FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

StuartGMC

FB thanks for your comments; my wage review due in June was deferred to October. Note that is the review, no guarantee of a rise since that in June 2007. Also had some redundancies in May.

We are all caught in this trap of inflation plus demands we don't ask for pay rises, and I recall even now the 1989-1993 period of recession with pain, pay freezes, pay cuts, redundancies, company closures and negative equities for those redundant and not able to move/pay mortgage at 12-15.5% interest rates. (To cut things short, it meant in 1994 as two graduates since 1986/7 we could at last buy our first house - instead of the 2-bed terrace we couldn't get a mortgage for in 1990, we got a 4-bed detached so have not needed to move since.. and we also got repayment predictions at 13% as that was a typical interest rate previous 20yrs).

I think we can see a "generation gap" here; those of us who suffered in the last recession have "seen it all before" and therefore typically are more "cautious" with our spend and wish to clear debt, plus have seen people repossessed etc ) and those entering work since 1995 when it has been good (until now!), although here on MSE of course the latter are also tuned into the need to clear things.

I think we are in for 18months rough times; whilst in this, some may profit via house purchases where values have dropped, others via investments (I am holding to our monthly ISA investments in Funds, the drop in value of which I try to counter with the pound averaging of the "cheaper" units we can buy now with hope that 7-10yrs from now they have grown significantly)

At the end of the day no company or government can pay more than it earns, but we do need to see everyone in the country sharing the burden, and unfortunately this is not always the case, and of course the low paid are hit before others due to the proportion of their income consumed by food and energy.

BTW, I think the definition of "fuel poverty" is 10% of income spent on fuel? When will they mention "commuter poverty" where 10% of income is consumed in your costs to get to work? (My petrol costs are some 6.78% of net income now, despite not going for "days out" at the weekend.)

Hold tight for the ride :rolleyes:

*jobags*

Hiya FB - can I have you when Mrs B has finished with you - I like a man who knows what to do with a spreadsheet (what a gross assumption - you could be in a civil partnership)

I also work in LocGovt and I'm sorry to say that I worked today too......last strike (reason = pensions) I took off and lost more than a days pay for some reason - maybe it was not paying the tax which made it look like more than a days pay

I had to shove a tenner into the bucket to get into the office today and will probably do the same tomorrow...however, in recognition of the strike I plan to put 2 days pay (about £280) on the mortgage next month in additon to the usual overpayments

Gotta screw the system somehow

Jo:beer:

gallygirl

[quote=StuartGMC;12560009
BTW, I think the definition of "fuel poverty" is 10% of income spent on fuel? When will they mention "commuter poverty" where 10% of income is consumed in your costs to get to work? (My petrol costs are some 6.78% of net income now, despite not going for "days out" at the weekend.)

Hold tight for the ride :rolleyes:[/quote]

:eek: yikes, mine is 8.06% :eek:, after knocking off what I get back from work. And I'll be office based for most of next 7 weeks so watch that rise (around £13 a day to get there _pale_ ). I only have a little diesel car & it averages around 55 to the gallon. I've read all the tips and am even on a diet so it's not carrying excess weight so don't know what else I can do .

Fuel 'only' 3.36% but sure to rise..... am stuck with NPower till Sept to get £80 discount.

Em just quickly calculated that alcohol also around 3.36% .

To those of you not striking - well done for sticking to your decision :T

setmefree2

ali007 wrote: »

To those of you not striking - well done for sticking to your decision :T

Ditto - me too.;)

financialbliss

@ *jobags*
I’m currently married to mrs bliss with two blisslings. I’m also a bit of a spreadsheet geek. I do use Microsoft Money to track and calculate various things, but I also keep separate spreadsheets of various things so that I can total, average or graph and sometimes total, average and graph things.

I like being able to see numbers graphically, e.g. my mortgage reduction chart on page 1. Perhaps I should do a post on the various spreadsheets I use sometime soon?

Fuel poverty. I’ve an annual travel pass that doesn’t run out until April 2009. This cost 590.00 but I’m paying for this over 12 months via my employer travel scheme. Costs are fixed until I next renew in 2009.:D

Industrial action. Thanks everyone for your comments / support on this. Dave Prentis (Unison) suggests that if there is no break in the stand off, that there will be 3, 4 or even 5 day strikes. Personally, I can’t see much enthusiasm for that from either the employees or the general public.

