Giant piggy bank

Newme2014

I've applied to open the tsb account that pays 5% up to £2000 as long as you pay in £500 so the plan is to transfer in £2000 of the emergency savings as soon as I get all the info. Then change my cc direct debit to come out from there and transfer what I need to over from my regular account to keep it at £2000. Then use the interest to go towards OPs.

This bit is for my own benefit to remind me what I SHOULD be doing
Int = £5
Cc = £100
Transfer = £95 to tsb £5 to mortgage

I also need to really work out the payment dates and look at when my 'free' month is. I get paid 4 wkly so 13 times a year (it was 14 the other year) so as I budget for that I SHOULD have an extra pay day but it never seems to happen. If I could do it then I could have a nice holiday, and make quite a large OP. Oh that would be nice.

Newme2014

So, plan for this wk, change all my direct debits to come out of my metro account, add them up, think off the top of my head it's around £300 then set up standing order from my regular account for £50 over the amount to go in on 1st of the month. This should help with getting that free month and also build up a nice Xmas/present fund as well hopefully.

Random thought, must check my management fees and ground rent as not heard from the company about setting up payment

Should also work out what I need to save monthly for the big yearly spends like car insurance and put that in there too.

Over the last 10yrs or so I have become so much better with money than I was but there is still plenty of room for improvement (I've been paid 4wkly for 10yrs so REALLY should have worked out the free bit by now)

Newme2014

Well I was going to bed but John Cena just came on telly so guess I'll be up a bit longer

DDs I need to change
-Apr 1st EDF £28
-Apr 1st council tax £100
-Apr 1st mortgage £1001.33
-Apr 1st Tesco mobile £30
-Apr 5th O2 £10 for iPad which I sometimes take to work but I can tether on my new mobile so CANCEL
-Apr 5th Equifax £14.95 why the hell have I still got this, CANCEL
-Apr 8th NowTV £6.99 CANCEL
-Apr 9th Sky line rental & bb £16.40
-Apr 16th Netflix £5.99
-Apr 20th home insurance £16.88
-Apr 24th Hachette part works £11.96 for knitting mags, usually £8.97 but extra for book, will be cancelling in a few months
-Apr 28th Union fee £27.43

So that's £1269.93, though I'm not moving my mortgage so £268.60, take off the stuff to be cancelled £236.66 though I still need to get final figures for managment and ground rent so looks like my monthly dds come to closer to £400 this leaves me with approx £1000 for other spends like food and petrol and overpayments.

Waffling quite a bit now and I just spotted a large spider that then disappeared before I could get a glass to trap it with oh joy, John Cena better get his top off, that'll make it all better.

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Well done with getting those direct debits cancelled. It is a little hassle but well worth doing. Good luck with everything,
Squirrel x

Newme2014

Thanks, I was going to cancel Netflix but then I got a new telly (power lead kept falling out of the old one, and at 10yrs old it had done its best) and it's got a dedicated Netflix button on the remote so I don't have to plug the PS3 in and wait for updates so I'm actually using it now and hardly watch any terrestrial at all.

Newme2014

took a little longer than planned to get organised enough to sort through this list

DDs I need to change
-Apr 1st EDF £28 - this has been reduced to £19 as i was in credit
-Apr 1st council tax £100 - changed to santander 123 acc
-Apr 1st mortgage £1001.33
-Apr 1st Tesco mobile £30 changed to sant 123 acc
-Apr 5th O2 £10 for iPad which I sometimes take to work but I can tether on my new mobile so CANCEL must pull finger out and find details to cancel
[STRIKE]-Apr 5th Equifax £14.95 why the hell have I still got this, CANCEL[/STRIKE] - gone at last!!:j
-Apr 8th NowTV £6.99 CANCEL must find log in and cancel
-Apr 9th Sky line rental & bb £16.40 - changed to santander 123 acc
-Apr 16th Netflix £5.99 change to tsb acc
-Apr 20th home insurance £16.88
-Apr 24th Hachette part works £11.96 for knitting mags, usually £8.97 but extra for book, will be cancelling in a few months
-Apr 28th Union fee £27.43 change to tsb acc

water dd also set up to sant 123 acc £22pm

i'm sure i was at the computer changing more stuff around, i felt much more productive than this last night when i was doing it

