The Road to Financial Security

Pushkin

@ coffeecup - I am annoyed about the house, my head knows staying here is the right decision but I loved the house we were going to buy and it's hard to let go emotionally. Still I think head does ultimately overule heart with this - no point living in a fabulous house if we can't maintain it & worry about every unexpected bill that crops up.

@katiegizmo - reassuring to find a sacred spirit :beer: judging by the age of your kids you must be younger than me - wish I'd got the MSE bug years ago but am working on drawing a line under what has passed before as it can't be changed.

Our house is woefully neglected and we have drawn up a (long) list of what needs doing, sadly a lot of it is important but not what I call sexy buying:

Plumber to assess possible damp/leak in bathroom wall

Re-install radiator in kitchen, we foolishly had it removed when we installed underfloor heating about 6 yrs ago. Then discovered the (electric)underfloor heating costs a fortune to run and of course isn't connected to the main central heating. This has resulted in us rarely using it and the kitchen is somewhat of a no go zone in the winter - sounds appealing huh!!

Electrician to assess the wiring with view to bringing up to code - this is (we suspect) possible reason our house buyer pulled out - we tried to get hold of the electric report they had done but no go (yet another source of annoyance in the house moving process)

Tree surgeon to cut back huge oak tree in garden (long overdue)

Multiple new fence panels

Gardener in to revamp garden, remove overgrown trees & weeds and make altogether much more low maintenance (we are rubbish gardeners) and new patio

I'll get the the 'sexy' purchases another day, have probably waffled on way too much.

OH is with a plumber now so I'd better go and keep him him check - if I hadn't been around when the window company came I reckon he would have gone for bi-folding patio doors which although lovely were over twice the price of the French Doors we are getting...

Goldiegirl

Hello there.

As you've decided to stay put, it's a great idea to get your current house just as you would like.

I do a bit of eBaying, and I never take any notice of what eBay suggest for postage.

If you look on the Royal Mail website there's a leaflet which gives all postage rates, and armed with that and my trusty kitchen scales it's easy to work out the correct prices. Also, it might be worth looking at courier sites like My Hermes and Collect Plus for larger parcels. I've used both, and so far they've given a good service.

Good luck with all your plans

Pushkin

Goldie Girl - thanks for the tips I will look into that once I've decided what to sell next. I guess it was just dumb luck with the first thing I sold that the Eb@y tool generated the correct postage - lulled me into a false sense of security!

Bit of a shock this morning when I got up to find the heating had kicked in. Don't like the idea of that in August in terms of what it will do to our energy bills which are already ridiculous - something else to look into.

I have had another email from the cd selling web site - this one tells me they have transferred my payment but it could take up to 5 days to reach my bank account - really wonder if they are stringing me along but I hope to see the money this week. I can do instant transfers to my bank to husband, friends etc so don't see why a payment from this company should take days but we'll see..

Not much on the list today, we have plumber no 2 coming round this evening -but DH will deal with that - it all goes way over my head. This possible leak is a worry though - especially as its only possible so currently we aren't at all sure what to do.

OH spoke to C&G again yesterday and they are now due to ring this evening - at this rate we'll have paid back the mortgage before we manage to get me added to it :rotfl:

katiegizmo

I LOVE that you call it sexy buying!!! Brilliant!!
I had some money come to my bank account from a survey site and thier process was 28 days to transfer! I have worked in making payments before and I presume they either pay a really cheap rate to have it take so long (money sits with the bank for a time and the bank earns interest) or they set everything up to leave the account later thus keeping the cash that bit longer.
I'm early 30s - just. I should probably start calling myself mid-30s soon....
Just think how much happier you'll be when those not-so-sexy jobs are done!

Pushkin

Hey KG - well I'm clinging to my 'early forties' by the skin of my teeth so about 10 years ahead of you!!! Does start to focus the mind as I have got older, thinking about wanting to retire at a decent age etc. That was the plan with the move, enjoy the bigger house and then look to downsize in 15 or so years and use the equity to enable us to retire. But we have a different plan now and that's what I'm working on.

I do find it difficult not to think about what we should have done financially before, we are very lucky in that our mort rate is low and directly linked to the BOE base rate - monthly payments now are actually lower than they were 10 years ago even including the £100 per month we currently overpay. Wish we had increased the over payment before now but again got to draw a line under it. We will overpay £500 a month soon and that will help reduce it and absorb interest rate increases which are on the horizon.

I think you are right about these cash back/selling sites it must be in their business model which is understandable just bl**dy frustrating.

More on 'sexy' purchases soon - I have to manage this all carefully, never done this kind of spending all in one go before and it's quite overwhelming.

greent

Hi Pushkin


It's all too easy to remonstrate with ourselves about what we should've/ could've done - but the main thing is that we're now doing it - life is one big learning curve, after all. Definitely draw a line under what has gone on before financially! - you can't change it so look forward to what you can change now x


Re [EMAIL="eb@y"]eb@y[/EMAIL] - don't forget to take into account that they take 10% of your postage costs in your fees now, too - so if your postage would cost you £3 it's possibly worth making it £3.50, say - they'd take 35p, leaving you 15p towards packaging costs. And definitely check out courier options via someone like parcel2go - it's sometimes much cheaper than royal mail x


If the CD selling site is the MM one, they do take their time, but they get there in the end - I've used them several times

Pushkin

@ Greent- thank you for that tip - I had no idea eB@y charged commission on the postage charged as well. I feel another spreadsheet coming on to work all this out :j

Yes the cd buying web site is MM - didn't like to name and shame have noticed a lot of people not using actual brand names on here which has made me somewhat cautious.

Your words are wise but I do have to keep telling myself that as I am terrible for analysing everything 16 different ways.

egoode

Good luck with all the work you are doing on the house. I feel for you about the plumber I'm currently having fun dealing with them as I also have a leak in my bathroom unfortunately mine's also leaking into the flat downstairs so need to get it fixed asap to keep the neighbour happy. I've owned the flat for less than 2 weeks and thought it would be a bit longer before I had to deal with things like this!

Pushkin

egoode wrote: »

Good luck with all the work you are doing on the house. I feel for you about the plumber I'm currently having fun dealing with them as I also have a leak in my bathroom unfortunately mine's also leaking into the flat downstairs so need to get it fixed asap to keep the neighbour happy. I've owned the flat for less than 2 weeks and thought it would be a bit longer before I had to deal with things like this!

Thanks egoode - fixing leaks not 'sexy spending huh' got to be done though huh. Enjoy your new flat - I am mega impressed with all the youngsters (I'm in my 40s!) who are so financially aware and have the MSE attitude - wish I had got it years ago.

Pushkin

Warning - rant about to commence :mad:

so C&G didn't ring - this is the 2nd time we have had appointments for them to call when they haven't. I made OH ring the call centre the minute the appt window finished. Poor thing had to wait in the queue for 20 minutes before he got through. Result is now we should have a call between 1 and 5 on Tuesday. This is getting beyond a joke...

He also asked about getting on line access and was told there was an icon on the front screen of the C&G mortgage page. Well guess what - we both looked for 15 minutes, searched, asked the on line FAQ feature and neither of us could find it so we're either computer illiterate (worrying since we both work in IT) or it isn't there!

On a more positive note he was advised that if they don't ring Tuesday we have the right to make a formal complaint and would likely get some compensation. I just want this sorted out...

He did instruct them to up the monthly payment so from Sept we will increase amount we over pay from £100 per month to £500. Hopefully that will kick in without hitches.

Rant over!....