A question about : A distant dream of being morgage free
Hi guys, I have been reading all your posts and I am keen to start my own diary.
I'm married and we are both in our early 30s. We have an 18 month old daughter and would love to have another baby (not until little one is at least 3 and getting funding for childcare). We currently have only 23 years left on our mortgage of Ј95000 but in the next month or so we are moving to our forever home, increasing our mortage to Ј153000 and the term to 30 years (fixed rate of 3.04% for 5 years). So as you can see mortgage free is a long way off! We don't like the idea of having a mortgage until our early 60s and even less the idea of retiring at 68! so I hope we can be mortage free earlier, knocking ten years off would be our ideal aim.
I don't think our fix rate allows us to overpay very much but that is something we plan to look in to once we have moved and done the initial jobs that we need to spend money on (bathrooms and windows mainly). As you can see this will not be a diary of lots of overpayments initially but I've seen a few other diaries like this here so I hope that is ok. We will be trying to live more frugally/save money though with the long term aim of being mortgage free in 20 years!
I think we are pretty good at switching to cheaper deals for energy and insurance, meal planning, saving on groceries etc but where I think we can improve is switching bank accounts (I've never switched!) and we've never used a cretid card (great that we have no debts other than student loans and mortgage but I think we are missing a trick not getting cash back or tesco points).
Best answers:
- Just checked and for the new house our LTV ratio will be 63%. Scary seeing the size of our mortgage in black and white, if only we could stay here we could be mortgage free in a couple of years! but we live in a two up, two down terrace that we grew out of probably the day baby was born! Looking forward to a "proper" family home and garden, just not the mortgage!
Today I walked to our local budget supermarket and spent Ј14. As our move is hopefully this month or next I am trying to run our cupboards and freezer down so that should keep spend low this month. - So we've started pestering solicitors and estate agents and we have been told that hopefully we will be moved by the end of January! Need to start looking in to van rental and home insurance this weekend and more decluttering.
This is the first "normal" week in what feels like ages so I plan to make an impact in the to do list these next 4 days (I work Mon-wed). Just hope the toddler hasn't given up napping (it's when I get all my jobs done on my days off thurs-sun). The change in routine over the last few weeks seem to have impacted on her nice long afternoon nap. - Hello Claireee
It sounds like exciting times for you moving to a bigger house. Very sensible decluttering now because you don't want to be taking stuff to your lovely new house that you don't need or want.
It is worrying taking on a bigger mortgage and bills tend to be quite high when you first move in but then seem to settle down.
I remember doing the same as you using up most of the food. We only had one box of food to take to our new house but arranged a sainsburys delivery for the first night in our new house. That worked really well.
Hope everything goes well over the next few weeks and that you get to your new house by the end of the month.
Flower - Good luck with everything, hope it goes well, look forward to seeing more updates.
- Thank you Flower and M0ney for commenting.
We finally moved at the beginning of last week. The move date kept getting moved further and further back so it all got pretty stressful. We got here in the end though and it was definitely worth the stress. Hopefully we won't have to move again for many years! We still have plenty of boxes to empty and are a long way from organised!
The house has been somewhat neglected by the previous owners (apart from a gorgeous new kitchen which I have been enjoying) so we have a lot that we need/want to do. On top of that we think we are going to have to replace the car soon! I think our plans of overpaying on the mortgage might be a distant dream! I hope no one minds me continuing this diary without overpaying on the mortgage as we will be living a money saving/mortgage free wannabe style life but chipping away at the mortgage might have to wait a few years! We have a 30 year mortgage fixed rate 3.04% (for 5 years) at which point we will be 64. We are still determined to try and knock 10 years off the mortgage but think that will most likely start to happen once our family is complete and after we stop paying for childcare!
So far since we moved I did a big food shop to restock the cupboards/fridge/freezer. To try and keep costs down I got as much as I could in @ldi and what I couldn't get there I picked up in S@insburys. I spent Ј200 in total and since then has spent less than Ј20 on fresh items like milk/bread/fruit/veg.
We had to buy a new washing machine, new stair gates etc, furniture for the toddler's room and we've bought a bit of decorating/DIY supplies to get us started. I think we have spent about Ј600 so far and I have got cash back on this shopping where I can. We spent Ј35 getting the electrics tested and the oven fixed (can you believe the socket for the oven stopped working the day we moved in? I have my doubts and whatever the estate agents say I suspect it was already broken). Just remembered I still need to get the gas/boiler checked soon too.
We shopped around for home insurance and got what we think is a good deal for our needs. I set us up with gas/electric on the cheapest tariff with npower who were currently supplying our new house but I plan to switch this to the cheapest tariff and hopefully get some cashback too. Anyone know how soon after moving in to a house I can change the supplier without causing any problems?
We did treat ourselves to a rare meal out last night but at Ј45 for food and drinks I think this was reasonable. We don't get to go out all that often as we have no family local to babysit but my mum is over for a couple of days so we decided to make the most of it. We spent valentines day in Ikea after all! - Hi Claire,
Hope you're enjoying the new house. Just to say we are also piling through a stack of debt and other stuff (see sig) before we start chipping away at the mortgage so you're not alone. I don't think people mind as it's all moving in the right direction and there are lots of great ideas/ support on this board for those who are working towards the goal of mortgage freedom via whatever path they have to.
Good luck with the decorating!
SR
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