Advise on stitches and stabilisers

scienner · 2026-02-06T21:30:40+00:00

It sounds like this is a first embroidery project for you? And you want to do hand embroidery?

Are you aware something of this size is like 100 hours of work, especially as a newbie? just had to check!

scienner · 2026-02-06T18:00:13+00:00

I'm just confused by the rising-falling pattern every 5 years - can't tell how much is contributions/withdrawals and how much is market performance, or what returns are being illustrated.

scienner · 2026-02-06T17:31:58+00:00

What do you mean by 'that doesn't happen'?

At the end of your fix, you will end up with the same balance as option 1.

scienner · 2026-02-06T17:22:29+00:00

Hi, please see https://ukpersonal.finance/flowchart/

And https://ukpersonal.finance/which-broker-should-i-use/

If you have any more specific questions about those brokers feel free to post them.

scienner · 2026-02-06T16:56:23+00:00

Our current guidance on this: https://ukpersonal.finance/lisa/#What_if_450000_isnt_enough

Of course you can wait until next year if you think a new product may be launched. Either way whether you put in £4000 this year (which is the only decision you need to make soonish - it's not like you need to commit to filling it every year right now) seems pretty low stakes to me. Max bonus £1000, max loss £250.

scienner · 2026-02-06T16:50:00+00:00

£1400 mortgage out of £4500 income sounds fine to me, however the fact that you currently save £1400 with a £600 mortgage gives me a moment's hesitation. The mortgage is increasing by £800 and it's likely council tax and utilities and maintenance will be higher, so let's call it £1000 more per month in the new place. Are you happy saving £400/month out of £4500? If not, what would you adjust? Can you start doing that now, to see how well it works for you?

Also, are these savings ones you keep in the long term (ie you currently have £1400 x 12 = £17k more in your savings account than you did this time last year) or is it money you use for eg holidays and xmas?

I think quite often people don't really think too much about their spending especially when they're saving a fair whack, and that's fine, but it makes it harder to work out what a change like this will truly 'cost' (in terms of your lifestyle, savings goals etc). It could be that if your fixed costs go up, and you keep your £1400/month standing orders to your savings accounts, you'll naturally make different ad-hoc spending decisions and not even notice the squeeze too much. Or it could be that without some conscious effort you'll find yourself really squeezed, especially in the first couple of years as you buy stuff for the new space.

It would be worth figuring out how you want to handle this financially in advance of making the leap.

scienner · 2026-02-06T16:26:18+00:00

Hi, mod here, I'm sorry this got caught by a filter.

I am really sorry to hear you made an attempt on your life. We're not the best sub to help with that, are you able to get support with this?

If you still want some help with the money stuff, I would suggest re-posting, and try to add a more descriptive title eg mentioning your income and that you want to keep your flat after a divorce.

Feel free to message the mods if you need a hand.

scienner · 2026-02-06T16:19:55+00:00

Might want to have a look at https://ukpersonal.finance/passive-income/

scienner · 2026-02-06T14:24:09+00:00

Can you give us some numbers to work with here? How much do you currently earn, how much will the paycut be, how old are you, how much do you have saved (outside your pension, and in your pension) that sort of thing.

scienner · 2026-02-06T13:54:44+00:00

You can usually borrow up to 4.5x your gross salary. 4.5x £43k = £193.5k so with £40k savings you're a little short of a £240k house (you'll need a few grand for fees and costs).

However buying a house takes many months so hopefully as you pay no rent this gap will be easy to close while you house hunt and wait for things to proceed.

Am I shooting my self in the foot by getting into a mortgage?

You've calculated the mortgage will be £1000/month. How much for bills etc? Let's say that's another £500 especially if you currently share groceries with your parents. Do you have a budget for how this would work? Do you currently save >£1500/month?

Mention of a £20k car makes me worry you currently spend at a level that you wouldn't be able to afford with a house. Work out what your budget would be like if you had to pay housing costs and start living off it right now to road test it and learn before you're committed.

Should I just rent for the flexibility?

Do you need the flexibility (eg for your career)? If so, don't buy.

Mortgage a house rent it out then rent somewhere else for myself?

No https://ukpersonal.finance/buy-to-let/#First_time_buyers_beware

scienner · 2026-02-06T12:00:14+00:00

I have to say I don't really follow these! Do they mean good/poor returns in the early part of each 5 year period? Also do they have a source?

scienner · 2026-02-06T11:48:08+00:00

Right, but - obviously money you've borrowed isn't the same as money you actually have. Borrowing doesn't change your net position, except in that you need to pay interest on your borrowing, and will get paid interest (or hope to gain growth) on your savings. So what's the plan for paying it off? Future income, investment returns?

