Onwards to freedom!

Elephantchunks

Very well done for getting to a quarter of a million!
Thank you SSS I have learned so much from reading your diary.

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks Ed and Elephantchunks

We celebrated in typical lavish style, a trip to the cinema and a £10 pizza deal from M&S :rotfl:

I sometimes wonder what would happen if we won a million on premium bonds. We'd probably both quit our jobs, go on a nice family holiday, maybe replace the older car with something a little nicer, trade up the house (nothing too fancy, about 100-150k on top of the value of this one), and then business as usual to ensure that the cash never runs out so we never have to return to work. Don't really need a million to pull that off, half a million would be plenty

gallygirl

Brilliant SSS, well done . You're right on the million, we live on income generated by a lot less than that!!!!!

Karmacat

Lovely to hear that! And if I lived in a less expensive part of the country, I could do that too (or if I downsized, but I don't want to take the time to do either right now, so I'm staying put, my choice, I promise I won't moan!).

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks for posting Gally and KC

Didn't quite manage the million from PBs this month, but did win £25, so I'm happy enough for now

Mortgage LTV has now dropped below 15% Seems a bit silly posting mortgage LTV updates now that we're fully offset (and then some) but I decided to post this one as in theory there will be no more LTV milestones to post about - other than the 0% one when we settle up in full!

On the subject of settling the mortgage in full... There's a £160 fee for redeeming early. This doesn't appear to apply if the mortgage is held to the end of its term. It seems that if the provider won't waive the fee (no harm in asking) we would actually be better off leaving a nominal balance of say £5 outstanding in January, and making approx 10p per month repayments for the remainder of the already shortened term. Of course, impatience could get the better of me, but the logic is sound. Best case scenario is that our lender accepts that the interest they will earn on a tiny balance over 4 years will earn them less than the cost of our account's administration. By waiving the fee we all win. Won't hold my breath on them being logical or reasonable, but I'll give it a shot...

edinburgher

I appreciate a bit of logic as much as the next person, but cannot for the life of me figure out why people on MFW get so hung up on early redemption charges.

You've already won the game - why quibble over less than a tenth of a percent of your NW?

You didn't get to be worth quarter of a million simply by scrimping pennies, but by investing lots of money and aggressively paying down debt.

gallygirl

edinburgher wrote: »

I appreciate a bit of logic as much as the next person, but cannot for the life of me figure out why people on MFW get so hung up on early redemption charges.

You've already won the game - why quibble over less than a tenth of a percent of your NW?

You didn't get to be worth quarter of a million simply by scrimping pennies, but by investing lots of money and aggressively paying down debt.

Shame on you Ed, what happened to 'look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves' ? Why pay out money when you don't have to?

Save

SuperSecretSquirrel

Obviously £160 in my pocket is better than £160 needlessly paid to the mortgage provider for no real benefit. We still end up with a mortgage free house (a £5 mortgage is mortgage free in my book) so why not maximise the gain?

I'll ask them to waive the fee (backed up with my logic that it would be cheaper for them, too). If they agree, that's a £160 bonus. That's equivalent to a whole year's worth of interest on 8k stashed in 2% vantage accounts, just for asking!

If they refuse, the sensible thing to do would be to hold a minimal balance for the remaining term, but there's a risk my impatience would get the better of me and I'd end up losing the £160 to be "officially" mortgage free somewhere along the line. A stupid move, but the kind of internal battle I often have with myself.

I'm already willing to pay a 4% ERC (this will be in the £500-£600 range, or about a fifth of a percent of NW ), but it makes sense to wait until January when a further 10% can be repaid fee free. I'll be happy to take the hit at that point to improve our monthly cash flow. Having a 10p a month direct debit for the remaining 5 year mortgage term won't hurt our cash flow too much :rotfl:

I totally agree with Gally regards pennies and pounds, and do try to be careful in day to day life. With my sensible head on, taking or leaving £160 is a bit of a no brainer. However, I'm also trying to simplify things by reducing monthly cash flow requirements, reducing the number of accounts I hold, etc. Strategies for maximising every penny and simplifying life are often diametrically opposed to each other, therein lies the dilemma

SuperSecretSquirrel

Ed inspired me to up my stoozing game recently, and I've finally got round to applying for some cards today! I've rather cautiously gone for just three cards for now, and I was 100% sure of being accepted by each one ahead of time thanks to the credit club.

• Mule: 0.5% money transfer fee, 4.9% interest rate, can MT up to £7,940 at a time
• BT1: 24mth 0% interest BTs, zero fee BTs first 60 days, BT up to £6,270, min pmt 1.00%
• BT2: 24mth 0% interest BTs, zero fee BTs first 60 days, BT up to £9,000, min pmt 2.25%, £25.25 TCB

Here's the plan of action for the first month:

[SIZE=2][FONT=Courier New]                                      CASH      MULE       BT1       BT2     NET
MT £6200: MULE to CASH (£31 fee)   6200.00  -6231.00      0.00      0.00  -31.00
BT £6231: MULE to BT1              6200.00      0.00  -6231.00      0.00  -31.00
MT £4400: MULE to CASH (£22 fee)  10600.00  -4422.00  -6231.00      0.00  -53.00
BT £4422: MULE to BT2             10600.00      0.00  -6231.00  -4422.00  -53.00
MT £4400: MULE to CASH (£22 fee)  15000.00  -4422.00  -6231.00  -4422.00  -75.00
BT £4422: MULE to BT2             15000.00      0.00  -6231.00  -8844.00  -75.00
Receive BT2 cashback              15025.25      0.00  -6231.00  -8844.00  -49.75[/FONT][/SIZE]

The above doesn't account for interest payable on the short term mule balance, but going by ed's example it should be pretty low, approximately two to three pounds if all goes smoothly. So a total cost somewhere in the low to mid fifties.

I've knocked up a little spreadsheet to illustrate balances over time (I will be making minimum monthly repayments throughout the interest free period), and over the 24 months I'll have an average balance of around £12,500 stoozed (in addition to my existing stooze pot). If I go for the lazy option and stash the lot in premium bonds, that's an expected £250 in winnings with average luck over the two years (could be less, could be a lot more). If I manage to find cash accounts paying 3%, that's £750 in interest over the two years. Not astronomical amounts, but free money that I'm more than happy to receive!

I'll have a look at my credit rating in a few months time to see if it's possible to add a few more stooze cards to the collection. There's a chance this might be my lot though!

So much for reducing the total number of financial accounts I hold... Think I might have to hide the stooze cards on a new worksheet in my master spreadsheet (away from the normal accounts) just to make myself feel better about it all :rotfl:

edinburgher

I've currently borrowed something like £40k, ended up paying £2.30? interest for the first month's statement. I only have one more transfer to go and I'll have run out of BT cards, so maybe £2.50 or so interest to mule nearly £50k total.

Currently running at a yield of 7.xx%, with roughly 40% in cash and 60% in P2P/bonds/equities. Will swing towards cash by c. 3% of the total each month as the regular savers do their thang

My 'score' did drop by something like 150 points, which I suppose isn't too bad for opening up cards to the value of something like 160% of my salary.