greenmantle - the way home

greenmantle

I'm making a new start to a fresh (but equally minimalist - sorry) diary which will reflect the struggle to stay out of debt when I take on massive new housing costs in January (renting for several months, and hopefully making the transition to a - probably massive - mortgage during that time).

Here's my previous diary:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1758935

Essentially it's going, for a while, to be more of the same tricky itinerant cost-saving while I pack up all my belongings yet again (with BF this time) and attempt to settle in somewhere new. It's London, so it all costs, one way or another.

It will be, sadly, goodbye to the giant jumps in savings amounts I've made in the last few months (living off expenses abroad, house-sitting at home) and hello to a whole new set of bills and responsibilities. It was nice while it lasted. I'll be posting the new, slightly terrifying SOA in about a month (the old one is on page three of the previous thread).

Still fascinated by fluctuating numbers, still empathetically reading away at other posts and plights (but largely staying silent - I have very little of value to add to everyone's expert posts), still preoccupied with staying fit and healthy on minimum expenditure (this is particularly challenging when it comes to skiing, if anyone has any idea how that can be done on a budget, I'd be extremely grateful).

And now, on a Sunday afternoon, back to work. My job is constantly challenging, occasionally offers great perks, more often is a drain on my finances (a good 40% of the last two weeks' expenditure was actually material to support my job - no, I'm not freelance, by and large, it's just the way much in the public sector works nowadays). And it takes 6.5 days a week. It'd take 7.5 if I let it...


Thanks for reading,
G

macgirl

Well done for becoming debt-free and good luck with the rest of the journey!
Mac

greenmantle

So some good news and bad news... see the balance in my signature - I'm almost at the Christmas objective of 6000 in savings. This is a total of £5710 saved from a start of £230 in April/May. :beer: Enjoying the teetering on the brink of 6000.

I've had a combination of special circumstances, though, allowing me to proceed in leaps and bounds. It's going to be tricky from January to continue at the same rate.

Bad news - just had another round of work expenses and also (at the same time) the news that I won't be reimbursed for them. This happens sometimes...

So... my Co-op card was '0' for a while, but will now have £513, which I'll be paying off in two (probably, tempted to do it in one) monthly lumps. Sadly unavoidable.

greenmantle

Well, I'm having a subdued little Friday morning celebration. I met my savings objective!

I'm also a little sad though. This is my final month of having so much spare to save. It's all going to kick in (new rental deposit, rent, moving expenses) within the next month, and that's not even counting Christmas (minimal present giving as usual - main expense is the train fare to visit family).

I'm also pondering what my new savings objective will be. Almost all of it is directed towards the expense of purchasing a house. I anticipate most of it will go towards fees, whereas my partner is supplying the deposit. But I'd love to accumulate more, so that we have a little bit of a margin (eg. first month's payment, for example). The house-buying won't be happening for at least a few more months yet.

I keep on intending to draw up a new SOA, to see what I can still put away in savings, but have been waiting while I've been building up data on my normal ('normal' is always slightly abnormal this year, as I've been travelling a lot) daily expenditure. Must face up to estimating that properly soon.

Also there is a cc balance there. Am eyeing it cautiously and thinking about when to start chipping away at it with random online payments. It'll be hanging around for 1.5 months max.

coldstreamalways

I want to pay off my HSBC loan a bit early, how did you go about it? Did you do it on one lump sum or did you icrease your monthly payments? Good luck!

greenmantle

Hi coldstream!

I had a graduate loan with fixed interest estimated in advance (calculated daily) and a fixed monthly repayment amount. I phoned up just to check whether I could overpay, but I couldn't. I'd advise you to just phone them and check, if you don't have the full terms and conditions handy.

There was a penalty of two-months' interest for repaying early (which I could do) which I was aware of when I took out the loan, but thought 'gah, I'm never going to have the lump sum to pay this off early!'. However, in the last 18 months of the loan, the settlement figure (outstanding amount + less interest + early repayment penalty) gave me a slight saving (I think over a hundred quid) on the eventual repayment, which was good enough for me.

