eek .. we have bought a house.

[percival]

And my earnings have decreased by a third.

so this means a serious lifesyle change:
- cooking instead of takeaway dinners
- not letting good food go to rot in the fridge because I am too lazy to cook it
- taking my own lunch and snacks into work
- proper bookkeeping (c.f. Europcar scare)
- buying far fewer books
- taking back books to libraries on time, and taking out far fewer

... and finally, most importantly ...

apart from the trip to Germany in February to retrieve much of our furniture, NO trips abroad. These four trips to Germany (Christmas, christening, 60th birthdays) have made a major dent in our savings, not to mention the big American holiday. Since we want to pay off as much of our mortgage as soon as possible, we will only travel within Scotland.

So - no Iceland. Heck, by rights, we couldn't even afford my trip to Texas now!

Strange, this: if the landlady hadn't been so stupid to mention that she was thinking about getting an agent in, we would NEVER have bought the flat, because we were extremely comfortable where we were.

On the other hand, seeing that I've decided to become a good book keeper, I can't go on a healthy detox diet now. Two sets of deprivations are just too much, folks. (But then, merely cooking my own food will probably make my eating a lot healthier than it is right now.)

The life of luxury was nice - now back to reality!

Comments

[dr-c.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the house; I assume this is in the Edinburgh area? (Sorry if you've moved and I've been out of touch long enough to have missed that!)

I also trust that you've got reasons for confidence in the stability of the housing market, and that the negative-equity doomsday scenario (which I recall you mentioning in response to zsenya's post on the rent/buy decision) won't come true. As long as that's the case, I expect that your decision will prove a sound one. Best wishes for the duration of the payment schedule. :-)

(Oh, and by the way: If your income should increase again... accelerating payments is always a good thing.)

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's in Edinburgh, in one of the few areas that are not overpriced but still have good schools. It'll be bye-bye delis, of course, but at least we will have our own place. The big problem in Scotland is the few rights that tenants have - if you read back a little in my blog, you'll see that our landlady can safely raise the rent by 15% or more, if the fancy should take her.

Luckily, our purchase is well within the limits of what we can afford and pay off, so that we have a big in-built financial safety cushion.

We're going to move in February/March, by the way - we are already planning that move in detail. I'll mail you the new address when we move.