The Road to Financial Security

Pushkin

Work over and very happy the weekend is finally here - not sure I should be saying that having only done a 4 day week !

List of jobs for the weekend:

Washing - isn't there always!
Clean bathroom
Ironing including name labels on new school uniform bits
Bag up garden waste created from cutting back trees this week
Hoover through


Doesn't actually sound too bad now I've typed it out. Also need to buy a new peg bag which I am slightly obsessing over - refusing to get one on the internet as I can't properly tell the size or quality. I think this is classed as non sexy buying but the effort I'm giving it makes me think I'm getting way too much pleasure out of choosing one.

Pushkin

Up early this morning and off to the hairdressers shortly. Good piece of MSE news though, I spent some time finally doing comparisons of gas & electricity tariffs yesterday evening. OH was very unimpressed when I demanded he come to the study at 9pm so he could see the results of my labours - he seems to think Friday nights are for relaxing hmph!

Anyway we are sticking with BG but have changed tariffs and according to their estimates will save around £30 per month on the electricity and £10 per month on the gas. Also signed up for a new smart thingy not sure of name but should also help keep us on track. I find it all very confusing which is partly why we're sticking with current provider -better the devil you know and all that.

Need to tackle BT & S£y next...

teabody

I have done a transfer of equity in the past ....twice in fact. 1 to remove someone and then to add someone. Although the mortgage remains the same they will still check your affordability as if it were a new mortgage. Solicitor definitely needed and the estimates on here as far as cost seem right. Hope it works out for you x

Pushkin

Teabody - thanks for the comments - sadly all did not go as planned when my husband spoke to C&G yesterday.

In summary because we have a very good mortgage (0.5% above BoE base), the more stringent lending criteria and my husband's less than blemish free credit history (a whole different story!) we do not currently meet the criteria. Basically to add me to the mortgage we have to reapply and we would be rejected. There is a certain irony considering we've had the mortgage for 15 years, never missed a payment and the monies have been coming out of my sole bank account for at least 10 years.

However I do see their position and they said the only way I could go on would be to remortgage to a different product which obviously we would be mad to do.

We are still going to speak to a solicitor to see what could be put in place for protection - namely mine! C&G did advise we could try again July 15 and would probably be successful as DH credit will be ok by then (lets just say he learnt his lesson years ago but these things hang around and haunt you - as I'm discovering).

Biggest bugbear is there is no on line facility so any over payments/balance checks need to made by phone which obviously I can't do. Still I know the balance as of May and the monthly payments so I can use a spreadsheet and then reconcile when the annual statement comes in December. I guess because C&G is legacy and doesn't offer new products they have a reducing customer base so there isn't much investment into things like this new fangled internet

I think thats all we can do for now. I do really appreciate the advice given by other users on here.

Enough rambling, off to search son's room for school stationery which he says he can't find - suspect we will need a shopping trip to replace some if not all of it - seriously considering making him pay half out of his pocket money. He has been at the school a year and this will be his 3rd set - hmph boys!

BookWorm

Hi Pushkin - I saw on another thread that you were looking for sofa's and just wanted to share my experience.
I was overwhelmed too by the choices when I was shopping for mine. However, I came across some great choices in Furniture Village. Also, I found the staff were also nicer and less pushy than some of the places that are specifically for sofa's
Good luck!

Pushkin

Bookworm - thanks for your comments, we actually took the plunge today and ordered sofas (gulp) - got them from J0hn L£wis - we both like the shop and rate the quality of their stuff and their customer service. Little bit more than I had budgeted for but everything else so far has come in under budget so I think we have some wiggle room.

The annoying bit now is the 8-10 week lead time - how long !

Sexy spending has run somewhat amok this weekend:

Got a beautify leopard print duvet set yesterday - half price - have wanted one for years - it's possibly a little Playboy mansion but if you can't have a bit of decadent flamboyance in the bedroom where can you have it?
Also got a new bath mat - again half price.

Oh and I finally bought a new peg bag, was in J0hn L3wis umming about it and thinking maybe I don't like the design that much when I caught myself and just bought it. One less thing to obsess over :T

I have to point out (again) that although I must come across as the most extravagant worst MFW ever, we have had pretty much all household purchases on hold for over a year when we were looking to move. So although a lot of shopping is occurring it is planned. Hope I'm not coming across as over defensive I think I'm feeling guilty sub-consciously - not really used to spending and certainly not this much stuff in such a short space of time.

There will be better MSE news tomorrow - first £500 over payment on mortgage goes out.

Off to do a survey now - see I'm not really shop til you drop - I am MFW!!

BookWorm

Glad you found something you liked

Pushkin

BookWorm wrote: »

Glad you found something you liked

Bookworm - that's the killer isn't it? 10 weeks to second guess our choices now! We saw a sofa in H0use of Fr@ser immediately afterwards and both thought 'oh is that one nicer than ours?'

In many ways I am better when there are fewer options!

Pushkin

Today is a good day!
Made the lump sum payment to my parents to pay off the car loan!!!
Now the only debt we have is the mortgage and increased over payments of £500 per month also went out today. Have started a spreadsheet to try and keep track but will have to wait until Dec's annual statement to reconcile. Hopefully my figures are too high as with every payment we make the interest charged reduces :T

Shame I have to wait another month now to update the figures and see the mortgage reduce and the savings increase!

Pushkin

A very autumnal morning in Berkshire, time to put the flip flops away I think - nearly slipped over twice while walking the dog - not fun!

MSE Updates
Listed an item of furniture on £bay at weekend and it has 3 watchers so fingers crossed it sells, first time I've done the local pick up only option which reduces the number of potential buyers significantly - at least I won't have the issue with underestimating postage costs I had last time.

Am pretty much in the routine of doing a survey an evening and the points there are building up slowly but hopefully enough to cash in for a voucher towards Christmas presents in a couple of months.

I have also started doing the 'Tilly tidy' that everyone raves about :A
am putting that in my slush fund I keep for up coming expenses. So thank you fellow MFWs for that tip!

Non MSE News
No more sexy spends (fortunately!). We have the man from BG coming round this evening to talk boilers as we are considering replacing ours. It's 12 yrs old but a combi one and really annoying in that if someone is in the shower and a toilet is flushed, tap put on etc the shower goes cold. I thought the boiler should be good for another few years but apparently life span is 10 to 12 years so we may have the bite the bullet now and if the cost isn't too great will revert back to a standard (maxi flow?) system to stop the shower issue.

Also think the plumber is starting next Monday, he's due round tomorrow evening to finalise details.

We seem to have a tradesman round every evening at the moment.