It's a long and winding road

TwentySomethingGirl

I keep thinking that I should be doing more with our money. It's all in interest paying accounts of some kind but I wonder if I should try investing or P2P lending. We don't have massive amounts to invest but I wonder if it is worth dipping a toe in the water.

mrsp1987

TwentySomethingGirl wrote: »

I keep thinking that I should be doing more with our money. It's all in interest paying accounts of some kind but I wonder if I should try investing or P2P lending. We don't have massive amounts to invest but I wonder if it is worth dipping a toe in the water.

I've got £300 invested in Funding Circle spread out over I think 13 different investments. Currently I'm getting about 7% back, but your money is tied up for quite a while.
I don't know anything about any other platforms though.

TwentySomethingGirl

Will have to have a think about the investing. Not too sure DH would go for it, I don't think he'd cope very well with not having access to the money.


Does anyone know if you can get an estate agent to value your property without having to sell, or pay a fee?

mrsp1987

TwentySomethingGirl wrote: »

Will have to have a think about the investing. Not too sure DH would go for it, I don't think he'd cope very well with not having access to the money.


Does anyone know if you can get an estate agent to value your property without having to sell, or pay a fee?

Some estate agents do free valuations but as far as I know its usually just an offer that they run for a set time to try and get some extra business through the door. I don't know if there are any particular 'chains', you know like, Purple Bricks that do them as standard.
Might be worth having a look for your local EA and seeing if they have any offers on at the moment.

TwentySomethingGirl

I'll have to think about the valuation. We're going to decorate over Easter so might get it done after that. I think it will need to be revalued at the re-mortgage because I think it's gone up enough to put us below 70% LTV.


In good news, I'm getting a refund from a water bill that I pay for a relative of £215 because they massively over estimated the usage. I'm not sure if any/how much of it will go to OPs or savings yet. I'm leaning towards savings so might put £150-175 in savings and the rest as an OP.

Watty1

We had our property valued a few years ago under the guise of selling and had a letter with their recommendations but clearly saying the valuation was not to be used as a formal valuation in respect of money advice or divorce proceedings blah de blah. It suited us because we were 'thinking over' options at the time and our property is unusual and so it helped having an agent in.
Some mortgage lenders will do their own valuation though. I know we had one done for our other house which is currently let out and that was covered by the lender.

turtlemoose

If you can ditch the help to buy part, Notionwide are good at consent to let, which is generally cheaper than full on BTL mortgage. When I did that, I paid a £30 application fee which got me 3 years consent to let. They said they'd charge me an extra 1% interest after 6 months but they never did.

TwentySomethingGirl

The optimist in me hopes that if we can overpay enough on the mortgage to make it possible to add at least half the HTB loan onto the mortgage this year, then when the next fix is up convert it all to a BTL mortgage or remortgage again to pay off the other half and then consent to let, and buy a house somewhere. That is all very dependant on how savings and OPs go, and the optimist is quickly quietened by the realist in me.


I was trying to find out today who you actually pay the loan back to. It's the Homes and Communities Agency. I assume if paid through remortgage then the bank will just transfer the money to them, not sure how you go about paying it if you had the cash though...not a problem we have to deal with just yet, I was just curious.

TwentySomethingGirl

How many bank accounts are too many? I have a system that I feel works but DH thinks it's too many accounts...we have:
1 standard [EMAIL="S@ntander"]S@ntander[/EMAIL] account (my old account I've had for ages)
1 123 account (bills account, cashback for DDs)
1 N/Wide flex direct (his old account, also used for monthly spending & gets interest)
1 N/Wide 5% reg saver
1 TSB 5% account, currently full
1 [EMAIL="H@lifax"]H@lifax[/EMAIL] reward account that just has 2 small DDs and the required amount paid in and then removed again
I also have a couple of e savers that are birthday and Christmas savings for my nephews in lieu of gifts but I don't consider these to be my accounts.
The reason I ask is because I'm going to be applying for a 0% credit card, having just cancelled my 123 one, and I'm going to save the money spent on the card in yet another account, so it earns interest and is there should the card need to be paid off. I was thinking of another TSB account.
Does this seem too much? There are reasons for having all of them and it helps me keep it clear in my mind. I also worry that it looks bad when we go for re-mortgage. Only 3 of the accounts have over drafts so the others shouldn't have triggered credit checks...

TwentySomethingGirl

So I just had a twang of (sad) excitement. Our mortgage is with N/Wide, I can't remember the log on details for the account so I use the card reader. I do know the log on details to the Santander account, and have just googled and found out that there is a standard sort code and account number, with the mortgage account number as a roll number, that I can use to make payments so I can send money from accounts other than the N/Wide one. It seemed like a lot of faff to have to send money from one current account to another and then to the mortgage so I'm quite pleased now. Will try a very small amount to make sure it works first.