Mortgage Free - so good they'll do it twice! Wynnvegas aiming for the big house

wynnvegas

Morning Originator,

I've seen the hoover dam from the flight out of Vegas a couple of times and the grand canyon on a flight from LA to London on our first flight but I'm reliably informed (Moyra) that this is not nearly enough to count as having properly done these but we'll get to them eventually.

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning All,

A properly busy couple of weeks with all sorts of stuff has eventually seen us get not a massive amount forward. Between work, the gym, the pool and family visiting / assistance, there's been just about enough time to catch some sleep and carry on as before. Hopefully, a lot of this stuff is starting to calm down and we can put a better focus on the bigger plans we're starting to hatch.

So let's start with the money. I've been in debt collection mode so we've gotten the money owed from the pants / jeans shopping in Vegas, the wee work project that proved a proper win and we've gotten a bit of the money owed to us from a few of the family members. That's boosted the bank balance a wee bit which is helpful. The taxman has also been particularly kind in the last wee while with an £87 and £720 pair of tax rebates with, between Moyra and I, another £1,000 or so to come in the next wee while. Our credit card remains in credit, the acquired debt has had another £500 thrown at it so we're now looking at two payments of £2,250 in August and September to clear it. Moyra's mum and dad are upping their repayment to £200 from next month which is good and we're not a million miles away from payday. If I can get my review run through this month, any increase will be backdated to mid-June as well. Couple of longer term consultancy gigs been offered but I can't really afford the time just nowso they've gone elsewhere. Something a day a week or so would be better in the short term.

The bad news is that Moyra's car needed to visit the garage this week. £470 for what is becoming a less and less reliable 54 plate so we'll need to get on the case a bit harder with a replacement car for her. She quite likes the newest Corsa which is coming in at around the £13-15k mark so we're hoping that we can run the current car to next summer. At £4,500 in 2005, we've had our money's worth out of it which is the main thing for me. If my wee sister can pass her test in that time, we'll give her the car if it's still roadworthy by the time next summer rolls around.

Had a chat with the mother yesterday about her house. She has a mortgage of £33k and an unsecured loan of just under £6k which, if we were to clear her debt pile completely, would give us a £110-120k house for £40k. There's a couple of people in the house that would give us a monthly rental income of £300-350p/m (the mother would live there rent free). It would free up £400 a month for her which is a lot of money for her to play with so we'll get into that a bit further in the next few weeks. That may put a slight hold on buying land but would give us a greater asset value to purchase land against if needed. Playing with 70% of £275k in the most optimistic pricing brackets gives us a lot more medium-term options.

More later - Moyra is needing the laptop which means me fighting the iPad version of this forum! Still not something I've mastered.

Cheers,

Billy

Tiggger

wynnvegas wrote: »

More later - Moyra is needing the laptop which means me fighting the iPad version of this forum! Still not something I've mastered.

Cheers,

Billy

Morning Billy,

I'm not sure what you mean about the I-pad version of the site, I'm using an I-pad now, with no problems, through safari, or do you just mean typing with the I-pad keypad? That does take a bit of getting used to.

CathT

Hi Billy, just caught up. Glad you had such a good time in Vegas. DH and I had planned to go for 5th wedding anniversary (now been married 7.5 years) but when the time came we had a 6 month old so it didn't happen!

Good to hear that the inlaws have upped their repayment. Must put you in a difficult situation.

You mentioned about student loans: I owe about 13k from my first degree but due to my lowly nurse's salary only repay £25ish a month which I doubt even cover the interest (will know more when statement arrives). I'm just wondering if it would be in my interest to pay extra so at least something is coming off the balance or it will just go up and up!

black_taxi_2

think you can get helicopter flights out to canyon---takes 45 mins instead of 4 1/2 hours coach----not sure about hoover dam thou

wynnvegas

Hi Tiggger,

The site works fine. It's the typing and the god forsaken autocorrect that take the time. I'll need to investigate switching it off.

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Hiya Cath,

The inlays upping their payment isn't a big deal to us but it means chasing them for money until they're 60 as opposed to 72!!

The student loan rates are so low, I wouldn't bother paying them off but I'm no expert. If you're paying £25 a month and the loan is automatically forgiven on retirement, do a few sums to see if it makes sense to overpay. I would doubt it.

Hope you get to Vegas at some point.

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Hi BT,

Absolutely but the consensus view seems to be that the south west rim is the best of the canyon and it's not somewhere the helicopter tours hit. Definitely worth a few trips off the strip next year. I'm for hiring a hummer!!

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning All,

The subtitle for this post will, in appropriate slang, be "geez ma money!" as paypal (typically), Lloyds TSB (absolutely typically) and MBNA (in fairness, atypically) are taking the slow boat this week in getting stuff sorted out. Paypal are due me £179 at some point f they ever decide to validate my payments of about 8 weeks ago. Lloyds TSB, who I'm having to use for my lovely HMRC cheques (as the cheque says Billy but the Santander account says William), have cleared the bigger cheque but have put a million and one security obstacles in my way when I've tried transferring the amount to Santander (72 hr hold now!). MBNA are the worst culprits as the £500 that's been put toward the acquired debt card to take it down to £4,500 still hasn't registered with them - don't they know there's an MSE signature to be updated!?

Aside from that, some proper progress at work (still not finished my self-assessment for next week's appraisal mind) which will see some big and much needed positive changes in our place. Moyra is enjoying her last few days of "freedom" from school. For anyone who thinks 7 weeks of holidays could get boring, Moyra has managed to make long lies, lunching, fitness classes and DVD-a-thons into a holiday-sized art form.

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning All,

That's one thing off the list at least - MBNA have confirmed the payment to the acquired debt card so we're down to the last £4,500 before debt freedom! We'll knock off as much of that as we can manage at the end of August and clear the lot in September. No more acquired debt ever again - we've learned that lesson for sure. Thankfully, Moyra's mum and dad are on a much better footing now and they're upping their monthly repayments to £200 a month so just the 69 months of repayments to go...

We're off to look at a new car for Moyra today. Vauxhall are doing a few good deals and she seems pretty set on a Corsa. We'll start looking today but we'll probably not buy a car until the middle of next year as her wee "Ted" apparently has another year in him yet. Do all women name their cars? I'll take her out for some lunch afterwards...so off I go.

Cheers,

Billy