FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Just read your diary from start to finish - very inspiring, thank you :T:TCaz

Hi Caz,
Thanks for that. I do read quite a few mortgage free diaries, eg in no particular order - yours, LouiseJ, Tall Girl, Dithering Dad, Poppyoscar, mountainlioness, setmefree2 *, but it's difficult to cover / post to them all and also maintain my own diary with useful and relevant stuff.

FB.

* If I've missed your MF diary off, it's more likely that I've missed off as I've forgot rather than I'm not reading it

LouiseJ

financialbliss wrote: »

Hi Caz,
Thanks for that. I do read quite a few mortgage free diaries, eg in no particular order - yours, LouiseJ, Tall Girl, Dithering Dad, Poppyoscar, mountainlioness, setmefree2 *, but it's difficult to cover / post to them all and also maintain my own diary with useful and relevant stuff.

FB.

* If I've missed your MF diary off, it's more likely that I've missed off as I've forgot rather than I'm not reading it

Dont worry FB

I dont actually post anything useful or relevant on my thread so you are one up on me already:rotfl: Cant believe its nearly June already, six month of 2008:eek:

financialbliss

Just a quick / short post.

Web browser. Quick non-mortgage post. I prefer / use Firefox over other browsers. While not wanting to start a browser war, Firefox 3.0 release candidate 1 (RC1) was made available last Friday. I’ve downloaded and installed it and I’m finding it faster and improved over Firefox 2. If you’re happy with a release candidate product, ie may still contain the odd bug, and you didn’t know it was available, then you may want to check this out.

Poll. Since asking on post #286 on 7th May, I see “my” poll is on the MSE home page – what amount of net income goes on mortgage :rotfl:

School. Don’t think I’ve mentioned this - #1 has had a letter inviting him to visit school in late June. Quote: “School uniforms will be available to view and buy”. Crumbs, I never encountered a uniform until I went to comprehensive! I’ll have to made sure we take the cheque book then!

Bills. Bit like painting the forth bridge. No sooner than I appear to be nearly up to date in analysing / keying these in than another batch turn up.

In answering a question to linda_c on budgets earlier, I’ve just noticed I’ve no budget for shoes! Still aiming for a budget / SOA on-line. Once I’m up to date with bills, I can analyse over 5 months, ie January to May, so perhaps June for the elusive SOA?

FB.

financialbliss

Quick post - today the mortgage stands @ 64,992.17.

Due to daily interest - working out at about 8.51 per day for May, the mortgage will pop back into the "65"s - should be 65,000.68 tomorrow.

Sometimes feel like it's going the wrong way!

Still, looking forward to the next leading digits decrease from "60" to "59" - but this won't be until November now that I've reduced monthly (over) payments.

FB.

financialbliss

Ha,

Mortgage today is 65,000.67 - so I was a penny out! Interest roundings I guess.

FB.

jfox22

every penny counts!

JonnyBravo

JonnyBravo wrote: »

Yep, B&B and Alliance and Leicester are the other two most exposed. Personally I'd sell, but I'd have sold NR at anything, thinking nationalisation was a cert.... but then who knows... you may get £2 or the like for them.

I guess it depends on your view but the "easy come, easy go", "it wasnt my money as i didnt pay for the shares" attitude does you a dis-service. Youre obviously money savvy and you really did have £12k of NR shares at one point.
You still have £890 worth of B&B (9.21am), if you decide to try and ride it out, fine, but don't let the attittude above dictate possibly losing what could still be the lions share of a months mortgage payment on your quest.

And don't forget that point I made on the ISA's.... especially as April will be here before you know it!!!;)

(bold added to highlight)

FB.... did you sell those B&B shares?

financialbliss

JonnyBravo wrote: »

FB.... did you sell those B&B shares?

Erm... No!

Due to dividend re-investment, I've now 568 B&B shares - they closed today at 1.03, so I make that a share holding of 585.04. Yes, I know that hindsight is always going to be an exact science with shares, but I've barely had any spare time of late to put a word in here, never mind look at shares closely.

Saying a month ago that they weren't in need of capital / about to have a share rights issue and then a month later making a press release has hit the shares hard - 75p or so down in the last 10 days.

I'm still hoping that post credit crunch - they'll bounce back, but it's perhaps this very thought has been my failing.

From a short term view, perhaps I should have sold, but medium term, I think they can still recover.

Think I've still got some learning to do here... never claimed to have all the answers!

Financial Bliss.

JonnyBravo

financialbliss wrote: »

Erm... No!

Due to dividend re-investment, I've now 568 B&B shares - they closed today at 1.03, so I make that a share holding of 585.04. Yes, I know that hindsight is always going to be an exact science with shares, but I've barely had any spare time of late to put a word in here, never mind look at shares closely.

Saying a month ago that they weren't in need of capital / about to have a share rights issue and then a month later making a press release has hit the shares hard - 75p or so down in the last 10 days.

I'm still hoping that post credit crunch - they'll bounce back, but it's perhaps this very thought has been my failing.

From a short term view, perhaps I should have sold, but medium term, I think they can still recover.

Think I've still got some learning to do here... never claimed to have all the answers!

Who does? We'd all be rich if we had all the answers.
My advice from earlier was simply based on the figures I'd seen on assets to loans ratios and A&L and B&B were the two most exposed after NR.

Question is... are B&B being straight with you? (Are any of the banks in trouble being straight with their shareholders?)
Here are two press releases from B&B during the past month or so.



14 April 2008:
Contrary to press speculation today, Bradford & Bingley announces that it is not intending to issue equity capital by way of a rights issue or otherwise. Bradford & Bingley has a strong capital base, above its regulatory requirements, and as a result of the Board’s conservative approach, has funded its business activities through 2008 and into 2009. In the current market environment, the Board will naturally continue to monitor closely the balance sheet strength of the business and its funding plans.

14 May 2008:
The Board of Bradford & Bingley plc announces a rights issue to raise approximately £300 million, net of expenses, in a 16 for 25 rights issue at an issue price of 82 pence per Bradford & Bingley share. This represents a 36% discount to the theoretical ex-rights price and a 48% discount to the closing price of Bradford & Bingley shares of 158.75 pence per share on 13 May 2008, the last trading day before this announcement.
The proceeds of the rights issue will strengthen the Group’s capital position and will mitigate the impact of the previously announced reductions in the value of certain of the Group’s treasury investments.



So they certainly either.....
a) dont know whats going on
b) deliberately mislead you
c) things are getting worse so quickly that they needed to change stance within one month

Whichever of those three it is it's not a good place to be.



Have a read of this thread which leads to other B&B threads.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=932191&highlight=bradford

financialbliss

JonnyBravo wrote: »

My advice from earlier was simply based on the figures I'd seen on assets to loans ratios and A&L and B&B were the two most exposed after NR.

Thanks for your advice. I see you've quoted from a thread in the savings and investments. I've been quietly following that thread!

B&B sub one pound (98.28p) as of 13:30 today. :eek:

Certainly not looking particularly good. I've since had a rights issue e-mail and they're asking me to vote on the matter.

Was hoping to keep shares until 2010 / 2011 - ie cash in once off my fixed rate and them throw at the mortgage. Not sure if a 2 or 3 year timescale is enough for these shares to make a good turnaround, ie should I take up rights issue or not!

FB.