaelDH -you have started a diary

Best of luck, I shall be reading!

MichaelDH · 3 August 2017 at 7:02PM

Hi ladies :beer:

Thank's for visiting

I finally completed my first Pine Cone Survey today, so that's £3 earned for the savings pot. Think I will have to set up a new pay pal account as haven't used it for years!

Also had confirmation that my car insurance purchase tracked on Quido so that's £73.20 tracked in the last 10 days, £41 from eSure for car insurance, £2.20 from Confused.com for car insurance search and £30 for taking out a Post Office credit card. Drew has £40 tracked for changing energy supplier (we went with Sainsbury's) and I've still got to sort out buildings and contents insurance this week so hopefully that will come with some cashback too!

Next on the list for the house is flooring for downstairs.We wanted engineered oak in the living room/dining room and in the hall but going to try and find some decent quality laminate for the time being I think... We intend to take down the wall between dining room and kitchen eventually so that we have one big open plan living room/dining room/kitchen so could wait for the flooring we really want then... As well as sorting the flooring we need skirting boards and architrave plus new internal doors.

Going to take Oscar for a walk shortly and then plan to have a look online for some tasty new recipes to try for dinners.

Have a great evening both

Kittenkirst · 3 August 2017 at 9:19PM

Ooooh what recipes are you trying tonight?

We had YS chicken bought two weeks ago with a homemade 'subway' style salad which was delicious! Made up for the naughty chips I bought at lunch in Manchester (after I'd eaten my lunch at 10am- oink!)

MichaelDH · 3 August 2017 at 10:20PM

Hey Kittenkirst

No new recipes tonight... had southern fried chicken breast, oven chips and baked beans :-)

I have found a few recipes to try over the coming weeks... Getting a bit fed up with the same meals week in week out. Was making some lovely meals before we got Oscar but he was such hard work for the first few months which left me short of time so just need to get back to cooking from scratch now that he's less demanding.

Do you go shopping every day to get the YS bargains?

Kittenkirst · 4 August 2017 at 6:01AM

Ooooh lovely! With YS I don't shop daily, I just have a nose if doing the weekly shop or getting a top up. I then pop it in the freezer for another day.

This seems to work well for us, I have a lovely bit of pork fillet in the freezer which I think i might get out for tonight, which was a huge portion so I halved it, cost 90p for a portion for two which isn't bad

edinburgher · 4 August 2017 at 7:44AM

A room for dogs? Good grief

MichaelDH · 4 August 2017 at 7:54AM

edinburgher wrote: »

A room for dogs? Good grief

Only because we don't trust leaving Oscar with the run of the house and if/when we get doggy number two that will be double trouble :rotfl:

MichaelDH · 7 August 2017 at 11:03AM

So time for an update (did originally type quick update but had to delete ‘quick’ when I realised that I was rambling

)

Saturday was spent with the in-laws. We talked to them about our plans for the house and how we could add value and they made some good suggestions. We did some research on the local planning site and were able to have a good look at what some of the neighbours have done, all very interesting. Think next steps will be to decide on exactly what we want, get an idea of costs from local builders and then speak to our financial advisor to see what the additional lending will cost. For now going to carry on with sorting out flooring for downstairs (though will probably be a laminate instead of engineered oak to save some money) and general decoration to try and make sure the house looks it’s best for mortgage valuation.

Sunday we did meal plan for the week and then went shopping. Weekly shop came in slightly over budget, 70p over our £50 target, but in fairness some of the things we bought were staple items like herbs/spices so will last a long time, and we also stocked up on 5% beef mince because the 750g pack was on offer and only £1 more than the 500g so bought a couple of packs. The mince has been split in to two 500g portions and put in the freezer, and the other 500g was used yesterday to make a big batch of chilli. Half of the chilli has been frozen and the other half we are having for dinner tonight with baked potatoes. Need to have a quick dinner tonight as Drew takes Oscar to puppy training at 7pm.

We are trying out a couple of new recipes this week as both getting a bit bored of eating the same meals week in week out… Drew is making Sesame Chicken tomorrow night and we will have that with rice. He did make it a few weeks ago but it didn’t turn out very well so this is his second attempt. Wednesday I’m using up some leftover Chicken, Bacon and Leek pie filling that I made a few weeks ago, mixing it with cooked pasta and then topping with grated cheese and crisping up under the grill, hopefully that will turn out ok, and Thursday I’m making Peri Peri Chicken and Spicy Rice.

Going to try and have a sort out upstairs this week and see if there’s anything we can get rid of on eBay or local selling sites. There’s loads of things that haven’t even been unpacked so sure we don’t need them. Drew seems to have hoarding tendencies unfortunately so think I’m going to have to be strict!

Bank balance taken a bit of a hit as we’ve had to pay Npower about £300 we owed them… long story but when we moved in there was two electric meters, one of which wasn’t connected to anything, but it took 11 months to arrange for it to be removed and we had to remain on the standard tariff with Npower until the meter was removed. They also had trouble with billing so what we were paying wasn’t covering the amount we used. Electric usage was high for the first few months before we had central heating installed as was using oil filled radiators, bar heaters and fan heaters to keep warm. Thankfully they could see that the additional meter wasn’t in use so they agreed to remove the standing charge for that from our bill, and also they compensated us £30 for each missed appointment for removing the meter so that was £120 off. We’ve moved to Sainsburys for both Gas and Electric now with a monthly direct debit for around £75. Will submit meter readings monthly to make sure were aren’t going too far in to debit/credit.

I didn’t win any money on the lottery unfortunately, but I did win a free lucky dip for matching 2 numbers so fingers crossed for next week!

Kittenkirst · 7 August 2017 at 1:01PM

Dinner ideas for this week sound lovely: chicken and sesame particularly sounds like my cuppa tea! Also I'm a huge jacket spud fan but unfortunately the gf likes minimal carbs at dinner time (sob!)
Well done on the meal planning and pretty much staying on budget- good work!

With the engineered oak, I've heard mixed reviews of it as an uncle had it but the washing machine leaked...they had to replace the whole flooring which he was most unimpressed with. (Although in fairness I'm not sure how laminate would cope with a leak!)

I'm having good success with Facebook selling and gumtree at the moment and the benefit is there is no fees so I would really recommend it especially for anything bulky/too big for posting

Adding value before making over payments

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