Newme2014

updated list

DDs I need to change
-Apr 1st EDF £28 - MUST ring monday to move to sant this has been reduced to £19 as i was in credit
-Apr 1st council tax £100 - changed to santander 123 acc
-Apr 1st mortgage £1001.33 - changed to halifax
-Apr 1st Tesco mobile £30 changed to sant 123 acc
[STRIKE]-Apr 5th O2 £10 for iPad which I sometimes take to work but I can tether on my new mobile so CANCEL[/STRIKE]cancelled
[STRIKE]-Apr 5th Equifax £14.95 why the hell have I still got this, CANCEL[/STRIKE] - gone at last!!:j
[STRIKE]-Apr 8th NowTV £6.99 [/STRIKE]cancelled
-Apr 9th Sky line rental & bb £16.40 - changed to santander 123 acc
-Apr 16th Netflix £5.99 changing to new halifax
-Apr 20th home insurance £16.88 changing to new halifax
-Apr 24th Hachette part works £11.96 for knitting mags, usually £8.97 but extra for book, will be cancelling in a few months changing to new halifax
-Apr 28th Union fee £27.43 changing to new halifax

water dd also set up to sant 123 acc £22pm

fianlly got round to cancelling the last few dds i really wanted to get rid of but still need to get my butt in gear and change my edf to santander to get the most of the cashback. I'm switching from my barclays account to a new halifax account next week so now i've got santander, tsb and halifax which seem the best to spread my pennies around and make the most of the interest
i'm also feeling quite excited that i have nearly reached my first £1000 of over payments

Newme2014

Applied and accepted for Santander 123 credit card, I have a 123 current account so they'll waive the first years fee so will start spending on that when it arrives and put my Tesco card away, will put cash back towards overpayments
Been sweeping my accounts around this morning, all swept to sant 123 to gain max interest

Metro £100, maintain at £100 use for cash withdrawals and £10pm lotto (max spend on lotto, often no spend) only debit card carried. No interest paid, used for loose change deposits.

Halifax £200, will maintain this at £200, used for a couple of DDs that don't get cash back with the 123 account and to have my wages into to get the £5pm. Will start sweeping on payday (every 4wks) then transfer back if needed being careful to leave enough for mortgage payments!

TSB £2000, will maintain at £2000 to get most out of the interest, interest to be used for overpayments. £500 transferred in monthly from Halifax to meet requirements, will then sweep out to Santander account.

Santander £4911.66, want to get to £10,000 between all accounts but also make decent overpayments so will use all interest and cash back for overpayments and then try and find a balance between bills, saving and overpayments

Goal £10,000 by Dec 31st, £2788.34 in 6months, £465pm, £15.50 per day, hmm looking at it like that I'm not so sure it's do able with the overpayment goal but the 123 credit card is 23months 0% on purchases so if I'm careful and stooze I might get close.

Made an OP today, £132.54, total £856.43/£5000 so that's £4143.57 to make in 6months £690pm, £23.30pd

Starting to think I might need to adjust my goals, not sure I can find a spare £800pm (my dad gives me a cheque for £200 every month for a loan he's paying off, it's possible if they sell their house as they are planning to do, that I'll get all they money back by the end of the year, about £6000 left, but they aren't sure so I'll only budget for the £200pm) especially as I've still got decorating I want to do. Will have to have a think later about how to wiggle my goals so that they are challenging but closer to achievable

Newme2014

Feeling a bit dopey, remembered after getting to work last night that I get paid 4wkly and all the sums I've been doing are on monthly pay, so in September I actually get paid twice. So SHOULD have a nice extra lump to help out with the goals.
Also, I purchased for £193,000, and it was valued at £194,000 (some cash back type deal with the EA). Mortgage of approx £183k gave me 94% LTV. Since my offer was accepted there has been a steady rise in values in the area and an identical flat just sold for £205k so now owing £180k I think that leaves me with 87% LTV if I were to re mortgage at this point, which I can't but if I'm doing the maths right (which in probably not) if I can get down to £165k that would give me 80% LTV at its current value (though hopefully it'll keep slowly rising I'm not going to rely on that) I was thinking of trying to get to 80% LTV by the end of the fixed term. 31/12/16 but that could be pushing the goals too far

Newme2014

just cashed out £26.00 from a survey site, saw i last redeemed £30 back in 2010, not great figures but then when i saw i joined in 2006, £56 in 9 years, thats about 50p a month, got about £20 waiting on other sites, it will all help but 50p-£1 a month isn't great. Going to see if i can up this to at least £3pm, i know its not a huge target but i dont always get much time for surveys and clicks. thinking if i can sit down for 30 min to an hr a day with the laptop and then have my phone doing swag tv i should get there.