the nerd's wannabe-mortgage-holder savings diary...

greenmantle

a little name change to reflect the effort this summer - SOA on page 3...
(changing a second time from 'strimmer' so as not to appear lawn-obsessed)

Hello everyone.

I'm starting this at work (bad move), so my 'soft' (low-key...) opening will kick off by listing my money priorities for the future, and summing up the situation.

Debts. I've been there. I ran them up trying to live as a postgraduate student in London (did it all independently, got scholarships, but they were tiny Humanitites ones). Moved every year. Lived like a nomad. I finally got a job, maintained the debts for a while - so, for example, paid off one loan while maintaining the overdraft linked to the loan. Then paid off that overdraft, while hitting the overdraft limit on my regular account and incurring further charges and interest, off-setting the gains in paying off the other... Finally, I borrowed money from my parents to pay off the worst credit card balance, then paid off my main large overdraft with Ebay sales. Finally, the last loan fell to early repayment when I'd received a promotion, and a lot of expenses-covered foreign work travel let my regular salary stack up. Phew.

So I actually did it without this board, but I wish I'd had the support here, as it would have helped. I might have been able to pay off some more of the balance covered by my parents, had I had the strategic advice knocking around here.

Priorities now:

1) Staying out of debt, when I like: travelling, exercise, food, festivals, film and (every now and then) fashion. I cycle to work, invest small chunks of money in activities of longterm reward: sports in the open, exercise with regular, free meets. Trying to be sparing with the rest, and to cover as much travel as possible with work-related expenses.

2) Finding some property and a mortgage, either with my BF or without. I'm currently concerned with cleaning up my credit record. I currently have: a) some fairly-recorded late payments (highest a 3) on a cc which I found it tricky to administer while moving repeatedly - tiny credit limit, and tiny outstanding balances, which were overlooked as trailing interest and charges when I thought the card was clear. b) some unfairly-recorded late payments (a string of illogical-looking '1's) marked by my own bank on part of the first year of some loan repayments, three years ago, after they'd stuffed up the Direct Debit retrieval (scheduled to go out end of month - failed to take February's, when month ended on 27th...).

Lately I have:

1) Paid off my last loan (February)
2) Paid off my credit cards every month for the last six months. No revolving balances.
3) Kicked Egg to the curb for refusing to review my interest rate (26.9% - no balance, but just for 'just in case' cases...)
4) Closed a dormant LTSB current account - this was the donkey for a graduate loan and overdraft since about 2000. LTSB annoyed me for other reasons, so I shut it down.
5) Opened a current account with First Direct,[STRIKE] for the £100[/STRIKE] (17/06) and a more smooth banking experience. Also with half an eye on their mortgages. Passed the check no problem, but perhaps only because of a good HSBC behaviour score...
6) [STRIKE]Opened a First Direct regular saver ISA, with the objective of saving as close to the max as possible.[/STRIKE] up to £500; £400 going in next time to reach monthly max.
7) [STRIKE]Applied for a Co-op Platinum card - they guarantee the 9.9% apr for five years, which is more use to me (for overseas work expenses that I might not pay off immediately etc) than short-term 0% offers. They've just told me the app was referred to the underwriter, so in suspense...[/STRIKE] Approved! (22/06)

I need to:
a) [STRIKE]sort out a mess with an unused LTSB off-shore dollar account, which I thought would be useful for work, but have found due to dismal service, was useless. Yet they're charging me a usage fee every month. Annoying.[/STRIKE] (18/06)

b)[STRIKE] sell more stuff on Ebay.[/STRIKE] I have some dregs from last year lying around, from a born-from-necessity shrewd charity-shopping habit. 02/08 - 2 items (small, I know, but it's a start).

c) linked to the last: move twice again in the next few months. This is going to screw my credit-rating, but it will save me money, as it involves house-sitting and saving on rent...

d) perform my job well enough to get another promotion. This is pretty complicated, as it involves working all the hours available on several different tracks. But it's rewarding.

e) save more. [STRIKE]Need to work on strategies for this...[/STRIKE] (new Egg savings acct opened 21/06; then noticed old Egg savings acct still had three months of 6.30% bonus interest rate offer to go!!; HSBC Regular Saver - 8%- opened 29/06 for more investment as the year goes on)

If you've got to the end of this, thanks for reading! Anyone in a similar position?

greenmantle

Oh and also: running a marathon in 2010 - any runners out there?!

claire0788

Im not there yet but I just wanted to say well done ! You obviously worked hard to get the debt away. Keep the saving up

greenmantle

Thanks Claire! I appreciate it.

