The Ultimate Incentive to have an amazing 2010.

Dinah93

I've seen them before, they used to have a resident one in Saks in the 1980s. I can't believe anyone pays £300 to have swatches chucked at them! Especially for weddings, its blatently obvious 90% of brides will wear white anyway!

Birdie85

I know! I think it was also a case of what colour flowers to have- well it isn't difficult to choose a colour that looks good. I couldn't put the groomsmen in pink because OH will look like a lobster and I can't wear yellow because I look jaundiced. Easy!

Here we go, eco-friendly sky lanterns!

Tete_en_l'Air

Fab Birdie, and no more expensive then the other sort! Might you change yourmind about yours now Dinah? Ah I'd love a wedding to plan it's so nice!

Dinah93

Fantastic find Birdie!

In money news, CC is now under £1500, so I'm only about £40 short of clearing half of it in a month. Thats fab, I just need to convince NIM we should have a mega ebay listing weekend and we could well be under £1000 left on it by the end of the fortnight.

Birdie85

That's very good money news! Do you have much left to ebay or are you going to stick NIM on?!

Dinah93

Another wardrobe clearout is in order I think! There's always stuff to sell, I just have to work out which stuff. Really looking forward to

Have just run some morgage quotes.... if I could save £8k more we could save over £200 a month in interest.... oh thats so juicy but I don't think I have enough stuff to sell! Especially since I need some money to do works to the house we move into/buy furniture and carpets etc. Oh well, its good to dream.

poddle911

That is a brill find Birdie! I've read quite a few things recently about the environmental problems caused by Chinese lanterns, but they're so beautiful!

Well done on the CC Dinah, that's good going. I really don't think I have anything useful to eBay, but I have taken bags and bags to the charity shop recently.

In money news, we still paid off about £800 of debt in January, although any spare cash this month (bless February and only 4 weekends) will be used to clear our holiday spending.

But I'd like your thoughts on what to do with £3k:

-£1000 in a wedding ISA (we spent the rest on holidays) which has a poo interest rate and although it's a little heartbreaking I think I've convinced OH that it would be best used to pay off debt

-the other £2000 is in a monthly saver where we've been putting £250 a month. Basically our mortgage payments have dropped about £400 a month, but we're on a tracker so I'm worried that they'll shoot up at some point. There's no point making overpayments at the moment as the interest is 0.1%, but I'd really like to keep this buffer just in case. (Also, my contract runs out at the end of June...)

I'm thinking it would be sensible to keep £2000 as a safety net - it would cover a good few months mortgage at current interest rate - and carry on putting aside the £250 and re-evaluate the situation every 3 months, say, and if it hasn't changed using the surplus £750 for debts.

What do you reckon?

Sorry to hijack the thread Dinah, but I'm sure you've got some thoughts - I can handle tough love!

Mortgages, eesh! Can we go back to weddings?

Tete_en_l'Air

Poddle - what's the interest rate on the ISA? Even if it's at the higher end, 3% of 1000 is only £30 at the end of the year, my guess is you'll be paying a lot more interest on your debts then that over a year? Do you have a particular debt that you could pay off totally with this amount - at least that way although you're losing a wedding fund, you're also losing a card or whatever as well?

What you say for the saver sounds like a good plan given your job situation though - are you locked into saving a certain amount per month?

Dinah93 wrote: »

Another wardrobe clearout is in order I think! There's always stuff to sell, I just have to work out which stuff. Really looking forward to

You'll be able to ebay all the clothes that are too big for you now! And what are you looking forward to???

Dinah93

poddle911 wrote: »

But I'd like your thoughts on what to do with £3k:

-£1000 in a wedding ISA (we spent the rest on holidays) which has a poo interest rate and although it's a little heartbreaking I think I've convinced OH that it would be best used to pay off debt

-the other £2000 is in a monthly saver where we've been putting £250 a month. Basically our mortgage payments have dropped about £400 a month, but we're on a tracker so I'm worried that they'll shoot up at some point. There's no point making overpayments at the moment as the interest is 0.1%, but I'd really like to keep this buffer just in case. (Also, my contract runs out at the end of June...)

I'm thinking it would be sensible to keep £2000 as a safety net - it would cover a good few months mortgage at current interest rate - and carry on putting aside the £250 and re-evaluate the situation every 3 months, say, and if it hasn't changed using the surplus £750 for debts.

Mortgages, eesh! Can we go back to weddings?

Work out how much your essential costs are per month ie if one of you were to loose your job. So morgage, bills, food, minimum payments on debt, insurances etc. Anything you currently stick to normal savings, spends money, costs of getting the cheaper one of you to work etc, ignore. So how much do you NEED per month?

Then look at your morgage insurance, how long after one of you lost your job would it kick in? Most are 3 - 6 months. So times the need figure by the number of months, once you have that in savings through everything else at the debt. Personally while you have any debt earning interest I'd only be putting the morgage amount into savings, as thats the only thing you can't pay for on a CC should the worst happen. Having an emergency fund is all fine and well, but you can always put it back on the CC if you became unemployed until you find another job, you can't ever get that interest back.

I definately think the ISA money should go off the debt for now if you are comfortable with this, although are you okay to put your wedding plans on hold?

poddle911

Dinah93 wrote: »

Work out how much your essential costs are per month ie if one of you were to loose your job. So morgage, bills, food, minimum payments on debt, insurances etc. Anything you currently stick to normal savings, spends money, costs of getting the cheaper one of you to work etc, ignore. So how much do you NEED per month?

I definately think the ISA money should go off the debt for now if you are comfortable with this, although are you okay to put your wedding plans on hold?

Thanks Dinah, it's a really good idea to work out an exact figure, rather than just plucking one out of midair which is kind of how I came up with £2k!

We don't have PPI on our mortgage, and in any case it wouldn't be valid as my job is contract rather than permanent. We're pretty optimistic that OH's job is safe, and we know from last year that we can almost cope on his salary, although it means no headway towards debts other than min. payments (which are about £800) and minor spending on a credit card.

I'll definitely do some sums tonight! The regular saver is not fixed - I can deposit between £25-£300 and the interest is 4.17% pa so it's pretty good.

I think we're prepared to see the ISA money go - we thought a lot about it before we allocated the rest to our holiday and to install central heating (thank the lord!) which will make our lives much nicer and add to the equity in our flat. The holiday gave us some much-needed quality time together and we made lots of plans for our future, so I think we're in a place that we're happy without thinking about marriage.

Tete, another good idea about paying off a whole 'something' - the only problem is that the 'small' ones are interest free, but it would be great psychologically. I have a Natwest OD and GORP totalling about £400 at 0%, so if I paid those off I could close both (which would be handy for my credit rating) and still chuck £600 at the big Egg!

Thanks girls! It's so brilliant getting another perspective on things.