Owning your own home

Just make sure you wear thick trousers or bend them slightly away from your skin. It hurts pinching your thighs in between the bits.

We got a downstairs one from here which I quite like, and though it's definitely industrial chic you don't really notice once it's up:

https://www.pipedreamfurniture.co.uk/product/bay-window-customisable-curtain-pole-bracket-set/

JohnLewis is my default for this kind of thing, eg https://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-partners-aluminium-uncorded-tracks/p249061

It hurts pinching your thighs in between the bits.

it sure does

ms_com is now on the "all curtain tracks are ugly" path (despite them being covered) so dipping back across to blinds.

I go these. Look good with nice John Lewis curtains

https://www.dunelm.com/product/trinity-fixed-oak-eyelet-curtain-pole-dia-28mm-1000075178?defaultSkuId=30214423&branchCode=0112&gclid=Cj0KCQiAvbiBBhD-ARIsAGM48by1OSVLu8cwa5NL3x36JLH14Wfkwkm-D2ZXU220RWSdxMDIpYNPRH4aAkNeEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

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To those with a mortgage and children — am curious as to what proportion have mortgage protection and if not, was the decision not to take out the cover difficult?

Mortgage, child, risk averse. Have life insurance through work that would pay out a decent chunk (6 x salary) if I died, plus a spouse and child's pension. That would more than cover the outstanding mortgage. Replacing this with a £20/month policy to cover the summer where I'll be between jobs. (It's cheap because it's for the minimum term available - 5 years - so it doesn't factor in the much increased risk of me dying in 15 or 20 years' time. Plus it doesn't include the spouse/child pensions.)

We also have Critical Illness Cover on a decreasing sum term that would pay off the outstanding mortgage. That comes to about ~£180/month for both of us (less than 10% of the monthly mortgage payment if we do full repayment).

So, yes, the CCI would have been roughly 1/5 of the value of the mortgage over the lifetime of the mortgage, but (unsurprisingly) that's not far off the odds of one of us getting something where it would actually pay out.

I have life and critical illness cover on a decreasing sum term to cover the mortgage but I don't have kid(s), my wife just wouldn't be able to pay the mortgage on her own so we both have that cover. It wasn't a hard decision to take out the cover, let alone making the decision with dependants involved too

I have two mortgages and two kids. I don’t have any sort of cover.

I use my income to reduce the term of my mortgage as fast as is possible. I’m currently set to pay it off 7 years early.

If someone dies the house will have to be sold.

We have reducing term life insurance to cover the mortgage, it’s about £9 a month which seems a bit of a no-brainer.

I'm in the process of sorting critical illness and life cover for us both. It's not that cheap (although not too dissimilar to tv/broadband I guess) but if they're ever needed then they're exactly the times when you don't want to be worrying about money.

Haven't bothered with redundancy cover as one of us could just about cover the mortgage for a while if we got rid of childcare costs.

I put a couple of those up on Tuesday in my daughters room. I'm not all that impressed with the quality, not sure how well they will last.

My wife and I have enough life cover through work to reduce the mortgage to a level where the surviving partner can afford to keep going so we didn't feel the need for anything extra.

We have life and critical illness cover which I think is a fixed term, but definitely covers the mortgage. We took this out before children and the thinking was that we wouldn't want the other to sell should one of us die.

If someone dies the house will have to be sold.

basically how I break it down to an extent

Yeah id say this would be how I would work it.

Wood burner engaged

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you monster

pls, take it to the burners thread

Its about to go down.

avengers assemble

grabs popcorn...

Judging by the plug sockets, it's only affecting foreign polar bears

All this anti-open fire talk.

Have a really nice reclaimed fireplace I've been meaning to fit into the fireplace in my lounge. Now its probably not going to be a death inducing functional
one and purely nice looking I might not bother.

we are getting one dude. got planning permission and working with architect on some other changes to our house to make it a lot more environmentally friendly.

it's a late 60s house and we are lucky in that it is fully detached. we will be using it for heating and water, assisted by a modest PV install.

we don't have it yet as like I said it is part of a package of bigger works (new windows, internal and external insulation, reconfiguration of annex, death to shit conservatory and old workshop, etc.) but have quotes in and will be installing later this year.

remind me when get around to taking it further as we will be further down the road. we think it will be worth it. and are playing a long ball game