Everyone here has such epic journeys, I'm so impressed. I feel like I got off a bit lightly (so far).

Currently I'm working on working out my SOA - taking the temperature of my 'non-strict' (ish) expenses for a month or so, and then seeing what can improve. There are going to be upheavals in July when I'll be travelling for work again.

In the meantime this week:
- must remember to cancel eye care/contact lens direct debit! I've been aware for ages that I can buy up lenses cheaper, and get free eye checks by other means. Yet the DD has stayed, solidly snatching money every month for years... One of the final ones to survive many purges. Foolish. :rolleyes:

greenmantle

And while I'm here, I'm rubbish at working out abbreviations, so can somebody help out the slow person here and tell me what exactly these stand for? :embarrassed:

NSD
OH
?

greenmantle

:j overposting right now but wanted to share that First Direct have just paid my joining incentive, and my rather meagre rest-of-month dregs-of-account has been boosted by 100 quid!!
:j:j

Raini

Hello GM :hello:

Well done on what you've achieved so far & wishing you good luck with the rest :T:D

Glad someone else has had trouble with the abbreviations!

OH - other half
NSD - no spend day

Oh & welcome :beer:

greenmantle

Hi there Raini!

Doh! Thanks. You know, I'd had no clue about either of those abbreviations, and I'd read them so often. Blimey, not bright, am I?

Not sure yet whether to promote (or demote? is he 'half') the BF to OH, so will stick with that abbrev...

And I haven't had a NSD in a while (snacks at work!), so I'll have to work up to even one at the moment. Bit of a difference from the full-on student days. Something to aspire (back) to!

greenmantle

Lot's of work on today, and little to report, beyond the fact that it's definitely not a 'NSD' (bought lunch) and that I'm getting increasingly irritated by a firm not paying me for some freelance work done in Jan-Feb-March. I invoiced them (finally) on 15th May, despite the fact that some of the money was due when I initially signed up to do the work.

[STRIKE]Stupidly didn't put a 'pay by' date on the invoice, as I'm not used to generating them myself. It's now been over a month, but still less than 30 *working* days since I invoiced, with no money sighted. Does anybody know whether I can chase at this point, or not?? [/STRIKE] paid, finally! 23rd June.

greenmantle

On returning home, found my LTSB envelope containing the monthly note of a growing charge for my pointless dollar account, opened with great effort and complete lack of functionality at the end of last year.

But, lo! :j They add this months charge? Check. They add the debit interest? Check. Then it says 'Adj to close' and 0.00 and... closed.

I had a moment of alarm that the transaction to remove the debit charges was labelled 'tfr to close', but on checking my zero balance UK sterling LTSB account (no overdraft - also about to be closed), they don't appear to have lifted it from there.

They probably got so bored to tears by my extremely lengthy litany of complaints about the administration of the account opening that they were happy to be rid of me. :beer:

With sudden thought that financial luck might come in 3s, I check my other current account to see if the freelance payment has appeared at the end of the day. Has it? Of course not!!

Big work day tomorrow, so hello, all-nighter...

greenmantle

A weekend report:

1. A NSD! :j But only because I visited home, my parents bought lunch, and then packed me sandwiches for the trip home (once a child...); at least I didn't buy a magazine at the station... (drawing a veil over the US import mag I purchased on the way there...)

2. Just estimated budget until payday, and so opened new savings account for non-ISA 'sweepings' that will, for once, be left over. Opened it with Egg - 2.50% offer....

Here's the really stupid part. Was browsing their helpful 'historic interest rates' chart. Noticed this:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Accounts opened with new money to Egg from 8 May 2008 to 10 October 2008 receive an introductory offer rate of 6.30% gross pa/AER fixed for the first 12 months from the date the account is opened (paid annually). ....[/FONT]

-thinks-
-checks date of opening date of dormant, empty account opened last August for some surplus advance expenses before I used them up-
-slaps self on forehead: I have a dormant account with guaranteed 6.30% interest on offer until August-
-moves further cash into dormant 6.30% account...-

Where's the DOH! smiley? Is it this one?

Off to check over and complete last week's spending diary. I can see that 'random snacks' is a major category I'm going to have to cut down on...

cheers for reading, if anyone is! :rolleyes: