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Bluefire

Luckyinlife wrote: »

Great job i myself have a lloyds account have 5k in the club lloyds saver get about £12 a month interest not a huge amount but thats £124 a year which in my case knocks off £500 in interest off my mortgage and 2 months off my term every year :] not bad for just keeping an account with mony in it

i always sell on ebay love it really enjoy makeing some money back on stuff iv enjoyed over the years :] good luck

I will need the luck; I get so easily frustrated when it comes to selling things on eBay, which is why the 'to sell' pile is always so high. Going to try local Facebook for sale sites first & see if I can shift some things that way. No fees to pay then either!

The Club Lloyds account is the one we've just opened for DH, we're hoping to do the same with the interest. It's amazing how much time & money these extra payments save you. Unfortunately I don't have quite enough put aside to do the same; the £2000 I have is made up of a £1000 emergency fund and savings for a holiday to Florida I have booked with my Mum at the end of the year. Hoping to spend very little of it though once I'm actually over there!

Luckyinlife

Ya with ebay i just list few things a week and let them run if they dont sell they just get re listed free anyway

Ya the lloyds account is good better than nothing
I see im the same tho always on day trips with my boy and spending on stuff to enjoy when good plan to have the emergency fund im self employed myself so feel the need to have at least a year worth of bills saved up at a time

Florida sounds great im going to go away now in a year or 2 myself :]

sarahevie1

Facebook selling sites are great, I buy most things on them. Usually local, easy pick up too

Bluefire

I've asked to join the MFW 2015 thread so that meant setting some goals. Decided it couldn't hurt to push ourselves a little, so last night I used the mortgage spreadsheet I've created to work out how much we'd need to overpay each month to clear the debt by the end of 2017. Taking into account the overpayments made yesterday, our yearly goals are as follows.

2015 - £8500
2016 - £4800
2017 - £4800

Keeping my fingers crossed that we may be able to afford another £1000 overpayment at the end of the month thanks to the yearly bonus DH received, but that will depend on if he decides to purchase the new fencing we need or not.

Off to do some research into a new BTL mortgage for the rental property now.

Luckyinlife

Bluefire wrote: »

I've asked to join the MFW 2015 thread so that meant setting some goals. Decided it couldn't hurt to push ourselves a little, so last night I used the mortgage spreadsheet I've created to work out how much we'd need to overpay each month to clear the debt by the end of 2017. Taking into account the overpayments made yesterday, our yearly goals are as follows.

2015 - £8500
2016 - £4800
2017 - £4800

Keeping my fingers crossed that we may be able to afford another £1000 overpayment at the end of the month thanks to the yearly bonus DH received, but that will depend on if he decides to purchase the new fencing we need or not.

Off to do some research into a new BTL mortgage for the rental property now.

great targets :] youll smash this in no time fencing can wait till your MF :] i say that as i just bought some blocks for a wall myself hehe

Bluefire

Luckyinlife wrote: »

fencing can wait till your MF :]

Ideally yes but unfortunately I don't think the neighbours would agree - our side wall actually came down in part last year but DH never got around to finishing it, so it looks a bit of a mess! Will be worth it in the end though, we're claiming back a good metre or so of land that our neighbours have kindly used as a dumping ground at the end of their front garden over the years. Slightly bigger garden for the win!

Bluefire

Keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow evening will go as planned & we'll be able to remortgage the rented property to the new 2 year deal I found yesterday - 2.35% instead of the 3.79% we're currently paying, so even with the £199 fee to pay we'll save just over £1500 in interest. It also means the monthly payments that come out of the rent will drop, so instead of being able to pay £250 off the residential mortgage here each month we should be able to manage £300.

Bluefire

Starting to put together a SOA, and already this week we've made a couple of changes which should save us around £30-£35 in the budget next month.

Firstly we've cancelled our TalkTalk account which somewhere along the line had started to cost us over £25 a month on average. On the advice of MSE we're giving EE a try & paying the line rental a year in advance, for which the £132 will come out what's left in the bank for this month. From then on our bill should hopefully be £2.50 p/m, plus any chargeable calls which we'll try to keep to a minimum.

Secondly, and admittedly this would be a bit extreme for some, but we've cancelled our TV license. I can count the number of programmes we watch 'live' on one hand, and for the sake of waiting until Doctor Who is uploaded onto iPlayer I'd rather save the £12 a month! DH popped the end off the aerial lead yesterday so there's no chance we'll forget.

Bluefire

I'd forgotten how addictive overpaying is. I can't remember ever looking forward to the end of the month so much as I know I'll be able to empty the bank accounts then!

The good news is DH got accepted for a new position today! He applied on a whim as the temporary position he currently has has yet to be advertised, but now that he's got the job his colleagues are urging him to take it. I think he'd prefer to stay where he is, but it's a risk without knowing for sure that he'll be made permanent after re-applying. I'm happy to support him whatever he decides.

In other news, what I'm not so happy about at the moment is my failure to convince DH to use the money we currently have in premium bonds as an overpayment. In the last 3 years we've won a grand total of £50. Will be giving it another go tonight backed up by some MSE fact & figures...

Luckyinlife

Ah the old premium bonds debate hehe
if you havens won a lot try taking them out and reinvesting them to get new numbers
iv had 4k in there for few months and won £25 £50 in 3 years is well below average tho :[