Tm's MFW ramblings

turtlemoose

I seem to be spamming my own diary

I mentioned on the MF in 2025-30 thread but thought I'd best update here too.

I've been to see my mortgage advisor, and in August we will start the ball rolling in converting my residential-with-consent-to-let mortgage over to a proper buy-to-let mortgage. I'll be having the property valued and taking 75% of that, with the aim of raising cash for home improvements on the house I live in (which is in a much worse state than the one I rent out :rotfl: ).

How much money I can get comes down to what the lender values the property at. I've just had a nosy on Rightmove and comparable properties are sitting at £80k - £100k. I'm amazed! Current balance £48xxx so even if we go lower end of the scale that still frees up £11k :T:T

We plan to use the cash to replace our bathroom and level our garden (maybe, depends on cost on this one), plus tile the hallway. Then debts and (hopefully) another maternity leave

I know it ups my mortgage debt total but I feel like it's the right thing to do. The BTL can continue to "wash its face" (as I was once advised on here to do ) and will still have 25% equity, and my current home will hopefully be valued higher after improvements meaning better LTV and rates at the end of our fix. This will drop our monthly payment but we would keep it the same meaning all of a sudden we'd be OPing even though we weren't paying any more.

pavlovs_dog

turtlemoose wrote: »

Do you wise MFWers know if I should cancel the unused ones? Is it beneficial in some way? Or is it handy to keep them around? I've got the following cards with these limits:

Amex: 1300 (balance nil)
Creation: 1000 (balance £200 - this card gives 9mo interest free on the season tickets for footy, so must stay)
Tesco: 3000 (balance nil. Used to use this a lot for the points but now very rarely use it as usually use S123 for cb instead)
MBNA: 5000 (balance nil)
Nationwide: 2500 (balance nil)
Santander 123: 5100 (balance 2994.65)

My understanding is that when potential creditors assess you for affordability, a large number of cards would raise a few eyebrows. Even if those cards had £0 balances - the potential is there for racking up huge debts.

Do you really need more than 2 CCs?

turtlemoose

No, I don't need them. They were all opened to take advantage of some sort of offer, used, cleared and out in a drawer. It is inertia that has me still in possession of them. I think I shall keep creation for the season tickets, Tesco for the points and santander for the cash back. That pretty much halves my available credit. Might drop down the limit on the Tesco one too.

edinburgher

I'd close them. Like Pavlov's, I can't really imagine using more than two cards. I have a S@ntander one with about £3k stoozed at 0% and a MBNA one for purchases (should have enough V1rgin Atlantic miles to fly the whole family to the US by our 10th wedding anniversary in 2021).

turtlemoose

Amex, MBNA and Nwide cards gone! Available credit now £9100 instead of £17900. Have kept:
Creation £1k (for season ticket interest free deal - this is only ever used for that purpose)
Tesco £3k (for points and being a backup card)
S123 £5.1k (using interest free deal, cashback and being primary card)

Feels good to tidy up

turtlemoose

on the wibbly job front for me: after being told that my role would probably end or change or something some time soon ish, there was a period of quiet. We were told that there will be new jobs created (sound like a no-redundancy loophole anyone?!)

Then this week on the internal vacancy list there are 2 manager roles and 2 support roles. All based at an office 2 hours drive away. To say I am annoyed is an understatement. I also feel very defensive.

I need to get rid of this debt, free up that cash on the btl, and have another baby. I am sick and tired of the crap this company has, and continues to, put me through. I want a maternity leave and then I'll quit and get something elsewhere, where they don't go out of their way to break employment law and treat their employees like sh*t.

/end rant

shangaijimmy

Good rant!

Just picture the day you can hand them your resignation letter with some home truths in it. After wringing all your maternity entitlement out of them!

turtlemoose

I forgot I had a tcb account - £13.63 sat in it!! Also had some £co clear this last week, so total £59.45 cashback will be popping on to the debt in a few days Got to love money for nothing!

Payday tomorrow, am impatient, have some spare time now so want to do the money shuffle! But alas I must wait, grr!

In non-mse news, with one month to go until the wedding and a weight loss of 1st 1lb, my wedding dress fits. Thank goodness for that! Will try to shift a couple more lbs in the mean time to allow a little wriggle room!

turtlemoose

omg, why did I not know I could pay my virgin line rental a year up front? Just done it, saves £39.98 over the year!

turtlemoose

Payday! :T And how about a round up, seeing as we are now half way through 2015. Balances including payments on 1st July.

Debt balance: £5434.65

This is 36.51% paid off, slightly behind target (37.94%)

Mortgage 2: £98838.81 - but this will creep back up over 99k as interest gets added this month 86.7% LTV

Mortgage 1: £48664.97 - this has us at 74.87% LTV woohoo!


Daily interest:
Debt: ZERO
M1: £4.25
M2: £13.24
TOTAL: £17.49

This was £18.30 a day in March! I'm feeling really chuffed with knocking this down - 62p of it was on the debt, which is now all 0%


Targets for the next 6 months:

1) Get M1 on to a rate less than 3.19% (Sept onwards)
2) Get M2 on to a rate less than 4.89% (Oct onwards)
3) Pay £2438.77 off the debt (avg £487.75 a month :eek: )
4) Don't lose horrible but high paying job (unlikely but I can try!)
4a) Or can lose job if find better/same pay replacement job (even more unlikely! :rotfl: )
5) Get S&S ISA balance up to £600 (currently £300)