The End May Actually Be in Sight...

RoaringTwenties

Hi teabody . We're actually musing on whether to put the money into savings in our own kind of offset account or not, just to keep them accessible. Might want a little bit of cash available in the coming months. Trouble is the interest rate though isn't it, we're only paying 2.89% on the mortgage but only getting 1% in the ISA. Hmm...:cool::)

I don't know if it's the same with other lenders, but if I pay a cheque into my branch the interest is reduced from that day, when the cheque is processed the interest reduction is backdated. Because it's a BS I can't pay directly into my own account online, Faster Payments go into Skipton's own bank account, and usually take 2-3 days to be allocated to individual mortgage or savings accounts. So bizarrely it's faster and more money-saving to pay by cheque at branch [STRIKE]written with a quill [/STRIKE]than high tech modern online banking :rotfl:

I'll update the figures when I have them :T

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

Go roaring twentie - you are sooo close, it will be over before you know it. You have surprised me about the cheque going through quicker. And banks want to make them obsolete.

I know what you mean about saving when interest rates are so rubbish. Me and the hubby have talked about building up an fund but its hard to save when I think it could go off the mortgage instead especially when our mortgage rate is a shocking 4.99%

teabody

RoaringTwenties wrote: »

Hi teabody . We're actually musing on whether to put the money into savings in our own kind of offset account or not, just to keep them accessible. Might want a little bit of cash available in the coming months. Trouble is the interest rate though isn't it, we're only paying 2.89% on the mortgage but only getting 1% in the ISA. Hmm...:cool::)


:T

Hiya,
How about opening a santander 123 account(3% interest on certain amounts)There is some faffing with this. Also, Nationwide Flex direct? (5%)
Those accounts can be a nuisance though if you don't use them as main acounts....just a thought though. Someone out here on MSE will know where to stash it.....maybe EDINBURGHER ....very good with this kind of thing. Check his posts. Oh and on the main website there is also advice on the best payers.

RoaringTwenties

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa wrote: »

Go roaring twentie - you are sooo close, it will be over before you know it. You have surprised me about the cheque going through quicker. And banks want to make them obsolete.

I know what you mean about saving when interest rates are so rubbish. Me and the hubby have talked about building up an fund but its hard to save when I think it could go off the mortgage instead especially when our mortgage rate is a shocking 4.99%

Hi Mrs RT, ouch that is a shocking rate - any way you can get out of it? We took out a 10 year fix when DS was due, we were absolutely brassic (famous story in our family about having £10 to our name & a new born baby :eek:) so we wanted maximum security on our big mortgage. It was 5.49% which was pretty good at the time (summer 2007) but we all know what happened the year after :mad:. We've only just managed to ditch it now, we're on 2.89% over 4 years. We have friends who have been paying 1% for 6 years lucky so-and-so's!

Thanks for dropping by

RoaringTwenties

teabody wrote: »

Hiya,
How about opening a santander 123 account(3% interest on certain amounts)There is some faffing with this. Also, Nationwide Flex direct? (5%)
Those accounts can be a nuisance though if you don't use them as main acounts....just a thought though. Someone out here on MSE will know where to stash it.....maybe EDINBURGHER ....very good with this kind of thing. Check his posts. Oh and on the main website there is also advice on the best payers.

Hi teabody, yes checking out the best savings rates is on my agenda! Haven't had any money to save for ages really, have just moved the bit we had to the best paying ISA. My best friend has the 123 account and says exactly the same as you, it's a bit a bit of a faff! It might be complicated by the fact that I'm a SAHM so don't have salary coming in, I'll have to see. Thanks for the info though xx

RoaringTwenties

Popped into the BS & paid another £209 off the mortgage :T Have updated signature already for April as I consider that as soon as OH's salary comes in (which is 28th or earliest previous working day) then the next month's mortgage is paid OH isn't paid till tomorrow but we'll just gloss over that, they won't have posted for the cheque today anyway

I haven't paid the additional £1000 off, am hanging back on that and wondering whether to save it in a kind of personal offset. But it is put aside so I suppose technically we are at £19,802 so under £20k, yay . Just realised that accounting for that extra OP reduces the aimed for end date too, will have to look into that...

Bought my Mirror for the Aldi voucher, will be there on Sat. We've decided to get a couple of the 50% off items and donate them to the food bank. We take stuff there on an ad hoc basis but think this will be something we'll start to do regularly. [STRIKE]I also might have re-bought some of my M&S sale items that have had a further reduction and have planned to return them with the earlier receipts, but I couldn't possibly confirm that[/STRIKE] :rotfl:

I've done another MSE thing this week but I'm almost embarrassed to admit it . I've been consulting the Royal Mail website looking at prices for different parcel sizes as I'm fed up of guessing the seemingly random costs and have actually rigged up a homemade cardboard version of that plastic letterbox slot thing that they shove your parcel through to see whether it can go as Large Letter, Small Parcel Deep Option etc. Am hoping that will help with eBay listing as I really want to get more of the kids stuff out of the house. I can now work out postage costs and plan better what stuff to put in bundles, what I can post for just 69p etc, to make it most attractive to buyers. It's a bit Blue Peter and I'm no Valerie Singleton but it'll serve its purpose I think

Hope everyone has a good Friday

Welshlassie

We committed to 5 year fix at 6.39% IO in 2007 when we had a new baby, we did actually buy out of it with some help from family, it took us just over 18 months to break even on it we got a tracker at 1.89 +BOE dropped a whole 4%, our monthly payments went from £1039 to £380, a huge drop and it came at just the right time.

You're doing so well, stick with it

RoaringTwenties

Crikey Welshlassie that is one heck of a drop! Ours would have gone down a lot but we've reduced the term massively (19 years to 4!) so it's hard to compare. Those rates are a killer though, it cost us about £700 to exit the deal, worth it given how much we were able to pay off, but I'm still irked by it tbh

Thanks for popping in

Welshlassie

It cost us almost £5k to buy out and we still ended up breaking even because the rates stayed low. We took a chance that the rates would stay low and it paid off. It took a lot of discussion to decide to do that, but we are so glad we did.

Little_Miss_Winner

Loving your diary !! keep up the good work. Have subscribed.

Paying our mortgage off is my next mission... cant wait!