Starting the mortgage free path

bownyboy

I haven't read Rich Dad Poor Dad, but its on my Amazon wish list. Totally get what you're saying - I'd love to increase my percentage of passive or unearned income. As with most people mine is purely from my regular job, the S&S ISA investing is my first step at starting to generate income from other sources (for retirement planning).

Will order the book for my kindle and have a read, thanks.

cb4fwh

bownyboy wrote: »

Yeah, I was too busy today to give Select a call, I will try tomorrow to see what they have to say. Apart from that (not so) special rate I fail to see what else the Select service actually offers?

Supposedly no waiting around on hold, and the ability to email a query as well. Have tried both, and in fairness they answered straight away and the email was responded to promptly (albeit via the phone).

To be honest, the majority of my contact has been mortgage related, and I just seem to be put on hold and forwarded to the A&L mortgages team. Not great, but then what do you expect these days!

I'm with Santander for the 123 account and the interest it offers rather than anything else.

By the way, you can also request a gold card (my account is now also a 123 Gold Account for what its worth) as a Select customer. Essentially, you get a contactless debit card which is currently not available to other customers - useful in my canteen!

gallygirl

There's a whole series (well, at least 3 ) the second was best IMO but possibly start with the 1st. Quite a bit of repetition but a good read and I really, more than any other book, wish I'd read it years ago

bownyboy

cb4fwh wrote: »

By the way, you can also request a gold card (my account is now also a 123 Gold Account for what its worth) as a Select customer. Essentially, you get a contactless debit card which is currently not available to other customers - useful in my canteen!

Thanks, I took a look at the different credit cards they offered and see they do the longest card for 0% purchases for 18 months. Got me thinking about slow stoozing and if I should get one of these for monthly food shooping/petrol/ etc and pay that equivalent amount to mortgage? Would add up to about £9000 over 18 months.

I remember when I first read financial bliss diary and the way he managed to do this really well.

Food for thought.

bownyboy

For some time now I have been using First Directs Internet Banking Plus. I don't bank with them, but its tool allows you to have a single page view of multiple bank accounts.

Its been great and at a glance shows you credits, debits and net worth; but it doesn't do anything.

So today I tried Money Dashboard and it was like I'd been super charged and pumped up! Its html 5 so works on ipad, iphone, Mac and PC (First Directs offering is PC IE8+ only) and it is much more graphical.

Best bit is the way it auto tags all spending and then shows you a lovely pie chart of where your money is going (did I really take out £400 cash last month?, £150 on alcohol?)

Its eye opening stuff and I'm definitely going to trial it for a while.

gallygirl

bownyboy wrote: »

(did I really take out £400 cash last month?, £150 on alcohol?)

I think I'll give it a miss :rotfl::eek::rotfl:

bownyboy

gallygirl wrote: »

I think I'll give it a miss :rotfl::eek::rotfl:

Yeah, its akin to using a electric usage monitor at home, suddenly you see the detail of where everything is going it makes you more aware of things!

bownyboy

So 11 days into March and after the eye opener that was the money dashboard overview, I decided to stop taking my cash cards to work and try this for a whole month to see where it left my balance at the end of the month.

Have not spent anything during week days (take lunches to work and have done for a long time, but they'd be a day a week where I would 'treat' myself), and so far have not noticed any difference (expcet my bank balance!)

It helps that its a quiet month socially anyway, and we are invited to a wedding friday evening, so cheap night out there!

I'll report back at the end of the month to see what I've saved.

bownyboy

I saw yesterday that HSBC are offering their lifetime tracker again at BOE+1.49% so currently 1.99% with a £499 fee. Looks like a great rate and I'm tempted to ditch the Santander at BOE+1.99% and go for this instead.

I heard that HSBC are one of the more stringent leanders, but with a good credit history and LTV of approx 16% hopefully we'll be ok?

Anyone else on this rate or had experience with them?

Hurdler

Not with their mortgage but recently had a terrible experience with The bank itself - they decided to cut off my access to a savings account with a fair bit stashed because I hadn't made any transactions for a while (got it to a maximum level I wanted and thankfully hadn't needed to use it) so had to transfer the money out. Shifted all my money to a bank that had a more traditional idea of a savings account.

I posted this debacle on the bank account threads and was told that they don't really have a great reputation for retail customers.

Ironically when I was looking for the best business account, I popped in to the local branch to meet and chat with someone and never got a call back. So they seem to hate retail clients and small fry freelancers!

I would go have a look on the mortgage thread and see if people have positive feedback about them.

I had those accounts when they were the Midland bank and once they changed I had issue after issue.