Finally got a reality check!!

elzie

Thanks to you all- this is all brilliant advice!

To start with all the policies are for life insurance and not endowment. It is a total rip off i agree!

I think the people in HSBC must have taken me for a complete and utter mug! Thing is the house we bought was a repossession in the village where we both grew up so we were desperate to secure a mortgage on the place and not lose out to someone else. So i think basically they flogged us whatever they could!

It seems hard to belief that i actually do have a bit of intelligence when you read back over what i am paying every month!! im actually studying to be a chartered accountant and work as an assistant accountant so you would have thought I had some idea about finances!!
I think Millsee is totally right about financial advisors making a mint- the HSBC one must literally be laughing all the way to the bank about us!

The one who is looking at my exisiting policies will get a fee from the people I hoepfully change too but at least that cost will not be paid by me. I am just a natural worrier who thinks they should be insured for everything- sad i know!!
Thing is though that I dont bother with insurances for washing machines etc but as suggested by besthtinginlifearefree i am too much of a wuss to cancel the lot and put the money aside. All i really want is that if either of us peg it the mortgage will be paid of for the other one and they will receive a (realistic!) lump sum to put in the bank- as bost of us are grafters I know we would carry on working at least part time if the other one died. The other idea is that if we both died they mortgage will be paid off and some money either from renting it out or selling it off would be left to my parents who would the the kids.

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This is for Kar- hope this helps!

Mortgage:
Remortgage 244.24
Mortage 668.61 9 Its. def. not a secured loan. My mortgage is for £146k and a top up of £39k I have two mortgages as the existing one was for £668 odd and then the extra £200 is a top up mortgage loan. Also i am on a fixed term with the bank for another 18 months and they wanted £2800 to get out of it- that was 6 months ago but i dont know what it would be know. The advice again came from the bank so it was probably wrong!

Utilities and essentials
Water 42.00 -sorry its 34.58- how would I go about getting a meter fitted? I thought that if you had less people in your house than the no. of bedrooms it was not worth doing this)
Electric 30.00
gas 40.00 - will try uswitch now- did once before but British Gas still came out cheapest!
House Insurance Building and Contents 23.47
TV licence 10.99
Council tax 115.00

phone
Bt (quarterly) 13.50 i need to keep the line rental from BT- t thought the talk talk deal from carphone was quite good at 14.99 for internet and phone.
Carphone warehouse phone and broadband14.99
02 Mobile 35.00 (now cut down to £8 from June)

CIS Child savings 10.00 No i cant stop this as i wont get back what i paid in. This child is now 7.nearly 8.
Sky 21.00 will cancel this today.

insurance
Mortgage Repayment protection 35.66 Oh is a carpenter- I am an Assistant Accountant- he has been with company for 19 yrs and me only 2 with mine.

Life insurance 10.02
Life insurance 18.77
Life Insurance 14.45
Life Insurance 20.27
Life insurance 24.60
Life Insurance 8.27
Life Insurance 115.57
American Life Insurance 5.95
N Union Accident 2.98 They are just insurance policies- i dont want to cancel them straightaway with nothing else in place- i might die tommorrow (fingers crossed that I dont!!) and my family would be stuffed. The advisor would gain the fee from the company i potentially move too. They are getting back to me this week.

Car
Fortis car Insurance 17.61
Fortis Car Insurance 30.71


other
Food approx £240.00 (you can cut this down we will do our best to help)this is fantastic news!!
Petrol £80.00


Debts

Cahoot Flexi Loan of £8732.18 at 8.5% APR monthly payments £174.64
Burtons card £200.00 paying off £35.00 per month
OH Halifax Credit card £3241.44 paying off £77.00 per month.
Overdraft one £699.99
Overdraft two £383.07
Overdraft three £500.00
Owing to my nan £3000.00

total income 2170.10
Current outgoings other than debt 1866.66
Debt repayments 286.64 (not o/ds or nan)

Leaving £16.80 for luxuries

We need APR’s on these please. Check statements or just phone up and ask. Burton’s card likely to be 29% ish as it’s a store card so that would be my first target for extra cash even if it’s only 16.80 at the moment Apr on Burtons card is 29.9%- it was for about £600 but i am throwing any extra cash at it. I managed to pay off my mint card and virgin card. Is it worth moving OH debit of £3k ish to a fixed term CC or just consolidating the lot into one loan at a better rate?