And besides that, I just wanted to get it out of my hair (do not underestimate the soothing power of this!).

I think the fiddlyest thing was timing my 'settlement amount' request to the moment when I had enough to pay it off. I was desperate to do this for a couple of months and so asked for one about twice - I think they got a bit fed up and finally were slow to provide me with a final one. Then you just transfer the cash online (from and HSBC current account in my case) and '!!!!!!' it's gone. :T

It was a consolidation loan that they'd been extremely happy to give me (branch were trying to sell me a 100% mortgage at the same time - I wish I'd realised earlier that at some unknown point in the late 90s the branches ceased to be fully-functioning banks, but just sales points) so as to mop up postgraduate student credit card debt, when I got a new job. Never again!

G

greenmantle

I know this is the debt-free-wannabe stayawayfromcursedcredit!!!board, and I am very much on board with the whole avoiding using credit cards (but see below for a frustrating lump of work expenses below). But part of my objective in the last few months has been to test and prove my improved credit-worthiness after a bit of a long and shaky spell.

And, gosh, I just got approved for a new credit card online in 60 seconds flat and, apart from being slightly alarmed at the ease of it all, I'm feeling a bit smug about it. Why?

I've had my main credit card (HSBC) since I originally got the twin Visa/Mastercards they issued with their current accounts in the early 90s. Until I shut it down, in a mood over their refusal to lower APR (it was empty anyway), I'd had my Egg card since about 2001. My MBNA card was similarly about ten years old when I shut it down.

None of them offered me any perks whatsoever. Nowadays, I have to use credit cards as back-up when I travel for work. They're much less liable to be frozen by trigger-happy fraud departments (hello HSBC in India! Don't you think your fraud phone line would work better if it didn't sound like we were talking through two reinforced fish tanks?!?) and there's more protection on purchases.

I'd been pondering this. I still have to use them. I usually pay off each month. I wouldn't mind being rewarded for the payment activity. Also, I'm about to move, so it's 'now or never' to apply for something new for the next few months, given that the address change will bring rating down.

So I was scrolling through the advice on this site and read this:

Free BMI Business flight to Russia or Turkey

Get a BMI Amex* card, do £250 of your normal spending on it within 90 days, and you'll get 20,000 of BMI's 'Destination Miles'. These can be redeemed for a return business-class flight to Russia, Turkey, Majorca and others (see what you can get).

A normal flight to one of these 'Zone 2' countries costs 12,000 miles, but for 18,000 you can upgrade to business. Alternatively, you can get two standard flights to a closer destination such as France, Germany or within the UK.

You will have to pay any taxes and charges for the flight, but this is still a great deal. This also has a decent balance transfer offer of 0% for 12 months with a 3% fee (see the Balance Transfer article for how this compares), but always ensure the balance is entirely cleared before you switch any debts to it.

Now, BMI are in serious trouble, but I'm hoping they're not going to go under, as they're the only British carrier still serving a bunch of Middle Eastern destinations that BA used to fly to, but no longer. A couple of times in the last year, I've been looking at flights for (getting more pressing) work purposes (that I nevertheless have to fund - pah) and thinking 'wow, these cost a bunch more now that it's only BMI flying there in a 'business' capacity!'.

Now I've got the prospect of it being largely underwritten by these free miles. Bonus!!

I think to balance things out, I may well now finally ditch my HSBC credit card. I've only kept it because I can see it there online next to my (now under-used, old) current account and a savings pot. And it's a nice gold colour. The switch will bring my overall available credit down, as MBNA have given a credit limit of 3800, but that's fine.

Thanks to anyone who's got to the end of this, and I hope it's useful for someone!

greenmantle

I threw caution to the winds and decided to try and pick up some flying miles/interest rate perks before my address changes. Posting the link to my other thread more as a spectator sport than anything else!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2114545