A cunning plan (but a humungous mortgage!)

Hollyboll

Welcome back Jevvers … just read through your diary. I'm very impressed at what you've done so far, and it's reassuring to find another humungous / dinosaur mortgage (is there any other kind in London?!) with some IO (although you at least have a cunning plan ). Look forward to following your journey forwards (and downwards!)

Jevvers

Thanks Hollyboll, appreciated.

Cunning plan activities over the past few days:
1) applied for a 0% credit card so I can buy a new phone outright, having just come out of contract. It will save me money and I also cunningly used a cashback site to get £25 for signing up.
2) applied for Club Lloyds so I can stick £5k in there @ 4%
3) checked my old ISA. it's at 1.4% which is isn't too bad in this current climate, although I may see if I can move it to a slightly higher one.
4) checked the tsb accounts and found £144 in interest sitting in them. Wouldn't have been earning as over threshold so I moved it to Sant 123

Onwards and downwards.

Jevvers

Plan to apply for a Coventry ISA, it's a 5 year fix at 2.45% and 120 days penalty for early closure. So if we do need to access the money they we just would have to accept it as a lower interest rate. Still better than 1.4% so worth the move. Sometimes I think "is it worth it?" when I see that it will only make a few ££ difference but for me it's the principal which counts, I can't stand knowing that I could have got more from the banks! But I can't go as far as buying groceries on a cashback cc and saving the money then paying it off - that IS too fangled for me, even though it makes perfect sense.

Jevvers

Jevvers wrote: »

1) applied for a 0% credit card so I can buy a new phone outright, having just come out of contract. It will save me money and I also cunningly used a cashback site to get £25 for signing up.
2) applied for Club Lloyds so I can stick £5k in there @ 4%

Both the cards for these turned up today so this section of the cunning plan can start. I had to work today so didn't get a chance to sort them.
Also got an email to say my cashback from an energy switch via the mse energy club is on its way. Can't remember how much it was!:rotfl:

Jevvers

Moved the money across into Lloyds but haven't set up the two DDs yet, must do that.
Got £35 interest and cashback from Santander this month.
Also started to work out what I think our final bill from co-op energy should be. We switched in early oct but no sign of a final bill yet...

jodles16

No harm in having had a break when you have clearly been doing so well! Best of luck!

Jodles

Firegirl

Just caught up on your diary!!!! How are you getting on ebaying? I've made quite a lot on the run up to Xmas. Loads of kids stuff! I'll subscribe to your journey.

Keep chipping away. My mortgage isn't the smallest either but we'll get there in the end!

Hollyboll

Jevvers wrote: »

Moved the money across into Lloyds but haven't set up the two DDs yet, must do that.
.

I read somewhere on MSE that the debits didn't actually need to be paid, just in place, if that helps. I've got a complicated collection of current accounts to take advantage of the interest rates and need to do a good shuffle to simplify them - another idea I got here is to set up a very small dd to a charity ….

I'd be interested in whether you are planning to use the regular saver which comes with the Club Ll0yds? From memory it was 4%, but I thought I remembered :money: saying that was actually 2% 'cos of the drip feed effect … might have made it up cos I can't find it now! But interested in your views / the place of regular savers in the cunning plan?:)

Jevvers

Hi Holly
Yes that's right with regular savers, they work out as half the interest on the full amount cos it's not all in there for the whole year. I may go for it but it would have to be after refilling the 123 account and we're a looooong way off that at the mo. I also have FD and I think their reg saver is still 6% so I would go for that first.
I've set up one DD today and plan to do another tomorrow. I've also just got a new phone via carphone warehouse for a whopping £200 less than the shop offer. And if the cashback site I went through works there will be an extra £73.50 to come on top!
Fire girl I have been doing ok with eBay, sold a scarf for £31 which I was very happy with. I do Etsy too and am hoping for a few more pre-Xmas sales there. Good luck with yours.
Hi Jodles, thanks for the encouragement, much appreciated!

Hollyboll

Thanks Jevvers. Think that's right re FD, also Marksies has similar still I think ... but I'm especially loving the free magazine from Club Ll0yds
Congrats on the DDs and cashback:T