K&L's 2016 FTB deposit & round the world travel savings diary

Hutchch0920

Hmmm so I've got something like £60 for the next 14 days to get me from work and back and pay my £20 phone bill. This is doable if I commit to cycling the days that I can. If I get another £4 in tasks on Roamler then I can cash out £20 and that will make life easier. Also got a couple of eBay sales going through which I can post tomorrow.

Basically I bought Kefka a PS4 for between now and November and joined the gym (couldn't get round the £20 joining fee) so that's all my disposable cash gone for the month!

We've got £55 in our current account for food, think that should be fine. I don't regularly get Abel and Cole boxes but every few months they'll send a discount voucher so I've got a half price box being delivered next week - £11 for 9 different fruit and veg selections. Doubt this is cheaper than Aldi but it's nice for a treat :-) We also had a 60% off Gousto box, 4 meals for 2 for £16. Was nice to try a few recipes (I'm a bit unimaginative when it comes to cooking) but even at 60% off I thought it was expensive and since OH is bulking (putting on muscle) the portions did need some padding out in places!

I am planning to talk to my housemate about whether we can AirBnB the spare room while it is vacant. I don't know if he'll go for it. I was going to suggest a profit split between all three of us, but perhaps he will object to it seeing as it's his brother's house. Guess I won't know until I ask.

Skint_yet_Again

I am new to saving and have just read your blog and wanted to say well done on how you handled the situation with your MIL and well done on the savings.


Congrats on getting engaged and hope you have a fab time on your travels.

Hutchch0920

Hey Skint Again :j

Funny day today, sold something on ebay for £1.20, postage £2.85. My colleague was going to the post office so I asked her to post it for me and wrote 2nd class on the corner. She comes back and gives me the receipt.....posted it signed for....£3.95 :rotfl: after ebay fees that's a loss haha

Got to Aldi and the milk is priced as £1.39 on the shelf but rings through the till at £1.45 so they refund me the 6p aha

Hutchch0920

I've been listening to a really interesting podcast called Meaningful Money. One of the things that really struck me was that if your money is not earning the equivalent of CPI/RPI then you are essentially losing money because it will be worth less the further into the future we go.

Our Nationwide Regular Savers (5%) are coming to an end on the 24th and I am at a bit of a loss for what to do next. I am keen to invest our house deposit (£18k) which we wont need for the next 2-3 years. Off the back of the performance of my pension so far I am interested in opening a stocks and shares ISA. Because of my age I opted for high risk profiles so they are mostly 4/5 or 5/5 and it's earned 14% when I compare deposit vs value.

Given the medium term length of my planned house deposit investment I would choose lower risk funds so I guess would expect a return of 5-10%. If that was not viable, I'd look at the Ratesetter ISA and lock the cash in for a year at around 4%.

More research needed before any decisions are made. I just feel like having it largely in one place will be easier to manage. Plus applying for new bank accounts to take advantage of 3% here and 4% there is such a faff. Everywhere requires proof of address etc and since we are living bills included, and I have paperless banking it's a pain proving where I live.

savingwannabe

I've always been scared of stocks and shares isas as I am worried they will lose money and I might end up with less than I invested. I am risk averse. I will find this podcast and listen.:j

It is good that you are researching. I reckon should put this post on the thread for investments in the other boards. An expert can give you advice.

Hutchch0920

Hi SW, :wave:

In the end I spent about half a day using TrustNet to narrow down the different options available. I decided on the AXA platform as MSE had negotiated one year fee-free for us :money: I then chose one of their "All in One" funds (the Architas) and then opted for a slightly lower risk multi asset fund (the Fidelity).

Architas MA Blended Moderate S Acc (charges 0.76%)
Fidelity Mlti Ast Inc Y A £ (charges 1.13%)

Since listening more to the podcast it suggests that the main portion of the holdings should be in passive funds so I will need to look into this more and will probably buy a further £500-1000 in the coming months to balance it out.

I've also got Chris to set up a Ratesetter and loaned £1,000 to be eligible for the £100 welcome and my £50 referral. It's loaned out at 4.5% so in a year's time that will have made 19.5%! Obviously if we loan more that will go down, but it is still an incredible return. Hopefully it doesn't all go belly up :rotfl:

Can't wait for Friday and payday! I don't think I've done as well this month, money seems to have disappeared for no reason. I need to be more accountable next month. Every £1 counts. For every £60 we save, that's an extra day travelling!

savingwannabe

This sounds fabulous. Your investments are a bit complex for me but the returns sound great.

Blimey £60 a day it was really cheap when i travelled in the olden days but i only went to youth hostels and they used to be cheap and this was ages ago. It really will be a trip of a lifetime I am so envious.

Hutchch0920

Just came back on today to report my success with the deposit protection scheme.

Our landlord from our previous address levied several charges against our deposit, a few of which I did not agree with. We went through the adjudication process and I received the decision today which is

Hutchch £36
Landlord £7

Although they did not agree with some of the arguments I had put forward, the landlord also failed to establish why the charges were so, allowing the adjudicator to largely rule in my favour.

I now need to read up on the process for taking our current landlord through the small claims court for breach of contract. I do not believe that our current deposit has been protected and know we could be awarded up to 3 times the value of it if that is the case. But I have no idea of the process and whether we would need to be in the country to do this. I also don't want to do it until we're about to move out as his brother also lives in the house and I see that it has the potential to get a bit nasty.

savingwannabe

omg. That sounds so stressful. I am glad you got some money back. I hope someone can give you advice. Good luck.

Hutchch0920

OH and I have reviewed our budget for the month. Last month we didn't do too well, partly because we bought his flights for our holiday, and also partly because he's 'bulking' at the moment and basically eating me out of house and home. So I've asked him to contribute more to food this month and take it out of his 'lifestyle' budget.

eBay has gone really dead. I don't know if it's because I've now got a negative and then a neutral in a row? One item Royal Mail lost and the second I couldn't send as I hadn't realised it was damaged until I packed it! :-|

Anyway our target for savings this month is £1250....it is do-able but we need to keep a close eye on the food and lifestyle budgets and not overspend.

ps SW ...on the £60 a day thing, I reckon some of the day will be much cheaper, if all we're doing is eating and admiring the view, but it's stuff like hot air ballooning in Bagan that will really push the budget up!