Aspirations of Frugality and Fun on the Road to Mortgage Freedom

Karmacat

DedicatedDFW wrote: »

It would be fab if you joined us KC - and the added benefit of that !!!!ly feeling you get from getting rid of stuff :T as Alchemilla said it is liberating

I am sorry to hear about your arthritis and i remember before when you were posting about being ill too and i am know this is worse than my little collection of annoyances x

How did you find out about your what works for you food wise KC? I've heard of some sort of blood test i could have done and am really thinking about this.

I am glad you are much better now hon and i am glad you ahve your thread again too

Okay, February ebay and amazon, you're on!

DDFW, don't put yourself down in relation to illness - nothing of mine is life threatening, for instance; it feels very constricting, and upsetting sometimes, but thats something to work through emotionally (and posting on here helps, actually!). Its not a little annoyance that you've so many health issues that you take one at a time, and it takes you a year.

As for how I sussed it - I've never had help from the medical profession, they do their tests and tell me I'm in wonderful health, at which point I used to cry in the surgery ... its just talking to people, and noticing what happened after I ate particular things. I !!!! pesto and feta together, for instance, but if I have too much, it upsets my stomach, and I get really bad diah .... can't spell it, never could. Call it dysentery, cos thats what it feels like, I know it isn't, of course! The porridge, my mum and sister were talking about how they cooked their porridge, and I copied them in one of our Norfolk holidays, quite literally, and the symptom I was getting after eating porridge just stopped, and has never returned. I wasn't cooking it long enough, and my stomach objected! Elementary, but its made such a difference! I still have to be careful, but its not debilitating the way it was...

Uh oh ... its gone 10.30 ... I have to get to work!

DedicatedDFW

edinburgher wrote: »

Isn't the amount saved the difference between the mortgage interest rate and the fee?

So you're looking at roughly credit limit * difference * time period? So say £2000 * 1.48% * 2 (years) = something like £60?

My maths may be wrong. If not, it's a lot of effort for £2.5/mth.

Edit: If you paid just over the minimum (say an extra pound a month) and save the rest (£174 or so) in a N@tionwide Flex Direct account for 10 months, that would be another £30 or so, so maybe £90 total saving over 2 years?

If you were considering this route, the best bet would be to pay back the money as slowly as possibly to increase the time you can keep the money in savings.

The problem with stoozing is the fact that you need to pay the money back

A 0% 'slow stooze' may work better, as you can get the full 4.89% free interest on purchases, as opposed to the balance transfer, where you've paid a fee, which decreases the saving.

Thanks Edinburgher - i realised my mistake as soon as i got my mitts on a calculator - i used the apr for my calculations but didn't take into account that this was apr - as in annual

It would be worth the hassle for me tbh as i have done all the big stuff for making / saving money. But given the 0% is just 12months i may think about it a bit first - its hard having a credit card again which you don't pay off in full when you've been in debt before - even though its 0% and there is money to be made. I will ponder on it some more. Thank you so much for pointing out the obvious

DedicatedDFW

Gosh these are coming thick and fast aren't they ?

I've finally gotten around to opening up the £5 month paying bank account :T

Questions are:

Do i need to pay the £750 in all in one go?

Do i need to leave this in for any amount of time or can i just pay it in and transfer it out in the same day ?

Is there any way to maximise this i.e is there a different account i could have with them that would pay out also ?

Direct debits are set up

DedicatedDFW

Karmacat wrote: »

DDFW, I'm really sorry, I used to stooze myself, though not to o/p, just to earn interest ... I just don't get the figures that you've written, though, sorry, I think its the format - I always write this kind of thing out in a table, to make it more comprehensible for me. As an example (and I have no idea if these are your figures, so don't take it as meaning anything in your own RL):

£2000 borrowed on balance transfer.

£40 is 2% of £2000, the (imaginary) fee

£80 is 4% of 2000, I'd save this by paying off the £2000 from my mortgage. (this amount is actually variable, usually, because of repayments varying, I'm just rounding things out here).

80 - 40 = £40 saving.

A £40 a year saving is good, but like Martin says, you *have* to be good with figures to make it work, and if you aren't, if you don't pay back in full before the 0% runs out, or roll it over to another card (if you've done your sums, and thats still profitable) then you lose your profit very easily, and it ends up actually costing you.

HTH ...

