Due to the lovely uncertainty of Brexit we have been delaying getting onto the property ladder. Looking at some statistics it even looked like house prices might fall in the UK depending on the outcome of the negotiations.

I remember talking to my friend who has bought the house just before the house prices drop of 2009. We spoke around three years later and he would still not cover his outstanding mortgage by selling then.

I was petrified that the same might happen to us. On the other hand I constantly reminded myself that timing any market is a foolish game.

Country is currently getting ready to elect new parliament following years of complete fiasco negotiations and parliament blocking UK leaving the European Union. I won’t share my views on referendum, Brexit or election. It’ll just be better this way.

The fact that two prime ministers and majority Conservative government were unable to resolve this issue that they got themselves into has finally pushed us to look at buying. Times are very uncertain, but as far as I am concerned this is a sensible part of our ten year plan.
​
We thought that buying before Christmas in these uncertain times will be easy. Well it is not! Properties in good locations are disappearing really quickly. We recently went to see house which needed a lot of work including some new windows, doors and bathroom has also been trashed. Even doing the work ourselves it would probably cost in region of £10000 to get it to the right state. 

The other day as I was driving to the client’s site sipping on the coffee from my travel cup. I drove past Starbucks drive through listening to another episode of the excellent Afford Anything podcast. It was a wet miserable, sleepy morning. The line at Starbucks was really long as the fellas and gals in their BMWs and Audis were queuing up to buy themselves a morning shot of caffeine.
I thought about perception of guilt as I was driving past them. Are some people wired differently, is it the upbringing or is it consciousness of money. I don’t know. I would feel terribly guilty about buying coffee at Starbucks every day and don’t get me wrong I love good coffee, but even at that level we try to focus on living frugally. Might make us look like aliens but we don’t care. I love coffee, but it simply is not worth what Starbucks charges for it.
​
The story of frugal coffee
I saw my coffee habit as an unnecessarily costly spending and decided to minimise the cost of it rather than eliminating all together. I am way too strongly addicted to ditch coffee all together! 

I hate debt! 
My hatred is probably rooted in my childhood. I always heard about this or that loan my parents took and I could see that they were distressed as a result of debt. 
A person might be borrowing money, most possibly to buy stuff, which they currently can't afford because they could not be bothered to save for it. The real question is if they could not be bothered to save for it, why do they think it is acceptable to borrow money and pay interest to own that stuff. 
Interest rates on some of the loans are no laughing matter in the UK. Frequently, banks will push loans with over 20% interest rates on them. Banks are only half bad. There are payday loan providers who go into 1000% and higher. I took an unsecured loan from my bank at around 26% interest rate pay year to buy a car. They were so nice to me that they gave me more money than I asked for. I was a sucker, don't you be one.