FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

TallGirl wrote: »

Sounds like you are getting some fab holidays in at those prices. I agree holidays are what you make them and they should be for the children two. I wanted to ask your opinion as I am planning a family break for my big 40 next year and my sister kids will be 6 and 3 next year so close to yours in age. I had originally planned a 3 night break at a sports/activity hotel in Devon as we love going there and play golf. It is full board and quite cheap for drinks etc.

There are children's activities but it is mainly sport and crafts. I am also going to invite my mum and dad so would be someone to look after the kids not just their mum and dad. Bearing in mind these kids don't speak English do you think it would work? Would I be better off booking a holiday cottage somewhere for everyone to stay at and we can then go out and do our own activities.
I have no kids so hope you don't mind me asking.

@TallGirl – you’re the same age as me! Why did I think you were older? Your diary clearly states: Mortgage free before I’m 40. Think I’m loosing it. A thousand apologies.

Back to your question…

My daughter was 3 last week. She got a fair amount of presents off family and friends and she sometimes enjoys the cheaper presents and can just plays with the boxes. She struggles to maintain her interest in any one subject for a long length of time, but I think that’s just how she is at present rather than her age.

As for our 5 year old, he really enjoys sports and crafts. We can’t go past a crazy golf when on holiday without him wanting a go. He has a very good attention span, he will try things and now wants to do things that daughter isn’t interested in!

Sounds as if there will be enough adults so that everyone can get some time to do their own thing, while someone does an activity / keeps an eye on the kids. Think it will work out – it’s just a bit of a balancing act to keep everyone happy.

As for a cottage – we’re stayed in one in the Lake District before, but there was quite a few of the immediate family – 12 or so if I remember. Potential problem here is that you tend not to get as much personal space to retreat to as you would a hotel – depends on how you get on with your family and sister – pretty well I guess if you’re inviting her in the first place!

Hope that helps…
FB.

financialbliss

The site I use to get the Halifax HPI was updated today, so here's the picture as of June:

2008 year end house value: 232,022.54

Month: Change / Value / LTV

January: 1,990.83 / 234,013.37 / 24.94%
February: 859.68 / 233,153.69 / 24.63%
March: 3,167.24 / 229,986.45 / 24.65%
April: 135.73 / 230,122.18 / 24.20%
May: 5,474.79 / 235,596.97 / 23.29%
June: 3,031.50 / 232,565.47 / 23.18%

So June saw a reduction in value of £3,031.50 or £101.50 per day :eek:

YTD net change is up by £542.63 - at least it's an increase.

I manually log in to our internet banking each Sunday and grab a snapshot of the mortgage. In doing this I can average out the mortgage value for any given month and therefore compare the mortgage (loan) to the value - ie the LTV. Dropping slowly but steadily, but there again, so is the value.

Financial Bliss.

SwitchyChick

FB - I'm sure you & the family will have a fab time at Haggerston Castle. We stayed near here last October half-term. Fortunately we were blessed with good weather, although DH & DD managed to shred the kite we took because it was pretty windy.

We found eating out in this part of the world pretty expensive but I'm sure you'll have done plenty of research by then!

financialbliss

SwitchyChick wrote: »

FB - I'm sure you & the family will have a fab time at Haggerston Castle.

We found eating out in this part of the world pretty expensive but I'm sure you'll have done plenty of research by then!

Hi Switchy,
Yes, here's hoping we have a great time too. Just over a week until our first holiday near Great Yarmouth. We've hoping to stop off at Peterborough to see a friend on the way there to extend the break, so we're starting to look forward to this.

As for eating out - thanks for the tip. The day before our son started nursery in September 2007, we found out he had a peanut allergy. We have been told it's a relatively mild allergy, but still we're quite careful when eating out.

I've grown to hate food labelling:

"Contains nuts"
Hello, which nuts exactly?

"Product made in a factory handling nuts"
Again, which nuts please?

"May contain peanuts" or "May contain traces of nuts"
You what? You control the manufacturing process and you can't tell me if your product contains peanuts or not.

And the list goes on. Mainly to cover themselves I guess. Do share if you have seen any nut labelling similar to the above.

But finally, this is the best one. based on precise labelling such as the above (not), Mrs Bliss has started a diary holding a list of things we know our son can eat. She has been telephoning / emailing various supermarkets, manufacturers etc.

ASDA very kindly emailed a 44 page extensive PDF file "Asda brand products that do not contain nuts.PDF", which you would think held a nut safe list of products.

