Mortgage free by 2021?!

hiddenshadow

smallholdingsister wrote: »

Ha ha. My French vegetarian option at a wedding was a steaming pile of steamed vegetables covered in chicken gravy.

Nice! Sounds like the French.

Last summer's work trip I ordered a salad and specifically said both "without gluten" and "without bread". I was (rather snottily) assured that all of their salads are "without gluten"...it arrived covered in toast. So yeah, not so much.

At least this trip there was a new co-worker who's got similar dietary restrictions and is French himself, so he was helpful in really clarifying our needs. (I'm fine with getting the basics across but can't remember/don't know all the words for "avoid this ingredient, and this cooking process" and so on.) Still not much for either of us to eat, because work apparently doesn't think about/mind that our options are so limited, but better than getting sick.

hiddenshadow

Ali-OK wrote: »

Hope you feel better soon

I've started drinking hot water with honey and fresh lemon as a daily anti-bacterial/help digestion/help lose weight (allegedly) quicker. Has perked up my body in a week.

Thanks! Might try that if we can get some lemons.

Good to find and allocate the £2k too.

It was definitely a pleasant surprise. Should mean that we don't have to pause OPs for too long post-car buying to keep our various 5% interest current accounts topped up.

Thanks for sharing on the stoozing, think that's off my agenda too now with the new rate and I quite like my empty CCs after my DFW journey!

Yeah, I found stoozing a bit stressful. Not because we didn't have the money to pay it off, but having the big debt number was annoying, even if the mortgage debt number had gone down by an equal number. I've been eyeing the no-fee AA 22-month offer, but will wait a few more months for our credit reports to settle down after all the bank account applying/opening.

Happy car shopping Usually found them cheaper by going further north.

BIL lives about 150 miles north of us - still not really "north" (as I understand British geography), but firmly out of the greater London/south-east bubble anyway.

shangaijimmy

I'm firmly in the "anything lower than Manchester are classed as Southerner brigade"!!!!

hiddenshadow

More musing on cars...listened to a money podcast yesterday about how debt isn't necessarily evil if it's low cost, or saves time, or "sparks joy" (not what they said, but the Kondo equivalent!).

I completely agree, even though gut-feeling wise I loathe debt. We're paying for our kitchen over 2 years because it was 0% - no reason not to. I've stoozed credit cards, provided they're no-fee 0% (so free to shift the money around).

We've currently got 3k earmarked for a car, and I'm fairly confident we can find something for that price (and/or when we're ready to actually shop, we'll be closer to 4k saved). Just for fun I plugged in 4k and 2 years into a loan comparison site and it came back with a 4.5% loan which would cost £4,186.32 over the 2 years.

Because I'm extra geeky (and love spreadsheets) I calculated what the 4k (minus the payments on the loan over the 24 months) would earn in interest over 2 years. Total savings: £159.56 (if we could keep 5% for 2 years) or £150.59 (if 1 year on 5% and 1 year on 4%).

That brings the total cost of the loan to £26.76-35.73. That seems a no-brainer over 2 years for the chance to keep that £4k available for anything else that might come up (positive opportunity or negative expense) during that time.

Will keep pondering (as I'm guessing it'll be a few weeks before we're ready to buy anything anyway), but definitely food for thought...

Ali-OK

That's stopped me in my tracks as yes, a no brainer and why I am going to empty 5% & 4% accounts to pay for mine when I perhaps should be looking at 3.6% on offer at my bank.....

I've got some more number crunching to do!

hiddenshadow

Ali-OK wrote: »

That's stopped me in my tracks as yes, a no brainer and why I am going to empty 5% & 4% accounts to pay for mine when I perhaps should be looking at 3.6% on offer at my bank.....

I've got some more number crunching to do!

I know! It's tough to get out of the "must be debt free" mindset, but sometimes debt can be a handy/sensible option for cash flow or just pure numbers (the extra 0.4-1.4% interest in your case).

Seems weird to contemplate a car loan again, as when I paid off my last car loan I swore to never finance a car again. Suppose there is that saying about "always" and "never" statements... :cool:

hiddenshadow

Thanks for posting about the rate, Ali - prompted me to check our banks and we wouldn't get as nice a rate only borrowing 4k, but if we go up to 7k it would be 3.4%.

Thanks to the lower interest rate the cost of the loan would still be ~£25-30 over 2 years, and we'd either be able to buy a more expensive car (doubt we would as we don't need much) or we could open a third N@tionwide account and throw £2,500 in there to earn 5% as well.

Seems this is how the credit crisis happened - more money for less interest? Yes, please! Good thing I'm only contemplating 4-figure amounts!

Ali-OK

Definitely go for the amount needed to get best rate and squirrel the rest at a higher rate or pay that chunk back immediately if it's a flexible one

I've got a Yes and 30 days to take it.... :eek:

Scarily it only took 2 minutes :eek:

Just going to check how they apply/take interest...used to front load it so capital didn't get paid off years ago..shows how long since I've had one :eek:

hiddenshadow

Just checked and FD allows overpayments and uses them to reduce the interest, so presumably no front-loading there.

I see a plan forming!

shangaijimmy

You can certainly see how those undisciplined ones could get into trouble! A bit too daring for me I'm afraid, even though I totally get he figures and logic!