FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

Just mopping up a few earlier posts I intended to reply to - I do read and digest every post, even if I don't reply the same day...

chirpchirp wrote: »

Hi FB

Have you taken a look at Lloyds regular saver, not sure if they are still offering 5% or not.

However, after tax has been taken off the 5% you are probably better just paying it direct to your mortgage.

Chirpchip,
Intended to look at this a bit sooner, but it appears the Lloyds TSB has also been dropped to 2%:
http://www.lloydstsb.com/savings/monthly_saver.asp

But they dropped it in September anyway, so I have well and truly missed out.

SmlSave wrote: »

Any news from Quidco on your breakdown cover?

SmlSave,
Thanks for asking. Now that I have lodged an enquiry, the transaction is showing as pending, although I understand it can later be declined. Quidco also showing payment speed as being slow at 5 months, so I don't expect to see this until next year.

FB.

chirpchirp

Hi FB

Lloyds are still doing their Vantage current account though which will give you upto 5% dependent on how much you have in the account and if you can feed it with £1000 a month.

RosieTiger

Congratulations on the sub 50 !

financialbliss

Mortgage tip. Buy things out of season – they could be cheaper…

Rationale

Well we have just done that. I’ll explain:

Christmas presents – if you have kids you will notice that you can get all sorts of “cheap” moulded plastic tat that is a sorry excuse for a child's toy and typically costs an arm and a leg – I’ve been watching too many of James May’s Toy stories I think. :rolleyes:

Anyway, we tend not to spend too much on the kids and limit their main present to about the £40 - £50 mark. Other presents plus presents from grandparents and other family members make for a happy Christmas, plus if you start spending low, you can increase the budget as they get older, but if you start high, you’re onto an automatic expectation of an expensive prezzie…

We have been scratching our collective heads for two present ideas, for our two little darlings but have been struggling. In the summer we went to a christening and at the get together afterwards there was a trampoline. We couldn’t get our kids off it. :eek:

So, a bit of research later and we were looking at an 8ft for £79.99 + VAT, ie £91.99 or 10ft one for £89.99 plus (12.49 postage from an internet company). We opted for the 10ft making the bill £102.49, but then found a discount code for the company giving us a £4.50 reduction making the inc. postage price of £97.98. Said trampoline arrived today after placing order just last Sunday.

To our surprise, it had an Argos catalogue code of 368/2054 despite not ordering from Argos, which is this product:

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?storeId=10001&catalogId=1500001801&langId=-1&searchTerms=3682054&Submit=GO+%3E

Argos have this on sale for £179.99 plus £5.80 postage (£185.79), so we made a saving of £87.81. Guess that is because a trampoline is probably not the first thing on your mind in the run up to Christmas?

Ok, they may not get any use of it in the few weeks after Christmas, snow, cold etc, but as a joint present at about £43.90 each, they should get a many years usage from it and hopefully will last longer than the plastic tat they call “toys” these days that cost just as much, if not more.

How is everyone else doing for Christmas? Money saving tips?

Financial Bliss

financialbliss

financialbliss wrote: »

Mortgage tip. Buy things out of season – they could be cheaper…

Doh - reason for post - you then put savings towards mortgage in case you hadn't worked that out, or buy more presents with the savings, or whatever floats your boat.

FB.

setmefree2

Great bargain.:T

black_taxi_2

FB---your 3 year journey till MF starts next month--as with others that have joined your thread.

your stats are a great help for keeping motovation high

have you ever been mortgage free before--ie. re-mortgaged?

once you are mortgage free--where will you commit your financial thoughts?savings?

all the best

financialbliss

black_taxi wrote: »

FB---your 3 year journey till MF starts next month--as with others that have joined your thread.

have you ever been mortgage free before--ie. re-mortgaged?

once you are mortgage free--where will you commit your financial thoughts?savings?

Hi BT,
We got our last mortgage down to £4k before we sold the house, so pretty close. This time around, I either need a minor miracle or something close, as based on our current £1,100 a month towards the mortgage, this leaves us between £12k-£15k short depending on how the mortgage rate pans out after our fix ends in 2011.

I'm now determined to do this and clear the mortgage and I'm sure you lot will keep me on the straight and narrow.

After the mortgage, that's still some way away, but we're definitely going to Florida, ideally in 2013 once we're mortgage free in 2012. Although I've currently discounted our savings, they could be used to eat into the deficit, but we're still short, so once mortgage free, we will definitely need to build up a savings portfolio.

FB.

black_taxi_2

yeah ive reached 18k but re-mortgaged twice

1.first-time for a expensive holiday/car
2.2nd time to upgrade my flat(central heating/solid wood floors/kitchen/bathroom/mod cons)finished two weeks ago--never again-builders stress you out.

no third time--just mortgage free--defo need this site to stay on course

RosieTiger

Queen-Bee wrote: »

Hi FB - I can completely relate to your observations re Nationwide and Faster Payments.

This month I needed to make my payments from my Barclays account rather than my usual direct debit. I sent the money from my Barclays account and saw it vanish from my account immediately. However, it wasn't visible as having been posted to my account until FIVE DAYS later. Where had it been all this time?

I raised a query with NW who told me that although it takes a few days to appear on the account, the interest is adjusted to the day it comes in (ie if you use Faster Payments, at once).

Just to make sure, because the first person I talked to told me something different, I've asked for a detailed statement wef 1st November...
QB

With A and L it's if you go over a certain amount they revert to CHAPS rather than the instant payment. Robbing So and So's !