In questioning in the listing the item: Roasted Peanuts in Shell 400g ASDA kindly emailed back to us that the document has now been withdrawn and the relevant parties have been informed. :eek:

Manufacturers - please, sort out your labelling... :mad:

Oops drifted off topic. Feel better now though :rotfl:

Financial Bliss.

financialbliss

Can anyone remember what they were doing on 9th July 1987?

I was just a young lad at 17, but it was memorable for me, as this was the day I passed my driving test. First time too! Was 22 years ago yesterday.

Was going to pull something together last night in relation to cars, but was tired and turned in instead. So, let’s have a go this evening.

Fuel.
We keep getting told that there’s a lack of refining capacity in the UK for diesel fuel. Since purchasing a diesel car in 2007, diesel has no longer been “the other fuel” and I keep an eye on the local prices via petrolprices.com. Until very recently diesel was 5 to 10p more expensive than unleaded, but I noticed the other week that diesel has become cheaper locally at 100.9p/ltr compared to 101.9/ltr for unleaded.

ASDA have started a price war, as reported by thisismoney:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bargains-and-rip-offs/motoring/article.html?in_article_id=488399&in_page_id=53949&ct=5

so when we come to do our next fill up, we should hopefully get it for sub-£1.

Car service / MOT.
Last time I got our car serviced (2.2ltr diesel), I used a local independent garage rather than a main dealer. For it’s first MOT, however I used the dealership in case any problems could be fixed under the remainder of the 3 year warranty.

Today, I’ve had the car in for a full service and MOT at the independent garage I used last time. Cost was £189.20. It broke down as follows:

Parts : 74.20
Oil disposal : 5.00
MOT test : 45.00
Labour : 65.00

* Parts being: oil, oil and fuel filters, motor flush and diesel treatment. £27.00 was oil.

Didn’t think that was too bad a price. Garage sub-contracts MOT to another local company. From the DirectGov site:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/Mot/DG_4022514

It suggests a MOT test should be £54.00 Not 100% sure I was charged £45.00 Local companies touting for business - loss leader with cheaper MOT price?

Breakdown cover.
In the 22 years I have been driving, I’ve never taken our breakdown cover. With doing a 270 mile (one way) trip to Great Yarmouth plus having small children and the car not getting any younger, we have been looking at breakdown cover.

I know afsha (post #1058) suggested RAC combined with quidco for breakdown cover, but we found Green Flag to be cheaper based on the options we wanted.

This morning we purchased the Green Flag recovery plus breakdown cover for £70.35 – with a quidco cash back of £25, this should bring the total to £45.35 or £3.78 a month.

I know this is MSE and that you can get an on-line only breakdown policy for between £24 and £43, but as I've never done this before, I felt we could afford to pay the little extra to purchase a policy off a company we had actually heard of.

Not sure if this is now going to be a normal expenditure we will need to start budgeting for, but for this year with 3 holidays and more driving than the norm, we have opted for it for peace of mind.

Financial Bliss.

abouttimetoo

Hi FB

I've been with Green Flag for about 10 years and have used them a number of times and always had excellent service in everyway, e.g. calls answered quickly, response times excellent.

They also offer money if they don't meet their call out time, off the top of my head it's £10 no questions asked if they are late. I had to do this once and they were only a few minutes late so I felt a bit mean doing it but they send the cheque almost by return of post.

RosieTiger

Buy your own oil and take it to the garage - they will oncharge at least double the rate they pay for it.

financialbliss

Just a quick note, similar to that posted on the MFiT-T2 thread.

Just about rounded off the packing for holiday. Off to Peterborough very shortly, then off to Great Yarmouth come Monday, just in case anyone is wondering why this diary has gone quiet.

Back on Monday 27th July.

Financial Bliss.

financialbliss

Back home now. Lots of jobs to catch up on, washing, lawns to cut, post to sort out - the usual. Hoping to keep posting throughout this week as I'm not back at work until next Monday, but here's some car stats from the journey:

Home to Peterborough:
Time: 4hrs 15m
Distance: 13.6m
Average speed: 50.3mph
MPG: 48.8

Peterborough to Great Yarmouth:
Time: 3hrs 06m
Distance: 126.7m
Average speed: 40.8mph
MPG: 51.1

Great Yarmouth to home:
Time: 6hrs 13m
Distance: 308.1m
Average speed: 49.5mph
MPG: 48.5

Figures don't quite stack up as we went different ways to and back plus stopped off more on the way back due to it being a longer journey. Also yesterday we got stuck in rush hour morning traffic.

FB.

ShelleyC_2

Welcome back. I was in Yarmouth on a day trip last week - we got drowned in downpour. Hope you got some sunshine too!

Wish my car did MPG anywhere near that :rolleyes: