Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

newgirly

I spent yesterday looking at S&S isas and have decided to go with axa as recommended by :money: as its free charges for the first year, it's all set up I just need to send off direct debit instructions but the printer is out of ink I've not selected any funds yet as I'm clueless but it has a lot of advice online of how to know what to choose, I'm thinking £100 pm to start with.

Next payday is the one where I start making proper payments to the mortgage again, £979 instead of the £315 IO we have been paying, if I carry on at that level we should pay it off in 15 years , so I'm hoping to do a bit better than that.

We currently have a couple of hundred surplus in the " save to spend on stuff" account which is great, plus the regular isa saver.

I've also made a £170 op to the 0% cc as well as the £144 usual direct debit , so am chipping away if a little slowly.

It's all starting to head in the right direction though, and I feel a lot more positive , we came to a bit of a halt in the last couple of years and obviously borrowed £30k to do the loft too, its great getting back in the swing of things. I'm still being frugal with just about everything except entertainment at the moment , which dh has mostly paid for anyway. I think if finances stay as they are there is a chance we will clear the mortgage in 15 yrs or a little less and have some savings to fall back on , which takes me to 54.

I am enjoying the house we have much more now, having the extra floor has made a massive difference , we held off so long incase we would move and be too close to the stamp duty threshold to get the money back if we sold, but in actual fact the house has gone up in value ridiculously in the last year from about £240 k to closer to £350k it means nothing though as every thing else has gone up crazily too. So unless we move out of the area we will definatly stay here, at the moment we are actual making use of the benefit of being able to get I to london within 20 mins by train by going out a bit more which is fun

Oops waffling on and I should be making packed lunches , back later for a diary catch up

edinburgher

If you're not sure about funds, can I suggest (not advise!) that you follow an index tracking approach? This is where you assume that you don't have the knowledge to pick a managed fund manager/managed fund managers aren't consistent enough in the long term and then try to track the overall activity of the indices with low costs?

There's a wealth of evidence to suggest that it's an effective strategy and it has grown in popularity in recent years (more so in the US, where c. 1/3 of all money now goes into index tracking products).

There's still risk and volatility, but less volatility as you're widely diversified across a huge range of companies.

They don't have the Vanguard LifeStrategy products available (all in one solutions), but they do have Vanguard funds and HSBC trackers as well. Depending on how much the minimum investment is, you could always do a DIY 'fund of funds' with some money into each (for example, £40 into a UK index fund, £25 into a US index fund, £15 into a European index fund and £15 into a gilts/bonds index fund). Just possible allocations, you'll need to do your own research and see what you're comfortable with based on your risk tolerance and investing timeline :coffee:

All this meant as chat, I'm an amateur like yourself.

Alchemilla

Loving the positivity.x

newgirly

Brilliant, cheers for that ed I will look into index trackers , to be honest I think that's a similar thing that mr money moustache was talking about on his blog ( a US version obviously) will have to do lots of reading I think.

Today was another super lazy day, I went to the shopping centre to get new school shirts for the boys, and picked up a navy spotted camisole for £4 from primarni that's goes very well in the capsule wardrobe, followed by collecting dd from college nearby and then having a cheeky pub lunch with her at the pub in the village where we used to live years ago (que lots of nostalgia and a drive around to look at the little cottages and cricket pitch)
Anyway a cheap lunch , just £4.79 each for burger (one veggie) and lovely chunky chips and a large coke :beer:

Dh has a filo pastry pasty concoction made from frozen spinach , red onion , sweet potato and feta, it could be good it could be vile

Matilda1983

Stick to Want and Need, don't go in debt and stop your holidays

newgirly

Matilda1983 wrote: »

Stick to Want and Need, don't go in debt and stop your holidays

Well thanks for the advice, I shall cancel all holidays and stick to bread and water from now on :rotfl:

newgirly

Dh is working again today, I'm going to spend the day washing ironing and getting stuff ready for the week ahead. Tuesday we have a film crew coming in to film and interview dh for his businessman of the year nomination thing, so I think tomorrow I will be scrubbing toilets and vacuuming to try and smarten the place up a bit.

We had a britains got talent buffet last night ,( as a boy from the twins school was in the final, he was good but came 6th ) lots of mini pizzas , sausage rolls and other naughty toot, I daren't get on the scales as I've eaten so much this week and not been to the gym I did start the 30 day shred on Monday but I ached so bad I didn't get to day two :rotfl:

Alchemilla

quaking in my boots at the thought of a film crew in my house!

newgirly

Oh no! They are filming at the business premises not home :eek:

newgirly

Spent all day scrubbing toilets and hoovering and the film crew postponed until next week at the last minute yesterday oh well it was good exercise I suppose.

Had an ok day diet wise and did 50 (fairly short!) lengths at the gym, I also stared using mfp again and was slightly depressed to see I weigh half a stone heavier than my last weigh in a couple of months ago.

I've booked a cheeky last minute caravan break for this weekend, £90 for all of us for a gold 3 bed caravan in clacton , it was through a cancellation line that you ring up that's open an hour a day and they do holidays even cheaper than the last minute online prices. I will take all our food and it's only an hour and a half away so it should not cost too much in spending money.

I was looking on the mortgages board yesterday and was a little alarmed to read a thread where someone was unable to renegotiate their mortgage rate with their current provider when their deal ended. This is due to having to basically reapply when a deal ends due to the new affordability checks. I'm guessing they still let you keep the mortgage even if you would no longer meet the criteria but keep you on an svr ? Its a bit worrying as we would not qualify for any mortgage at the moment due to dh being classed as self employed and writing big debts off in the accts from before he took over ( it was squeezed of every penny to pay dividends :mad:).

Not sure whether to hold nerve with the now and still start investing or throw it all at the mortgage, I had never considered being stuck on a svr rate in the future , our provider has a really high one as well - almost 6% from memory. We also have a short IO term of 7 yrs 11 mths I think.