Moving House, Renovations & OPs

Elephantchunks · 23 May 2017 at 4:48PM

Hi! Welcome to my diary.
I've been inspired after reading many others diaries so I am ready to join in the fun.
We are buying a new house Yippee! :j
We have a few things that we would like/need to pay before we move so hopefully this diary will help me to stop stressing and start doing.
When we move there will be quite a bit of work to be done to modernise our new home. Then we'd like to start some side line money making schemes to OP the mortgage (on top of our Mon-Fri 9-5 employment).
A bit about us:
DH &I rented for a few years until we moved into Dh parents house for a year to save a deposit.
We bought our current house nearly 5 years ago, got married, renewed the roof & boiler and many other bits since then.
We've OPd a little and have paid off most of our debt so now have enough equity to move to somewhere more rural. Our offer was accepted on our dream (within budget) house. Therefore we worked our butts off painting and moving every bit of furniture around to make our home a house to show.
We accepted an offer on our house after 4 weeks on the market. Our vendors are waiting to find a bungalow.

As you may see, my diary will not all be financial as I will be including our adventure of the moving process.
Any questions, comments, cheering along the way would be most appreciated.

I know we could stay in this house and be more financially comfortable but that's not how to play the game.......

LadyGnome · 23 May 2017 at 6:15PM

Good luck with the move and welcome.

Elephantchunks · 23 May 2017 at 11:19PM

Thank you Lady Gnome.
Quick update: After 4 months of waiting our vendors have today had their offer accepted on a bungalow :j
We've been to the in-laws to celebrate with bbq steak in the glorious sunshine. Many wine and proscecco toasts have been made.
We are so pleased. No more searching on right move whilst not wanting to view anything else, nothing else has even been comparable. Huge Yays :T

Miss_D_Meanour · 24 May 2017 at 6:32AM

Congratulations on the next step in your move. Fingers crossed that all does smoothly and that you can make the move soon.

Dogbooks · 24 May 2017 at 10:10PM

Good luck! What better way to celebrate than with a BBQ and prosecco haha?! I will be reading this with interest

EatingTheElephant · 25 May 2017 at 7:51AM

Congratulations on the next step, fingers crossed for a smooth move

Elephantchunks · 27 May 2017 at 10:43AM

Thanks for your words of encouragement Miss D, Dogbooks + and another Elephant

DH and I have been off work this week so we decided to go camping to stop us from doing any work at home. We had a lovely few days in the Cotswalds and have properly relaxed. He is ace - I'm a lucky lucky lass :heartpuls

Elephantchunks · 27 May 2017 at 10:56AM

Right then! Time to get down to the nittygritty - The financials
Last week we sold 2x sheds on ebay that our buyers didn't want to be left. So here's where that money has gone already:
Shed 1 £160
Shed 2 £260
Ebay fee. -£42
Decent Drill. -£100
Car tyres. -£120
Holiday. -£160
=0
We made the most of our holiday as any other time we have off this year will be used to move house and decorate (hopefully). The drill cut the time of us dismantling the sheds by probably a quarter and will be used a lot when we get our workshop- Fingers crossed.

Elephantchunks · 27 May 2017 at 12:43PM

Proof that all that work was worth it.

June Monies
Both our pay 2433
Bills. -1000
Food. -300
Petrol. -125
Cigs. -65
Credit cards -50
Fun me. -100
Fun DH. -100
Driving lessons -225
Left to save. £478

These are maximums, if we hit the max we won't beat ourselves up about it but we will try our best to save on food and fun especially.
Food includes cleaning, rabbits and anything we may need for the household on top of bills.
Cigs- we DO want to quit but think its best to wait until the stress of moving is over.
Driving- We don't have a test centre in our town so this month I'll need 2x 3hr lessons for practice around the test area.

Happy bank holiday weekend :cool2:

Elephantchunks · 28 May 2017 at 8:35PM

Today I have mostly been decluttering kitchen cupboards and our filing drawers. No job is ever dull when you can listen to your favourite tunes. I'm glad it's done though.

Right, so, here are our short term savings goals to be achieved before we move:
Van Hire. £200
Survey £380
CreditCard1 £900
Creditcard2 £900
Total = £2380

Savings so far:
Before June £975
June so far £480
= £1455

Difference to find £925 which is totally doable if we have two more pay days before we move. I worry about unplanned costs though so anything I can do to save more I will. I don't want to use our equity to pay for past debt. We've done well to get this down from nearly £8000 from January last year. I'm determined to not take it with us.

Elephantchunks · 30 May 2017 at 6:24PM

Anxious day today.
Mortgage application telephone appointment day.
Due to me working in accounts and it being month end, DH had the 2x hour conversation with them and I had the 5minute conversation to confirm.
DH is very bright when it comes to science, politics, grammar, geography, world affairs, music, general knowledge... not so bright with household finances (just bores him I think, never worked out if he just acts this way lol)
The details that the mortgage co gave me were mostly what we'd agreed beforehand though. Phew!

So if we move before September we need to port our existing mortgage and have a second mortgage or we'd have to pay the erc. At the end of August we can then combine the two. What hassle for one month. They should have just waved the erc but rules is rules. The deposit was £1,000 more but we were going to save £2000 anyway for EF so at least it'll stop us spending it

Sorry, no wonder I come on here to blah about finance, tis very boring for real life friends.

Just got to wait for the Ok now. Eek!

Moving House, Renovations & OPs

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free