Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

CathT

Happy birthday newgirly. I'd go for the garage too as it seems a shame not to be able to use the log cabin as it's used for storage. Hope you get to rest soon, that tired achy feeling is horrible.

XSpender

Happy birthday!

EatingTheElephant

:beer: Happy birthday

newgirly

LadyGnome wrote: »

Happy Birthday - not everyone gets a garage from the Council for their birthday:rotfl:


:rotfl::rotfl: I'm quite chuffed we shall be a two property family

My dad is quite jealous of the garage now, I did tell him to get on the list just incase. He collects cars a bit like Alex does he only currently has two garages though, he didn't want to rent from the council as he'd rather buy, now I think he's realised it's a good idea as it's so close by and you can't get thrown out, I bet he turns up to have a nose round when I go today!

Went to he pub last night, missed the first round of the contest when he sang and then he got knocked out, drank lots of wine , had a horrid greasy veggie burger, woke in the night regretting it I've more or less stopped drinking at home but seem to still manage to fit in way too much alcohol lately.

newgirly

I am now officially a council tennant

Went to have a look and the had a couple and apparently nobody on the list waiting :eek: so my dad has got one too and we are neighbours, I did suggest we could use hem like beach huts in the summer and take a paddling pool and a picnic. His suggestion was knocking them through and moving one of the kids in :rotfl:

So All the paperwork was done today and I start paying Monday and we have the keys :T first step is to try and aquire some racking and bring home a couple of pallets from work.

newgirly

I had a very lazy day yesterday, spent a while re jigging the finances and the garage adds a month on the mortgage (but not a whole month so it should allow extra towards Xmas too , so it's not all bad!)

Term will go from a hopeful 18 to 19 months from now, however it's payday in two weeks so it will be back to 18 again

I wrote and deleted a long post about a family member's worrying financial choices that are currently being made yesterday. It's too detailed to put on here really. I've tried to point her the direction of the government help website and mse , however I know she probably won't look and will trust the random financial advisor she has found who is recommending taking a lump sum out from her pension now while she is still working and letting him invest the rest.

It still shocks me how many bright people don't take control of their finances when there is so much help today. Even now I do some of the staff at works car insurance renewals as they were auto renewing every year and paying a fortune, also home insurance and changing to interest free credit cards. Surely if you don't earn lots you time would be well spent trying to learn how best to keep hold of it , whether for spending or saving.

Are people worried it makes them look mean if they are trying to save money? It's ridiculous that my kids have been taught how to run profit and loss on a small business at school but have had virtually no personal financial education, what they did have was very basic.

Rant over!

greent

Belated birthday wishes, ng! x

And great news about the garage

AlexLK

The real question is what are you filling the garage with and how many months is that going to take off the mortgage?

As for the relative. Unfortunately, all you can do is give information and let them make their own choice whether that is informed or not. I know thinking you've done all you could and moving on is not easy at all though.

Regarding saving money, it takes effort and discipline at least to some degree. It is very easy to not need to know when your car insurance expires and search online / spend a few hours on the telephone / try to negotiate a good deal when the nice man from the insurance company will do it all for you. Except, you and I both know he won't and will in fact take advantage of the convenience to apply further commission for himself / his company.

It's not easy to decide to live by a budget and to stick to it. I think you've probably been living (generally) within your budget because you've needed to and a lot of the reason for you clearing such large amounts from your mortgage is because you imposed a short term that you found could not be extended. Therefore, paying the mortgage had to come first. IIRC your mortgage is also IO, so you are also aware that the capital needs to be paid. In my situation, I could just carry on paying the direct debit and at the end of the term, we would be mortgage free.

It's very easy when you have a secure monthly income to spend the surplus on other things. When my wife and I first bought our house we had a lot higher income but we spent more than we had coming in every month (c.£5,500). We were perpetually in debt and my parents cleared c.£65,000 worth of debt after I became ill and couldn't face going back to work. I wasn't even 30 at that point and before that I'd lost a sum of money that would have bought this house outright. Didn't learn anything from the bailout and managed to build up another £32,000 worth of debt and completely trash my credit history before doing anything about it. We got ourselves into the situation initially because we thought that our income would only rise and it became worse when our income was cut but we were used to a certain lifestyle and I couldn't budget. At one point our income dropped to less than half and my parents were paying our mortgage because we had no savings at all, not my finest moment, especially when a couple of years before I'd told my parents I didn't want to speak to them again. Now, we still see about £2,000 per month less than we were at our high point for income. However, we spend less than we earn.

newgirly

Morning Alex, I think so many people have been in the same situation getting into large amounts of debt. Ours was over 30k which we could also afford (just about!) until our income dropped and we then struggled to pay the mortgage. Putting the mortgage on IO was something I did after clearing most of the debts, when we shortened the term as a kind of alternative emergency fund whilst we overpaid. It's getting easier to not want to spend as time has gone on as the end date is getting nearer and I greedily can't wait to have loads of extra money

You sure spent by the sound of it though :eek: perhaps if your parents hadn't have cleared it for you it wouldn't have been as easy to get into debt again though?

It's in the past though, now we are well behaved sensible mse members :rotfl::rotfl:

As for the garage, I'm sure I don't know what you mean, I have not been looking at cars online at all

TheFreeWife

newgirly wrote: »

It's getting easier to not want to spend as time has gone on as the end date is getting nearer and I greedily can't wait to have loads of extra money

I'm with you on that newgirly, I already have our budget worked out for when we've paid everything off & that £400 a month being put aside for holidays sure does look good!