Thanks KC - my main mistake was i think that i had heard so many good things about stoozing - and agree it is good if the figures are right but i was comparing the transfer fee followed by the 0% a month and using the apr monthly :eek::eek::eek: rather than annually and breaking it down into monthly D'oh! But good to know the figures and the right way of looking at it. I think its good if the fee is less / 0% term longer and i am still happy to make anything out of nothing more than an extra money shuffle Will ponder though

DedicatedDFW

Morning all

I am half way through the current book i need to read so will plough on with that in a mo.

I have already started tackling stuff in the living room - the problem is its easier to move my Mr's stuff than mine and then it just looks like my stuff is untidy So must focus on just my own things today and see how i go on - although moving my Mr's shelf of doom rubbish has really made a big difference already

Breakfast and 1 coffee had and i will make 1 nice coffee later on too i think - got to work through the stash :cool:

Delighted to have whittled the fridge down to just 1 jar of chutney :T - there were several in there and although i do like them it was becoming a pain getting stuff in and out of there with all these jars!

Going to push myself to make the new recipe later wasn't going to but i need to eat and it will clear out 2 tins as well :T

Small amount of money due in the bank tomorrow - about £3 ready to be overpaid

Also have a voucher that i need to use - so will need to find the number for the place and ring up about booking in later

Freebie item arrived in the post from my butter codes

Karmacat

I love that its easier to move your Mr's stuff than your own :rotfl:

See what you're saying about using apr monthly, not annually :eek: this is the benefit of talking it through - sounds like Edinburgher got where you were coming from, thats great. I've just started reading his diary, and he's a real inspiration for seeing where to get bits of money, and how much of them add up (and without doing the crazy fiddly stuff like mystery shopping that pays £1.30 an hour when you analyse it

Just been analysing when I myself can have that longed for second cup of coffee - if I have it decaff (ground decaff left over from Xmas) I can have it when the 2nd builder's gone ... will definitely feel like a treat by then :j

Hope the studying's going well.

DedicatedDFW

Thanks KC - i appreciate you talking about food stuff - i have cut quite a few things out but still need to do more and learn more really. With the illnesses i deal with 1 at once because when i eventually went to the docs with about 3 different things after just struggling on thinking i'd get better - all undiagnosed- balance, thyroid, tum and it felt like they either thought all the symptoms were connected to 1 thing and i was like 'well this is to do with my thyroid i'm sure, this is to do with my tum.. which they just couldn't seem to get that i had different issues at once' and as you say i have been there practically in tears when they tell me 100% well when clearly i am not - it is incredibly frustrating. So i decided to just deal with 1 thing at once it felt easier that they had a consistent record of me going in about the 1 problem and easier for me to focus on the one thing too :cool:

Ooh are you limiting yourself on coffee too ? i try and keep it down to 2 cups a day - assignment day was a 1 off

DedicatedDFW

Well i decided to do the stooze :eek:

In my mind i see it as a money shuffle - its just an extra money shuffle in the month.

Having set up the £5 a month account - which took the application, a call to get on-line access, a call to get DD's transferred and will be a case of moving money twice a month.

The stooze has been 1 call (lets hope it stays at that ) and 1 transfer each month - as well as the transfer to the mortgage. So really less hassle for about the same profit :cool:

And - the really big reason why i did it was - As edinburgher pointed out it is best to repay the card as slow as possible. I will be repaying monthly at just above minimum. What this will encourage me to do is smash the £5000 target i set myself for overpaying this year as i will keep up with regular overpayments to the mortgage as well :T

What i will need to do is, of course, have a plan in place for clearing the balance at the end of the term :cool: I have a couple of plans for this just need to decide on the best one but there is no rush is there Except i likes me a plan So i will set to a scribbling away.

Thanks for all of the info. ed and KC - with this i knew what i was doing and made an informed decision. Can't wait to whoosh that money over to my mortgage now :j

DedicatedDFW

I've made and enjoyed tea from stores - just a very simple jacket potato dish

MS stuff:-

checked for cashback
chased up some money i am owed
got listings written up for 7 items for bay of e - am 38 away from the 100 item target i set for this month

I've also tidied up quite a few of my things :T Feels like a much moe productive day

And i'm just about to start the next bit of study

edinburgher

its hard having a credit card again which you don't pay off in full when you've been in debt before

I've been there, graduated from DFW myself

Glad you made a decision with all the information to hand, there's less chance of regrets that way!