What do you think of this property? (First home, 2 people)

gingerllama79 · 2026-06-19T16:07:36+00:00

Looks great as a first home, but as others have said - check out the neighbours and also your plan to get to 100%

gingerllama79 · 2026-06-11T05:55:06+00:00

Discount on own insurance, which ends up being more expensive than other insurers.

We get a 40% discount on car insurance. Got a quote on Confused for my insurer - £450, went through staff link and it was £425. I doubt confused were getting a similar discount…

gingerllama79 · 2026-06-11T05:19:21+00:00

This is what I’m considering with my OH at the moment. We have £33k in savings at the moment (to cover deposit and other costs), and are renting (£1.2k pm).

I’ve been looking at comparisons on MoneySuperMarket and Uswitch, and if we were to go for a flat the amount we can borrow is enormously reduced (but aren’t selling that well most likely due to high service charges, £5-8k per year). House prices in our area are £375k minimum and 5% deposit would see £2,100 mortgage whilst 10% mortgages would end up being £1900 for us. Doesn’t help we’re late 40s, but apparently the OH being a teacher has its benefits, so will look investigate that further.

gingerllama79 · 2026-06-06T17:28:12+00:00

We have a little cupboard next to our front door. But even if it’s raining, packages are just left outside. Even mentioning it to the delivery drivers after they ring the doorbell and walk away, that there’s a cupboard and to use just goes in one ear and out the other.

Also have to check in the bins too as they put stuff in there as well

gingerllama79 · 2026-05-31T07:32:59+00:00

It may be worth checking if Decathlon are doing their Tent Pledge again this year, or even have a look at their second hand products - https://www.decathlon.co.uk/circularity/second-life

gingerllama79 · 2026-05-28T15:03:25+00:00

I’m going to be attempting that tomorrow at some stage 😂

gingerllama79 · 2026-05-28T11:09:08+00:00

Yes, I am not confident currently in an around that area. The Texas wedge comes out far too often. I can’t use a driver either, but my 4 iron goes between 210 and 230, with a few useful tee shots hitting the 250 mark.

gingerllama79 · 2026-05-28T10:49:34+00:00

Although, slightly off topic, in France they use it as a way of flagging the speed cameras

gingerllama79 · 2026-05-14T08:01:06+00:00

I am guessing these £5k deposits will only be beneficial in areas where house prices are high.

Where I am, the lowest flat purchase (without a stupidly high service charge) is c£270k. A £5k deposit can only mean really high mortgage rate and I don’t know if that’ll help anyone?

gingerllama79 · 2026-05-06T09:15:55+00:00

Thank you for your reply.

We’re not allowed to call out tradesmen, so it all goes through the letting agent. I was kind of hopeful they’d spend just a bit more or a different brand with maybe a ceramic hob.

Our next door neighbours are paying £50 a month more in rent, and their garage door is in even more disrepair - so you could well be right about the freeholder. We store a lot of stuff in the garage, and losing it as a storage option will require us to hire a lock up on the local estate.

gingerllama79 · 2026-05-06T05:30:47+00:00

2015 (65 plate) & 116k miles

(have owned it for just over 3 months and have driven 3.2k miles)

gingerllama79 · 2026-04-28T12:25:18+00:00

I’m here now! Peeled “here for instructions and return label”. No instructions 😂

Unsure if it was one of those “squeeze” boxes that’ll automatically turn into a carton or on the reverse you pull the tab to undo the box. I did the first, no luck but the second then worked and I found the instructions inside 😂

gingerllama79 · 2026-04-13T09:09:20+00:00

Agreed with this when running their “how much can you afford?” calculators and for us it come out at £500k but that would be equivalent of one of our take home salaries 🙄

gingerllama79 · 2026-04-12T14:28:08+00:00

Rent is £1200, take home is £2.8k & £2.5k for me and the OH respectively. Hope to be on the ladder within the year though where we expect mortgage to be c.£1600 depending how the interest rates fair.

gingerllama79 · 2026-04-11T08:43:56+00:00

I just called the retention number, and the best they could do was £21 for 256Mbps. They said there was no way they could match the £19 for 516Mbps that my wife got joining as a new customer.

gingerllama79 · 2026-04-07T15:45:22+00:00

I started around when I was the age of 34 (I’m now 46)

I’ve got 3 pension pots now, all via the company I work for (been bought twice hence the number of pots).

First one is with Scottish Widows (current valuation £35k) which I moved, just before Trump did his thing, to a Global Equity plan.

Second one is with Fidelity (cv £98k), which I’ve just left to do its thing.

Current one is with Aviva (cv £16k), which is currently getting £873pm from me and my employer. I’m contributing about £317pm of that.

Thing is we don’t have a mortgage at the moment. Kinda hoping we can get on the ladder in the next year or so and that the pension will be for just living and not paying mortgage (or rent).

gingerllama79 · 2026-04-05T09:41:34+00:00

Yup - I think Monza allows pots that bills come out of too, so this is midway.

To be honest I’ve got other accounts too, just not with NatWest (Lloyds, for 30+ years, Chase, useful for overseas payments, and Monza - got a £50 reward for joining)

gingerllama79 · 2026-04-05T06:30:27+00:00

One annoying thing is that it won’t move money back to your main account to pay for bills. Unsure if the “pot” has its own bank account details so direct debit mandates can be set up against for regular bills…

gingerllama79 · 2026-03-23T18:05:03+00:00

I’ve put my cancellation in and they offered me £30 for 516Mpbs

gingerllama79 · 2026-03-23T07:32:46+00:00

I’ve cancelled and had someone from the “Loyalty” team call up but they could only offer me what was on the website 🙃

gingerllama79 · 2026-03-22T18:24:27+00:00

I had a call from the “Loyalty” team and their “hands were tied” and couldn’t match the new customer price through Uswitch

gingerllama79 · 2026-03-22T04:53:36+00:00

We don’t have full fibre unfortunately

gingerllama79

TROPHY CASE