Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

shangaijimmy

Humdinger1 said:

@shangaijimmy thrilled to see you posting again! Can I add to the tales of dog redemption?! Our 15 month old pup ran into a metal cattle trough hidden by long grass. Was on a ventilator for nearly 1 week, on and off; couldn't even stand.  We went to say goodbye to him after 10 days of hell and what do you know, he'd taken a major step forward that very morning! Now breathing alone, on his legs; we collect him on Friday! The vets say it's a miracle and so do we!!  Before we got him, I was a cat person but am totally in love with the glorious pup.  So delighted that you are back and with such splendid news Humdinger 

So glad to hear that your pup is a tough little fighter. These dogs don't half put us all through the wringer!

shangaijimmy

Baileys_Babe said:

Thanks, @shangaijimmy for posting your graph and notes, it is making me review our finances and see what tweaks we want to make and those we need to do.

Stealing thoughts, ideas, inspiration, motivation and reducing the urge to procrastinate is the greatest thing about the forums. We are only where we are because of the confidence this site gave me to take control. Small tweaks, being flexible and picking off the low hanging fruit are major tools for us.

savingholmes said:

Thanks for sharing your graph. It's fascinating seeing how others divide their money up. Always thought provoking.

Hope your DW gets a decent settlement.

Thanks Saving. My plan is to break down each segment a little further. As for Mrs SJ's pay offers...with every round that gets rejected I'm imagining which pot the cash will replenish, and at the same time another price-hike takes hold and we're back to the same point!!

Ooh, how much do I love a good graph!? 

Thanks to your helpful technology knowledge!

shangaijimmy

A few things to report I suppose. £10.17 overpaid from our round up pot for the week.

Then the dreaded pet insurance requotes have come through. Amazingly pooch number 1 who we've had a significant claim for has only gone up £2 a month. Its a lifetime policy so we were needing to stay with them anyway. And then pooch number 2 has actually gone down by £1.50 a month. So given our experiences this year with the amazing treatments that are now possible, we'll increase the amount he's covered for per condition for an extra 50p that we were paying this last 2 months. Very pleasantly surprised and delighted that I don't have to do the insurance quotes 'dance'.

In terms of our savings we've adjusted our pots recently. Much of it was to streamline our number of accounts to be honest, but also as interest rates have finally started to increase a little I wanted to make sure I wasn't caught last out of the stalls! (I'll make a point of listing what and where our savings pots are)

Cheery_Daff

Excellent pet insurance news, so pleased to hear your recovering dog story. They do touch our hearts, don't they? (In our case it's chickens 🙄😂 Not really practical to insure, and fortunately there's a limited to the amount the vet can do, so there's a limit to the amount of vets bills you can rack up, although we seem to have pushed right up to that limit 🙄)

I too love seeing how people divide up their dosh, and learning from other people on here is always prompting me to do more. Never occurred to me to work out the new LTV of the mortgage, for example! It was about 49% I think when we bought the house about 4.5 years ago. I'll check tomorrow, and base it on the bank's own estimate from the mortgage statement at the end of last year I think, in the absence of anything more concrete. Hopefully it's changed a reasonable amount, although we're not overpaying at the minute, trying to build savings back up first.

shangaijimmy

Cheery_Daff said:

Never occurred to me to work out the new LTV of the mortgage, for example! It was about 49% I think when we bought the house about 4.5 years ago. I'll check tomorrow, and base it on the bank's own estimate from the mortgage statement at the end of last year I think, in the absence of anything more concrete. Hopefully it's changed a reasonable amount, although we're not overpaying at the minute, trying to build savings back up first.

That for me is the great thing about data, and numbers. There's literally something else to count or to use for motivation and setting targets. As as we achieve one thing we quickly move onto another set of data.

Made a little OP of 57p this morning which rounded down our current account balance. These OP's are the only ones we make at the moment as all our other spare cash is thrown at the S&S Isa. This pot is classed as our mortgage neutral, emergency fund or pre retirement pot!!

savingholmes

Thanks Cheery and Jimmy. I didn't know that banks put their house valuation on the mortgage statement - will be interesting to see whether mine does when I get my first one from this provider.

shangaijimmy

I'm pretty certain ours is only on the initial load agreement. Our last 2 remortgages have been with the same bank so we've pretty much only had the 'desktop' valuations from 2016 onwards, And I reckon I could have done it myself just by logging onto zoopla!

Whilst its made me think on...our next remortgage is just under 2 yrs and anything could be happening by then...Hopefully our valuation will have gone up, but it won't make any difference on LTV and therefore products that are available. However working on the 18year property cycle we could be at that point of a house price crash, so who knows!

savingholmes

Why wouldn't it change LTV? I would expect it to.

Mine last Autumn went with a really low desktop valuation which wasn't great at all and completely ignored market rises.

Cheery_Daff

savingholmes said:

Thanks Cheery and Jimmy. I didn't know that banks put their house valuation on the mortgage statement - will be interesting to see whether mine does when I get my first one from this provider.

I don't think it's anything technical, probably just a set percentage increase from the time we bought it. 

In fact, I've just checked the document and can't see it anywhere!! What on earth am I thinking of - I was convinced it was there! 🙄

shangaijimmy

savingholmes said:

Why wouldn't it change LTV? I would expect it to.

Mine last Autumn went with a really low desktop valuation which wasn't great at all and completely ignored market rises.

Apologies, I mean that with our LTV being so low (27% ish) that the valuation won't drop us into a different bracket with better and more remortgage products being available.