(no subject)

Flat buying is an expensive business

Washing machine, Dishwasher, Fridge-freezer and cyclone Vacuum Cleaner: £800
Bookcases, Bed, Sofa, Wardrobe, wall storage (for 500 videos) and other miscellanous furniture.: £1100
New bathroom bits (the old ones needed to go, sadly): £400
Legal expenses: £1300

I still have to pay for the van hire, althought the lovely Aaron has offered to drive us. Also, fitting of the aforementioned bathroom. Total projected cost of moving house: £4200.

Oh, plus deposit. I got a 90% mortgage on 65,000 worth of house (for £58500), but paid £67,500. So That meant that I had to pay £9000 deposit.

Oh, plus 2 surveys for a total of £300 there too.

So, total outlay on my behalf in order to buy a flat - about £17,000, give or take. Fortunately my parents were happy to lend me £15k on the grounds that I'll sell my old flat in May and pay them back. I co-own it with Saint, and it's probably worth £80,000. As we bought it for £50k, that's a £30k profit, which means I will probably be able to just about pay them back when it sells.

I do recommend buying over paying rent. I'll be paying £330 a month for the new flat, and that'll not change for at least 10 years and should be fairly stable for the whole 25 year length of the mortgage. As rents rise fairly quickly, in a couple of years it'll be a substantial saving for me. Oh, and at the end of it I'll own a flat.

But damn, it's an expensive business.

(no subject)

If you want to find out what I've been up to today, click here

(no subject)

Last night was pretty cool too. Erin suggested that we pull ourselves together when we finished work on the new flat and went to Jen and Sana's cake party, where I ate cake I wasn't supposed to. It was fantastic cake and I feel not sorry at all for eating it.

By lovely surprise, Khi and Bekka were there. Well, I was expecting Khi to be there (that was half the reason I didn't object to going), but Bekka was a nice extra. We ended up chatting about the OTC and war games and various other stuff, which was cool.

Sadly, it kept me up until 1am, meaning that I was a tad tired when I was up early today to got to Ikea with Hal (who hung about with us for about 5 hours while we bought a ton of furniture).

Still, good party and today was damn productive.

MSN

If anyone has been trying and failing to talk to me on MSN this week, then it's because MSN, AOL and ICQ have all been as flaky as hell for over a week now.

Honestly, I'm not ignoring you.

(no subject)

Bloody Cable box decided not to work properly when changing the channel to record "The Second Coming" (two parter about the second coming from the writer of Queer as Folk).

I'm going to stomp off to the bath. Should anyone (in Scotland) have caught it on video, please let me know.