Tm's MFW ramblings

turtlemoose

So time for a new car. In order to keep receiving my car allowance,my car must be less than 6 years old - mine is 6 on 27th March so time to sort it out. If not for the allowance I'd just keep this car until it died. I've decided on a Renault Scenic, was looking at cars approx 3 years old, around the 10k mark. This'll last 3 years at work, so that's £278 per useful month. Or i can get a brand spanking new one for 14725 which will last me 6 years for work at a cost of £205 per month that I can use it. Plus the new one has the benefit of manufacturers warranty, no mot for a while etc. So I think I'm probably going for the new one! Need to sort out the cheapest borrowing....I've just been accepted for a 24m 0% money transfer card with a limit of £7800 (fee 1.89%) so that gives me £7400 cash (140 fee). I'm hoping for 3k trade in for our two cars, and have £600 cash in my car maintenance pot. That leaves 3k to find. My s123 card is still 0% on purchases for at least another year so could put it on there. We won't have paid it all by the time the interest frees run out but we will certainly have made a dent in it, I think we can do at least 8k off it in 2years, and I will shuffle to other 0% offers when needed.

If I did a personal loan of £11000, over 5y it will cost £199/month and over the life of the loan, this costs £977 in interest. I reckon I can make it overall less interest to pay even with transfer fees in future.

SuperSecretSquirrel

Hi turtlemoose, considering the battering world markets have taken I would take a loss of less than 1% as a win! My "losses" have been far worse but there is no way I'll be taking money out and locking in those "losses" anytime soon - it's not a loss until crystallised, I still own the same amount of slices of businesses, just those slices are valued less now than they did previously, they can just as easily be worth more again in the future, in fact I'm counting on it If you're feeling like taking the money out due to these losses though, maybe stock market investing isn't for you at this stage of your journey. It's a bit of a psychological game really, and entirely different from one person to the next...

As for the car, is leasing an option? I just wonder if you might get a cheaper deal especially as you intend to trade in every few years?

turtlemoose

Hi squirrel, thanks for popping by!

Perhaps I will go in between....build up my S&S to £1k and then put the monthly money in LC. It's less about being afraid to take the gamble, and more about making each pound work the hardest it can. If I had say £20k in savings, I'd be more open to some of it being riskier than the rest. But when I have less than 2k I feel like it should be working a little harder for me!

I have looked at leasing, but for example the scenic would be around 2.3k up front then £230 a month for 4 years. I'd still have to pay maintenance and insurance myself, and I wouldn't have the asset at the end of it. At least if I own it, and I lose my job, I could sell it and get a banger (or go without). I'm waiting for prices on 3 other models of car to see if I can find something cheaper - we need 3 full size seats in the rear so restricted on models. I've got 7 weeks to buy the car so am still shopping around.

turtlemoose

Accepted for £5.9k limit and 16months 0% on spending. It's actually pretty terrifying that in the last 24 hours I've been able to access £13700 worth of credit. Just filled a couple of forms in online. I can understand how people fall in to debt accidentally and soon end up over their heads. This is good though as means will put full £5900 on that cc, meaning I will only need to money transfer 5.1, so fees of 96.39 AND I should be getting £25 cb for opening one of the cards...so £71.39 charges to borrow 11k for 2 years (and then shuffle time!).

Bit depressing when we were a whisker away from being DF. But somehow I just didn't factor in the car. Very silly mistake. I think in the back of my mind I never thought I'd still have my job now, let alone still getting my car allowance, so just sort of repressed it and forgot . Won't make that mistake again!

SuperSecretSquirrel

Sounds like you have it all in hand turtlemoose

If we ignore pensions, we have somewhere in the region of 10-15% of our savings in S&S, the rest in cash, so I accept your point that with those kind of ratios its easier to be sanguine about market losses and potential future gains!

