I'm baaack! And still dreaming of being MF!

A question about : I'm baaack! And still dreaming of being MF!

Hello all long time no see!

I thought now might be a good time to start a new thread. I've been absent for a couple of years as we decided to put our house up for sale. We are currently considering whether or not to accept an offer from a couple who have viewed twice.

To remind everyone: there's 5 of us, plus 2 cats. The manshape is employed, and I'm self-employed while home educating our 3 children who are 10, 7 and 5 on Weds ( where did that go?!).

I must confess to feeling rather anxious about the impact that moving is going to have on our finances as we are struggling a bit at the moment, and I'm struggling to see how we can help ourselves. I came here because I know I can trust you lot to give me good suggestions and keep me focussed when everything's going to pot. Once we are moved and sorted I really want to get back to saving/paying down the mortgage as I've been really uncomfortable with us not saving anything this year.

Anyway, I hope everyone is well. I've had a quick read through the latest bits of your diaries over the past couple of days and you're still all massive inspirations!

Caz

Best answers:

• Welcome back Cazzie!
  Do combat your worry about moving costs...you might find its a good idea to make a little spreadsheet with all the costs. It might turn out to be more than you thought, but at least you will know and there will be no suprises
• Thanks JimLad, that's a good idea - I have spreadsheets for almost everything so it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to add another worksheet in there lol
  We have 2 houses that we are considering, and the financial impact differs depending on which one we go for...
  House 1: larger house, larger garden, off-street parking, no garage but potential for one (or a couple of large sheds). Away from the local high school on a quiet side street. Very little needs doing to the house, just a bit of cosmetic stuff, but it's right at the top of our budget and the vendors are not flexible on the price at all, so we'd probably have to pay stamp duty as well as the higher price. We'd have to take out an additional small mortgage which would add around Ј60-100pcm to our monthly budget. Genuinely not sure if we could sustain that additional strain.
  House 2: around the same size as our current house, slightly different dimensions. Smaller garden, only on-street parking as it's up steps off the road, so would prob have an increase in car ins. Much closer to the high school so lots of children/parents milling about/parking/clogging up the road, but that is mitigated by the house being up off the road. Garden backs onto school payground, so potentially more noisy? Needs full refurb, but would be much cheaper to buy so no stamp duty and we could make it exactly how we wanted. Guaranteed nice neighbours as we're already friends with the family in the attached semi.
  Worth bearing in mind I'm on call in Dec, Jan, and Feb which is probably when we'd be moving if we accepted this offer as potential buyers are having a baby in Feb and want to be settled by then (understandably).
  Both have pluses and minuses. It's just a case of weighing them up. They're about 3 minutes walk from each other so same area so local amenities and travel links are the same.
• Can i ask your reason for moving before i post my thoughts on 1 vs 2? Most people need a bigger house but seems like house 2 is the same or smaller when you include garden?
• Space is one of the reasons... with me working from home and home edding the kids as well we are in need of more space, although if that was the only reason we would probably just get inventive where we are.
  Another reason is we like the area where these houses are - it's where we lived before we moved into our current house. We lived there for 7 years and like the local area, whereas we're not very keen on where we are now.
  The final reason is the fact that we were blessed *ahem* with a change of neighbours next door and don't really like them much. I know that new neighbours is not a great reason for moving... and if circumstances were different I'd agree but they are renting from family and the house owner kicked out his nice responsible tenants to move this rabble in so I think it unlikely that they'll be leaving any time soon and tbh I don't think I can take the mental strain.
• Aha! So pros and cons time! I guess you dont know what the neighbours of house 1 are like?
• Hrm, well, not personally. We have friends who live at the other end of the road who have commented that a couple of the kids near the house we're interested in aren't very nice. Tbh though, I think my kids have been put off playing out by next door's children. If we have a reasonably sized garden to fit the climbing frame and possibly a trampoline in then I reckon they'll be happy, and the houses are near a sizeable park, which is always nice
  Last year I, quite by accident, ended up chatting with the lady who lived in the unattached semi next to House 1, who was selling at the time, and who said that the only people on the road that were problematic were the people who are currently living in the house we're interested in. She assured us that the lady who lives in the attached semi was lovely.
  I know in the grand scheme of things horrible neighbours are actually quite unlikely, but our circumstances are skewing our perspective somewhat and the prospect of living next door to a friend whom we know is nice and doesn't scream obscenities at her children at bedtime etc is quite attractive. But I'm not sure if it outweighs more space, and off-street parking, and a house that needs very little doing to it.
• I think that if you knew that house 1 definately had bad neighbours you should take it into account, but as you dont its 95% likely that they will be fine so you shouldnt factor that into the decision.
• While staring at my spreadsheets this afternoon I realised it had been a while since I had checked my QC account and lo and behold my two lots of cashback that I was waiting for had both been approved and were ready to pay into my bank account (I dread to think how long they were sat there and not in my account!)
  Must go and stop wasting time on here as I've about 2 hours of work to do and the later I start the later I'll finish and I'm still recovering from the inevitable late night on Saturday as we attended a friend's wedding. Hoping I can get a positive update from the EA tomorrow *fingers crossed*
• Morning and good luck with your decision. I'm subscribing.
• *sigh* we made a counter offer to the potential buyers... got a phone call from the EA saying that one of them has to work away for a week so it'll be at least next Friday before we have an answer.