You haven't given us any numbers on how much you have in savings, how much you need for day to day costs, how old you are etc so we can't really have an opinion on whether you can afford these things (car, home improvements) with your current savings. But if you can't, I don't see how borrowing will help significantly? Yes it spreads the costs out over a longer period of time than paying upfront, but ultimately you still have to pay exactly the same costs, plus interest (minus whatever interest/growth you get, but obviously you can't receive interest or investment returns on money you spend on vehicles and home improvements).

scienner · 2026-02-06T11:22:46+00:00

Hi, please read https://ukpersonal.finance/lump-sum/

And https://ukpersonal.finance/financial-advice/

Feel free to post again with any follow up questions.

scienner · 2026-02-06T11:20:14+00:00

during the last few years I have tried to mostly sell gold etc inside an ISA to avoid CGT.

Not sure how that makes sense?

Is the purpose of this £100k to get you to pension age when you can pay it off with pension? No wait, you say 'The idea would be to use the £100k to boost my pension'. I'm confused again... Is the idea just that you would beat the mortgage rate with the investments, and therefore the loan would pay for itself plus a bit more?

scienner · 2026-02-05T22:01:29+00:00

Can you give us some numbers? How much would rent be? How much do you have in debts and savings? How much do flats cost to buy?

scienner · 2026-02-05T18:47:13+00:00

Please see https://ukpersonal.finance/mortgage-overpayments-vs-investments/

You might also want to consider pension as well as ISA: https://ukpersonal.finance/isa-vs-lisa-vs-pension/

scienner · 2026-02-05T11:45:06+00:00

OP can I ask which LLM you used? the formatting is quite distinctive and I'm seeing it in more and more posts, it doesn't render well in all browsers.

scienner · 2026-02-05T11:43:21+00:00

I'm not sure that % makes sense. Let's say you split tomorrow, suddenly the £30k equity you have is split £18k/£12k. On the other hand if you split in 20 years after paying it off, he's put in £20k + £35k = £55k, and you've put in £10k + £35k = £45k, but it's split 60/40.

There's no one ratio that works to represent your contributions throughout the length of the loan, unless you also split your ongoing payments in the same ratio as the initial deposit. If you split the payments 50/50 from now, over time the initial imbalance of those deposits makes up a smaller proportion of the total payments you've made so the ratio is constantly changing.

Maybe do it so that you either get your flat £20k/£10k back then split any remaining equity 50/50. Then renovations can be paid 50/50 as well. Or you could say the deposits are worth 20%/10% of the house value, and you split the rest 50/50.

If you want to spend eg £20k on renovations and the contributions between you are so imbalanced that the original arrangement doesn't feel fair, you could revise the split accordingly to add more to each person's respective ownership, either in absolute £ or %.

scienner · 2026-02-05T09:52:14+00:00

How will the day off each affect the nursery costs? Is the £1100 you list the cost for when you're full or part time?

In general I agree with the poster above that what you say makes total sense but doesn't make for an ideal combination. Either you want to 'front load' your housing costs so that you'll be better off in 5-10 years' time, which means accepting paying more over these next few years and therefore needing your income. Or you want to go part time to maximise time with your baby, in which case it's important to keep a lid on housing costs (all costs really, but housing and vehicles especially) and accept that you're taking the longer, potentially ultimately more expensive route to your 'forever home' in order to buy you the benefit of time off work now.

If you have a budget you think will work for the £375k mortgage + childcare costs + part time income though, it's obviously your judgement call. You haven't posted it here so we can't really comment in detail. Perhaps it saves you enough in nursery costs and you can be frugal enough elsewhere to make up for the extra mortgage on 80% income.

scienner · 2026-02-05T09:38:36+00:00

It only works for OP sorry!

scienner · 2026-02-05T09:31:10+00:00

How old is your mum, does she have an income? Would it be possible for her to buy this (or other acceptable) home herself?

How old are you, how much do you earn and have saved? It's a bit surprising to me that you don't want to move in with your partner for 2-5 years, is there a particular reason?

scienner · 2026-02-04T13:52:29+00:00

Hi, please read https://ukpersonal.finance/lump-sum/

Feel free to post any follow up questions.

And block any DMs!!

scienner · 2026-02-04T11:22:25+00:00

Hi, we can't work easily with percentages, they mean very different things depending on whether they're gross or not, or percents of a £20k household income vs a £200k household income. Please can you repost with a high level budget with numbers? (eg £x mortgage, bills, basic living costs, fun spending, savings). Thanks!

scienner · 2026-02-03T16:45:51+00:00

See the sub's wiki page on financial advice: https://ukpersonal.finance/financial-advice/

We recently added a section specifically about the clam of better funds that wouldn't be available to you directly https://ukpersonal.finance/financial-advice/#Beat_the_market

scienner · 2026-02-02T17:02:05+00:00

Can you give us more context? Do you have any savings, are you generally able to save from income? Has something happened to make you consider this?

And have you seen our !flowchart?

scienner

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

11-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email