Other What's ruining your life right now?

That’s awesome, I’ve seen many times that white male privilege is just an institutional thing and absolutely exists but that doesn’t in any way mean that life doesn’t suck sometimes and just need a cry. I did this morning for example. And that’s okay.

 

There is a reason sports such as golf, fishing, snooker, darts etc are very popular with men.

Gets them away from their responsibilities and stresses for a few hours, with mates where they can either talk nonsense or (when needed) more serious topics. The key bit being there is a motive/reason to be there that isn't about talking about your feelings but that might happen as a side effect.

 

I feel for you dude. The level of **** you've waded through wouldve broken me.

That is a perfect description.

 

tbh, its not necessarily even about talking about the "sh*t", its about being in a space away from it, everyone knowing that that is one of the reasons, and being there if someone does want/need to say something, anything. I have a games night, where we just play a stupidly complex boardgame (Frosthaven), drink and eat vast quantities of snacks. We dont necessarily "talk", but sometimes we vent and the others listen.

 

Oh budgerigar Crappy, postpone your birthday to next weeke and we can can celebrate being old and cranky in tandem!
Hope you recover soon

 

just learned that Western Digital have discontinued its legendary WD120EFBX 12tb drives and replaced it with a noiser more power hungry 512mb WD120EFGX version.

nfi if installing one into an existing nas will cause issues but im not experimenting to find out.

 

COVID and flu jabs yesterday and now I feel like absolute shite!

 

That reminded me to book my next 'rona stab, getting it on monday. Just the 'rona, flu stabbies put me in bed for a week vs 'rona meh all I get is a tiny red spot for few hours at the injection site

 

Oh, 100%. The state of your day/week/year/life is in no way tied to the fact that others may have it worse or better.
Hope everything's ok.

 

Earlier this year we got a decision in principle for a mortgage that required only a £5000 deposit. We’ve saved over double that amount since then, so I contacted them again recently to do another DIP. This time it was “computer says no, we don’t think that’s affordable for you”. It is affordable, but fair enough: I now have lending in my name that didn’t exist before, and what mortgage companies define as “affordable” is very much more strict than my budget spreadsheet.

Today I had a DIP granted by a different building society. £50,000 less than we’d have liked, but still gives us plenty of room to manoeuvre. The deposit’s a bit higher this time, but we can manage.

Cool, all good.

My OH sent me a link earlier about “land transaction tax”, aka “stamp duty”. Of course I wasn’t ignorant of stamp duty, but my general understanding was that there are reliefs in place for first time buyers, so shouldn’t be a massive deal.

Oh my sweet summer child…

There is no rate relief for first time buyers in Wales.

If we buy a £350,000 property in England, we’d pay £2,500 in “stamp duty land tax”.

If we buy a £350,000 property in Wales, we’d pay £7,500 in “land transaction tax”.

So now it isn’t “£7000-ish for deposit and £3000-£5000-ish for fees and stuff”, now it’s “£7000-ish for deposit, and £7,500-ish for stamp duty, and £3000-£5000-ish for fees and stuff”.

The tax-free threshold in Wales is higher, its £225,000 instead of £150,000. But in England, first time buyers don’t pay SDLT until the price gets to £300,000, and then it’s 5% on any amount between £300,001 and £500,000. In Wales there’s no rate relief available for first-time buyers. So it’s tax free up to £225,000… but then 6% on anything between £225,001 and £400,000, and then 7.5% between £400,001 and £750,000.

Guess what the average house price across Wales is? £209,000. Great! That’s under the tax free threshold! Guess what the average is for Cardiff? £289,000. What about Vale of Glamorgan? £323,000. Out the other side in Newport? £249,000. Torfaen can’t be that bad, can it? It’s not as if it’s a particularly affluent area like the Vale…? The average is right on the £225,000 threshold. And don’t forget these are mathematical averages encompassing the entire price range: in reality you are likely to be way over that. Average semi-detached house in Cardiff is £317,000, detached (not that we were looking for that anyway) goes up to £457,000. £300,000-£350,000 is the range we were looking at: roughly average price in Cardiff for a semi-detached property.

The only way we’re going to find what we need - off-street parking, 2 beds minimum, preferably a house - under the tax-free threshold is either: we buy a shoebox that isn’t big enough; try and find a flat that has a drive and hope we don’t get outbid by buy to let buyers; buy a knackered shithole that needs a ton of money to make it liveable; or buy in a really awful crime-ridden part of town where “shithole” means used needles and actual human ****.

I’ll damn well find a way to make it work. Because I am already more than half-way through my expected lifespan, and I am ****ing sick and tired of paying for someone else’s cushy little ****ing end-of-life fund. But often it feels like people don’t ****ing want you to own your own home.

 

Double checked and there is some relief in Scotland but for a £350k house it's £7750 after relief (£8350 without), something we had originally misjudged as had used a stamp duty calc previously to give us some rough numbers which as the prices go up get further and further away from the actual in Scotland (and Wales by the sounds of it)

 

We’ve been scouring Rightmove recently, and we can get a lot more than I thought with a lower budget, but the stamp duty is still going to be a real punch in the face.

 

We're putting in an offer on a house today but the whole process of buying/selling is just such a PITA.

 

Yes, it is. I’m just thankful that we don’t have anywhere to sell, but that doesn’t mean things won’t go tits-up part-way through.

 

RSI from mini painting, then pulled a rotator cuff moving furniture
send ice cream and pizza

 

House viewing number 20 for us this weekend.

Getting fed up of renting and, yes, actual house buying is also a pain in the backside.

No idea why the whole process takes so long tbh.