Certainly not worth paying a premium to lease, I've seen some deals on small city cars recently where the lease price is less than depreciation, even before factoring in maintenance and repairs etc. I can only assume these are loss leaders where the manufacturer wants their cars on the road to be seen, boost brand image, ensure a healthy second hand market in a couple of years etc. Perhaps this kind of marketing is not required on the scenic, but other options may fit the bill. I know a few months ago there were great deals available on the cactus for example, though perhaps that ship has sailed by now. Then again, sounds like you're doing a great job finessing the cost of buying, and the job security and trading down point is entirely understandable and a very sensible thing to plan for.

turtlemoose

My head is swimming with car info, need to take a step back from it I think! Work have confirmed I can have a month past my car's birthday (so now end April) so won't rush in to anything just yet.

Squirrel - that 10-15% figure sounds good - whereas for me at the moment it is almost 50%! Definitely time for a shuffle.

Debt is now at £1764.74 (0%), feels great in one sense to be so near the end, but it is clouded by the fact I have to get the new car and will be sending this figure skyrocketing soon!

Easy access cash savings: £82/£1000

OH has some old debt (from before we met) that is all with collection agencies, bit of a mess, can't remember if I've mentioned it. I keep it separate from our day to day joint finances, because it is all frozen interest/payment plans etc. Currently the lowest priority one gets a token payment of £2 a month. Each month they send a letter in the post to say "thanks for paying £2", and then another letter saying "don't forget to pay £2!". Ridiculous really that they are wiping out almost all their income in pointless letters! Anyway they've obviously got a bit fed up of it, because they've written offering a reduced settlement, and to make them an offer. As the balance is currently £2600+ I'm going to write back with a cheeky £500 and see how it goes from there. Fingers crossed I am £2-ing them in to submission

turtlemoose

Offered them £600 as that is 22% (£500 was less than 20%) of the balance and the creditor is the spanish bank... research on the DFW board says that particular lender sometimes takes low settlement offers around the 25% mark...fingers crossed!

turtlemoose

A quiet afternoon at work has had me doing our budget until (ahem) 2021. Obviously I know this is speculative, I've made assumptions about the rise in council tax, utilities, groceries etc. And also that our income stays the same (gulp!). We could borrow £13860 on credit cards in March/April this year for the new car, and have it paid off by the end of 2018 AND I've accounted for a year of me on maternity leave in there (and subsequent childcare costs with me going back to work) as we do want another. I've assumed that I do a balance transfer at the end of one of the interest free rates, and that balance transfer attracts a fee of 2.5%. Assuming all my massive assumptions are correct, our final payment would be December 2018 and we would have paid £216.20 in interest/charges in that time.

Ohhhh...penny dropping.....typing this has made me realise that some months we will pay more than minimum payments on the cards... I'm going to redo my calculations and see how much interest I could earn if I stoozed the extra instead!

Oh and most importantly, in my budget, 2019 sees us paying off OH's historical debt in full, with £50 a month extra play money too...2020 has us spending £1350 on a family holiday (current spend ZERO) and an extra £2496 OPs on the mortgage, and 2021 has £1500 on a family holiday and £4021 OPs on the mortgage. Now to make it come true!!!!!

turtlemoose

Just opened a basic spanishbank account (the one with no fees) purely so I can then immediately 'switch' it it H$BC and get £120 to add to the mortgage OP pot for my efforts, and also gain access to the 6% regular saver. As mortgage is 2.88%, I will be stopping all OPs and put them in the regular saver instead, then pay it off as a lump sum at the end of the year. Unfortunately my H$BC application said they need to consider it further so fingers crossed they say yes!

Am currently a 123 customer but once I have paid for my new windows (imminent) then the Notwest account that does household cashback is better for me, so will be switching that one too (sadly no cash incentive on that one though).

jodles16

Hey Turtlemoose, just had a read through your diary and am amazed at how far you have come! You are doing amazingly, I often do projected OPs as if interest is flat rate, my maths skills are def not good enough to actually work all that out! Best of luck with everything!

Jodles