Onwards to The Forever Home

A question about : Onwards to The Forever Home

New diary - new username - older member. I've changed my username as I think I became a little public for my liking.

I'm not a stranger to these forums, nor money saving, but seem to have taken my eye off the ball lately and been distracted with shiny things. Must stop! Time to refocus and keep the budgets in order which should in turn release some cash to send to the mortgage pot.

The future aim is to pay off the current home (Ј86k) and purchase the forever home. There is no current target for an end date, but ideally in the next eight years when our youngest is at school leaving (ish) age. This would knock around 10 years off the natural term, leaving plenty of time left to pay off another mortgage in the forever home.

I work for myself so my income is up and down each month. Hubby is in a secure job but not hugely high paid. We are about to remortgage at the end of our fix which will lower the monthly payments a little.

Best answers:

• Have you looked into an offset mortgage.
  I have a steady job on average pay, while my better half can earn better money than me but works on temp contracts, so we don't really know for sure how much money we will have each month.
  The offset mortgage allows us to pay the priciple each month, and then as much or little into the offset pot as we can afford.
• I am confused Mrs E - when did we have kids and reduce our mortgage?
• Sorry to cause confusion, my good lady wife is known as Mrs E
• Welcome back! You are in a very similar situation to me and the OH (minus the kids). We have about 98k left on our current house and once we have that paid off we want to move to our forever house. At that point Im hoping we can remortage this one as a buy to let and cover the payments with the rent so that eventually we will have 2 houses mortgage free.
  Kids in 4/5 years might delay our plans though!
• I *almost* went to the shop this evening to buy something to go with the chicken I got out of the freezer this morning. The trouble is I knew if I had gone to the shop I would have bought wine, chocolate etc etc, so I made a concoction of roasted veg, chicken with ginger, garlic and chilli and couscous. It was very tasty despite the odd concoction.
• Ј50 L!dl shop done this weekend. I am a very recent convert to shopping at L!dl but it takes half the time and is saving us loads at the moment which is a great thing.
  I've started the decorating, and attempting to have a big declutter before the big C word day comes around. We have so much "stuff" in this house, I'm sure we don't need it all.
  Time for my sunday roast
• Attempting to reclaim my home a bin bag / fb sale / charity bag at a time is going very slowly. I sorted through A LOT of my daughter's art and craft materials today and half filled the recycling bin, but it doesn't look like I've been in the room at all except it looks a little neater. Onwards.....
  Just popped some potatoes in the slow cooker to go with tonights curry I am going to throw together. I remembered I didn't have a lot of rice left so curry and jacket potato it is and saves me spending money at the shop.
  Also attempting some lentil fritters for lunch as hubby took all the left over meat to work from yesterdays roast so he didn't leave any to share - naughty hubby.
• The lentil fritters were a hit I'll definitely be making those again. So cheap and filling.
  Super skint until payday (20th), but the savings pot hit a good psychological boost today which is good.
  Trying to re fix the mortgage today but the website is being very slow. Apparently we can't do it over the phone any more like we used to, it's online or in person, but an appt will take at least three weeks. Online it is then. We should save Ј50 per month which I'm aiming to OP straight away.
• I don't get it. Why do you want to pay off your current mortgage before moving? If you move now you will have 8 more years in the house you really want.
  Unless the house you really want is not suitable for your needs at present - is this a downsizing plan? But if so why will you need another mortgage.
• We've fixed the mortgage for three years this time instead of our usual two. Ј50 a month saving that will be OP each month.
  I'm going to spend tomorrow doing some more decluttering and hopefully clearing the house a little bit.
• I've managed some decluttering this weekend. I listed 10 items on E-bay today, not high value items but have been sitting around for a while so decided to try before Xmas, and they're easy to post if they sell which is a bonus.
  I have one charity bag full and ready to leave the house, another started. Aiming to clear the obvious places that are visible to begin with and then tackle the depths of the cupboards.
• Bought daughter's xmas pressie last night in Arg0s and received a Ј10 voucher so that will go towards someone else's present.
  Bank acc's are a little to the wire today but it's payday in 2 days so no more spending. Don't really need anything so should be OK.