  I've been looking through our accounts and my spreadsheets and trying to get all my ducks in a row so I know what's what before we move. I really fell out with keeping track of everything and I am regretting it now, plus this year we had a cut in tax credits which has lead to us having to tighten our belts substantially and it's all feeling rather muddled. However, I'm very grateful that I use pots (albeit rather fewer than Tilly does ) to put aside funds for a few things as it means that even though things are tight I still have enough to buy Yule/birthday gifts, clothes/shoes, and we will have enough to pay the car insurance/breakdown cover/MOT in full in Feb.
  One area that has spiralled out of control is food. We used to do so well... but we're currently spending around Ј600pcm on food??! And I have no idea how! we rarely eat takeaways, we rarely buy lunch, we rarely eat out anywhere, which means that the vast majority of what we're spending is on household shopping... which means (uncomfortable truth time) that it's probably due to rising food costs and my complacency.
  Anyway... I've just done a stock take of my freezers and cupboards, I have a meal plan for the next week or so but I shall try to extend it further. We have our Park meat hampers arriving in about 3 weeks so I want the freezers as empty as possible for when they arrive. I'm determined to reduce it as much as I can.
• Nice to have you back Cazzie!!!
  Can't help much with the decision - I have had bed neighbours and good ones and know that the bad ones can really affect your life on all levels; I would never knowingly put myself in a position where I would have to endure it again though. If I were you, I would probably have a look at other options - but you never really know what a place is like until you live in it...
  Whatever you choose to do, I hope that it works out well for you
• Hi Caz, lovely to see you starting a new diary. I often thought about you when I came across a butchers
  Have you done a complete food inventory, freezer, cupboards, fridge, anywhere you have stuff hidden? You were always so focussed on your food spend and hopefully you can get that back again quickly.
  Really happy to see you back and will pop in often.
  Best wishes Tilly x
  PS, you definitely need more saving pots
• Update: the buyers came back to us early with an increased offer, and we've decided to accept it. So our house is now officially "under offer" !!
  We've made an appt to view House 1 at the weekend. I guess we'll see what's what.
  I think my anxiety has actually increased rather than decreased!
• This morning I rang several places to get conveyancing quotes after our EA gave us a "competitive" one. (Their claim, not mine!) Turns out the solicitors we used before is the cheapest as well as being an excellent solicitors so we've gone with them again. Haven't yet got rough quotes for moving vans or a survey but if I use our last move as a guide then I estimate our costs will be around Ј2k... and then the dreaded stamp duty on top (assuming we can't negotiate the vendors under the threshold). Genuinely have no idea how we'll afford it, but I am wondering whether a 0% CC that we can pay off over the following 12-18m might be the way forward? Another option is using some saved funds to pay it, but it would leave us with literally no emergency funds whatsoever, and that thought makes me rather uncomfortable.
  Some home ed friends of ours mentioned that the house next to them is for sale (2 different families, living next door but one - the house in the middle is available). Sadly it's out of our price range and also too small shame really.
  Posting off 3 items I sold on the Bay of E today; funds have been transferred over to our account this afternoon, also have some cheques to pay in and a friend owes me some cash. Additionally manwife is doing an extra week of on-call which means extra funds in our jt acc, which will hopefully mean that next month (when he does no on-call at all) won't be quite so hair raising as I was predicting.
  Have had a final payment from a client yesterday, as well as a cheque from Royal Mail refunding the special delivery postage cost after there was a delay in delivery. Interviewing with a potential client this evening so hopefully that turns into a booking... although it does mean I'll be on call for 4 months solid! Need to chase 2 other clients for payments at some point in the next few days.
  Heading down to into town now to pay things into various bank accounts and take some clothing and other bits and pieces to the charity shop... only about half of it, mind, the rest is stacked up ready to photograph to put on the Bay of E over the next few weeks. On that note, I've not sold on there since they changed from free listing weekends to 20 free listing per month... is it per calendar month? Ie, 20 listings in Oct, 20 in Nov etc? Or does it run 30/31 days from when you put your first listing up?
  Eating out of the freezer tonight - discovered some haddock fillets loitering in the bottom of a drawer so will oven bake and serve with new potatoes, peas and wilted spinach (and fish fingers for the kids cuz they don't like real fish). Need to update my stock list, but I have my meal plans for the next week so hopefully will only need to pop in for a couple of fresh things at the weekend.
  I can do this! I'm determined to not be totally screwed financially by moving!
• Exciting times ahead. Looking forward to hearing how house number 1 fares for you when you view it. Last time we moved, we put everything we had to pay up front on a 0% card and paid it off when all the money changed hands.
• Spent some time this morning starting to sort out the garage. Not sure how we managed to amass so much crap?? We've only been here 4 years...
  Anyway, I filled a wheelie bin, and half filled the recycling bin, plus 2 bags of rubbish so that I can put the seats down in the back of the car and do a tip run with lots and lots of stuff... a friend suggested a skip but skips cost money and I'm reasonably sure if I plan right then I can do a tip run and go to the supermarket at the same time so I'm not using petrol up just on one thing.
  Manwife took another big bag of clothes to the charity shop this afternoon (on top of the ones I took yesterday), returned some headphones for a refund and I listed another 12 items on ebay (with two more still to do). Reasonably sure I'll have another couple of bags of stuff to charity shop by next weekend.
  It's very cathartic, clearing stuff out that's needed clearing for a while
  Does Peony still post here? Are you out there P?? *hopes*
• Having seen it again, we're sure House 1 is the one. Currently debating what to offer. Vacillating between offering just under the stamp duty threshold, or offering the asking price (Ј2k above the stamp duty threshold).