A&L overdraft for £500 is 0%- other two are 14.49%


Thanks for the good luck!!!

To sammy 115 thats great that you managed to survive- i feel much more positive now!! Have you gone back to work? It is easier when you are at home - babs is so good - just kicking about on her playmat!

To ampersand too thats great news about Tescos- i will get a card asap and look at the website!

To everyone else I will be trying Lidls this week! Looking forward to it already!

Look forward to more advice!

Elzie x x x




Im amazed too Lucie that your policy is like £300 cheaper a month than mine- IAM A TOTAL MUG!!!!!

elzie

Just rang my sister- told her she has in effect been driving round in a stolen car for three months- as it is still mine!!!!

She will get bk to me today re payment!

thanks Sea78!

Emmzi

Elzie,


get the quote from your insurance adviser and tell her you want to think about it.

Then use the links from this site to get a comparable quote online, and see if it is cheaper.

You can also maybe get cashback using quidco or pigsback (vouchers back) - worth a go!

lynzpower

Life insurance 10.02
Life insurance 18.77
Life Insurance 14.45
Life Insurance 20.27
Life insurance 24.60
Life Insurance 8.27
Life Insurance 115.57
American Life Insurance 5.95
N Union Accident 2.98 They are just insurance policies- i dont want to cancel them straightaway with nothing else in place- i might die tommorrow (fingers crossed that I dont!!) and my family would be stuffed. The advisor would gain the fee from the company i potentially move too. They are getting back to me this week.

Looking at this, Ive got buildings, contacts inc accidental damage ( ie broken washer etc) this is about 35 a month. Ive got critical illness ( I have a history of illness) thats 24 i think, life insurance, again about 20.
i think im overinsured, but Im a worrier too. thats less than a third that youve got, and i know someone is going to tell me im overdoing it

kar

Thanks for your reply.

At least next week you can make a start on getting rid of some of those insurance policies. Definately tell the advisor you would like to read the contract first and check it is exactly what you want before you sign on the dotted line. A week isn't bad at all I was just worried in case it was going to be a long wait and lots of extra cash would be lost.

Chasing up sister for car money is also good.

Talk Talk is supposed to be pritty good from what i've heard (to be honest i don't have a landline phone we only have internet so not sure on all the costs and things) so it looks like thats a good deal for you.

As for getting a consolidation loan for OH debt - personally i wouldn't do it. Try for a Life of Balance card instead. It's not 0% but at least there is no time limit to the rate that way.

In 18 months when you can get out of the mortgage deal with the bank I would go and see an independant fee free mortgage advisor to see what they suggest. Getting independant advise is the way forward.

In a week things will seem much better when you've got the insurance side of things sorted.

seroxat_chick

Hi Elzie,

"Water 42.00 -sorry its 34.58- how would I go about getting a meter fitted? I thought that if you had less people in your house than the no. of bedrooms it was not worth doing this)"

I think you've got this idea back to front - if there are fewer people in your house than number of bedrooms, you should definitely consider getting a meter fitted!

Also, I only pay £40 a month for both my gas & electricity, so I think you are certainly paying too much. I use the same supplier for both, receive my bills online and pay monthly by direct debit. All of these factors help to reduce your bill.

I know that you've been bombarded with information today, but work your way through all the advice and you'll definitely get there!!!

calleyw

I agree about the insurances. Get one joint policy of life insurance for both you and your husband. For ther mortgage and then some. So say the mortgage is £50K then get another £25/50K extra. This is to help to pay off the mortgage and then leave a little left over for other things.

Once that is done you will free up a lot of money that can be used to snowball the other debts.

Of course make sure you have the final policy set up and running before cancelling the others. As other wise you will not be insured.

And has been said. The person looking at your finances should be up front and be telling you that they are going to be paid commission for setting up policies and in the case of pensions and endowments can make a huge difference to what you get at payout time. As they will not be doing it for free. Better to pay a fee and they will not be trying to sell you something because it has good comission.


