Edinburgher gets cracking!

edinburgher

Heh, I'd love to believe that you're right Alchemilla.

That had to be one of the worst weekends on record. The weather has now taken a turn for the muggy, Mrs E and I felt like we had no QT and neither of us slept a wink last night and I am just grateful for the 'strong' button on our coffee maker

I'm practically falling asleep at work, although the thrill of a couple of raffle tickets will keep me daydreaming about prizes until this afternoon.

My Zop@ money has not turned up yet, must remind myself not to make payments at the weekend. I thought Faster Payments would work regardless, but there must be a manual stage that I'm missing...

Today's highlights will be paying a cheque for £9 into the bank (interest on my closed H@lifax accounts) and buying a casual shirt for a stag do next weekend. It could be worse - I could still have the freezer to defrost

So sleepy.... zzzzZzzzz

edinburgher

Wow!

Our S&S ISA is currently held with H@rgreaves L@nsdown (I'll be obscuring company names from now on).

I have been worried about the fees that they charge for some time, as I think they will hamper the growth of our nest egg. Our money is invested in a single fund of funds (Vanguard Lifestrategy 100% Equities). Because Vanguard don't provide any kickbacks to HL, they charge a £2/mth platform fee for the pleasure.

This is pretty steep (it's why I have a reference to TER (total expense ratio) in my signature.

Thanks to a post on Monevator (a great blog about investing), I've found out that we can save quite a bit by switching to another broker (£2.50/year vs £24/year for our current portfolio).

So, reading one article just saved us nearly 2%!

edinburgher

Woohoo - we are getting a (temporary) replacement for one of my colleagues who has been off for months. This means that I will get to avoid responding to complaints!

Ok, so I need to spend 6-7 hours training them and complete all the paperwork for my boss, but I'll call this one a win.

Today I have managed a few small financial wotsits:

• £80 into Zopa (over £270 in a month)
• [STRIKE]Completed the paperwork required to transfer S&S ISA, will send it tonight/tomorrow morning[/STRIKE] Sent
• Cancelled DD to current S&S broker
• Calculated how much we need to OP to hit 80% LTV (£1300 by next March, mulling over paying that out of savings in the near future)

Cheekily paid an extra £70 into Zopa tonight (the rest of my spare cash before payday and £50 from my pocket money for June). I know paying money you don't have yet is naughty, but it's 3 days and I don't want to have the money snarled up by the bank holiday.

Updated sig needed soon methinks.

edinburgher

Furiously writing guidance for new colleague, they're certainly getting a hell of a lot more than I did than I joined (nothing) :rotfl:

Money has shown up in Zopa and some has started processing already. With any luck, their underwriters will be full of coffee and will get at least some of it lent out before the long weekend.

Work is relatively quiet today, it's a 'learning' day, so everyone is either off on micro courses, or enjoying the fact that everyone else is off on micro courses

LisaLou1982

Sounds like a productive week for you Edinburgher!! If only mine was so productive although its getting on track!!

Are you enjoying the peace and quiet in the office

my_definition

edinburgher wrote: »

What of peers who went further afield - have they had better luck?

I ask as my wife and I went to London after our postgrad course, found work within 6 months. People who graduated with us have *still* never had a job in the field, because they stayed in Glasgow (6? years later)

Extreme examples, and I know teaching is different in Scotland and England, but there do seem to be permanent posts about, just not in the main central belt locations.

Just noticed this post, im not sure if the people who went abroad have permanent posts im not that close with any of them. I did my probation last year and got a post after about 6 months but its area cover and not a class post. It baisically means ive got a job but i could move schools alot and could be covering long term illness, mat leaves ect there are jobs out there and they cant get anyone to cover supply but its not easy not knowing where your going or not having your own kids - for example i teach 4 classes just now but someones coming back to cover my part time class from her mat leave and i have no idea what they will do with me. That said it is a rewarding career and i wasnt trying to put you of it. That im saying this in the aftermath of parents night shows i must like my job.

Alchemilla

What in heaven is a micro course??

edinburgher

What in heaven is a micro course??

It's a normal course where 'organisational development' have been too cheap to spring for more than 3 hours of training :rotfl:

£100 in processing over at Zopa, no loans actually finalised tho.

edinburgher

Back after a busy bank holiday weekend of family events and stag do-ing. The weather was glorious (I've started a tan, impressive considering my haunts were the East end of Glasgow and Newcastle) :rotfl:

Not too financially ruinous - I think I ended up spending about £100 on the stag, which was half as much as I had expected.

Both Mrs E and I have been paid, so our 123 @ccount is looking a lot less like a train wreck.

£10 into Zop@ this morning, and the stock market appears to be playing silly beggars/is surging. All good fun

On the MFW front, nothing much. But I did order some energy saving lightbulbs to replace the dud LED ones and will place a job to replace our boiler controls on R@ted People once I get home from work.

Edit: Also pleased to notice that I've had a pay rise as the new tax allowance is now reflected on my pay slip. Not much that you can do with £20 or so a month, will probably just up the DD for the S&S ISA?

Alchemilla

I love that you *think* you spent £100...