All the best.


Yours


Calley

silverelephant

Hi Elzie

I just wanted to say well done for all the effort you've put in so far, you are obviously very committed! If you ever have a bad day just come back to this thread and see for yourself how well you've done already

I have 2 little points to make - If you go to a genuine FEE FREE Independent Financial Advisor, they will be able to tell you whether it's worth waiting the 18 months until your rate is up or if it's of more benefit of you to take the £2800 sting just now and get yourself on a better rate. We had a 1% early repayment rate on our mortgage and for the sake of £1000 or so it definitely made sense for us to make the move just now rather than wait another year and a half BUT everybody's different

Point two - all through the thread you made a case for keeping your sky and caved in a few posts ago I know what it feels like to not go out anywhere and we made the decision to keep our Sky at £23 a month for sanity's sake - one night out a month and 5 channels the other 29 days - I don't think so!! :rotfl: Lol! Again that's just my opinion and everyone means well but only do it if it's gonna work for YOU!!

good luck with it all xx

elzie

Thats a great idea about getting the quote from the IFA and comparing it on this site.

can i post it here and see what you guys have to say about it??

Its great having so much advice to wade through- will wait till lil babs settles down for a long nap one afternoon next week and get to work at saving some money!

I think I will look into moving my mortgage too as suggested by silver elephant just to see if it is worth my while really doing it before the end of the fixed rate.

Was it so obvious that i didnt want to get rid of sky? oops sorry about that folks- its just that it is my only way of keeping sane as there is nowt on normal telly ever and without kids telly on a saturday morning i would have to get up when the eldest babs wakes! Thanks for the advice on that silver elephant- feel a lil bit better now for my only indulgence hee hee!

Whilst I am here can anyone please tell me what quidco is? and also how I get started selling on ebay? I sound sooo think but i have only ever bought stuff on there and i would like to no how people know how much the postage is going to be? is it a guess or have they already taken it to the post office and had it weighed etc??

Thanks for today everyone- hope tonight I may finally be able to sleep easier!

ampersand

You ARE doing well elzie, to echo a few others: you seem to be tackling things one by one.
First, you'll find an ebay thread on this site in the Chat Forums, but to start selling, you just need to Register as a seller and have a credit card ready to list so they can take their fees. Go to ebay.uk via Google.
I'm assuming you have a digital camera - this will be an essential tool.
The process is very Step-by-Step and can feel arduous the first time, but it really isn't too bad. If I can do it, you definitely can! It quickly becomes VERY easy. Everything you need is there on site - I recommend you use turbolister. This will allow you to do one or two items -perhaps during bab's nap - then upload them all on a Friday night. Someone gave me useful tips last year - e.g. choose 10-day listing, not 7,so as to expose your goods over 2 weekends - there's no extra cost.
Ask your PO for Postal Tariff lists and use home scales to give people an idea of costs.I make Recorded delivery(1st and 2nd class are available standard within the UK - it's trackable. YOU MUST ALWAYS KEEP A CERTIFICATE OF POSTING. Things do go missing, suffer damage. International buyers should be advised to take insurance.
Look at other seller's sites to see what T's and c's are stated.
Use recycled material for packaging-e.g.bubble plastic chucked out by Tesco's et al from fruit and veg.
You'll have fun with it and, I'm certain, earn £££££££££'s. Why not open an a/c exclusively for ebay earnings? Look at completed listings for items similar to your own, to get an idea of where to pitch your starting price.
I don't think reserves are necessary. 99p,4.99 and 14.99 starting prices are fine and keep listing fees low. Good items will always bring good prices.
I'd better stop - you can find all this out by your own experience and it is not top priority just now, but it IS something you can do idly and always, without pressure.
I've been listing all day(except for 3 hours spent trying to rescue everything -about 200 rare seedlings and plants - when my growhouse tipped over in the wind today)
Do you have a little local auction(a wonderful source of finds)or carboot you can patronise?And don't forget Amazon for - maybe - your old textbooks.
Kindest regards-