A game of wait and see I think.

I’ll try to get another post in this evening – trying to get back into regularity!

FB.

*jobags*

financialbliss wrote: »

@ *jobags*
I’m currently married to mrs bliss with two blisslings. I’m also a bit of a spreadsheet geek. I do use Microsoft Money to track and calculate various things, but I also keep separate spreadsheets of various things so that I can total, average or graph and sometimes total, average and graph things.

I like being able to see numbers graphically, e.g. my mortgage reduction chart on page 1. Perhaps I should do a post on the various spreadsheets I use

Yes please - share your spreadsheets. Is this why we can never get an answer from our IT helpdesk at work - you're all busy fiddling with your spreadsheets:rotfl: :rotfl:

Industrial action. Thanks everyone for your comments / support on this. Dave Prentis (Unison) suggests that if there is no break in the stand off, that there will be 3, 4 or even 5 day strikes.

Bring on the strikes - I've got through more work in the last 2 days than I have in the last 2 weeks - Jo Public thinks we're out manning the barricades so doesn't phone/email in:T :T

Jo

StuartGMC

ali007 wrote: »

:eek: yikes, mine is 8.06% :eek:, after knocking off what I get back from work. And I'll be office based for most of next 7 weeks so watch that rise (around £13 a day to get there _pale_ ). I only have a little diesel car & it averages around 55 to the gallon. I've read all the tips and am even on a diet so it's not carrying excess weight so don't know what else I can do .

Fuel 'only' 3.36% but sure to rise..... am stuck with NPower till Sept to get £80 discount.

Em just quickly calculated that alcohol also around 3.36% .

To those of you not striking - well done for sticking to your decision :T

Ali, I guess you are a spreadsheet geek like me?
(Note: I have decided not to look at my alcohol spend - that is I leave it hidden in the "food" page on my budgeting sheet and jump over my monthly pub allowance when looking for savings... not very MSE is it? )
It sounds like 55mpg is pretty good; remember, most fuel is used to accelerate the mass of the vehicle thereafter it is burnt overcoming resistance (road friction, air displacement etc). If it makes you feel better I get 27.8mpg from my petrol and that is commuting when roads are "clear" at 0600 so I can try to cruise at motorway limits.... take her into town and it soon drops! But the depreciation of the car will mean there's no point in selling, so I put this in my "luxury" category whilst I can still afford to indulge it...

FB, should we start a thread to support others like us addicted to playing spreadsheets to see numbers, ratios and graphical output?????

Actually on a serious point, spreadsheets are commonly noted here as being the real "enabler" in people seeing where their money is spent, the impact some changes can make to your bills and seeing improvements in mortgage (either balance remaining, offset or the interest saved by each small OP). There are posts from people seeking guidance on how to set them up occasionally.

I've shared (blank) versions of my household budgeting spreadsheet which I've heavily annotated to help people as it was never designed other than for my needs (it includes the offset calculations to show effective interest rate - one of my key drivers, plsu the summation of everything to show our net total position!). Perhaps there is room to discuss the approach we take in the process because every sheet will be different, and may be some details on the common ways to calculate things like:

1) Compound interest
2) Interest after tax
3) Effective interest rate on an offset mortgage accounting for the loss in interest gained from savings/current account
4) ....

And also we could note the data we select to input to these sheets vs. those like you using the personal finance software for example?

*jobags*

Why can't I do the fancy quotes in square boxes like everyone else around here? .Is there a training course available:money:

Jo

*jobags*

StuartGMC - do you work in Local Govt IT as well?

Just wondered seeing as you're another spreadsheet freak

I just have mortgage overpayment spreadsheets and daily interest spreadsheets (MF date is currently 04/09/2018:T :T but coming down monthly)

Have I stumbled upon the "Northgate employees" thread by mistake?


Jo

StuartGMC

*jobags* wrote: »

Why can't I do the fancy quotes in square boxes like everyone else around here? .Is there a training course available:money:

Jo

Jo
LOL - do you sell training?

You just click the "quote" button for the posting you want to include in reply.

If you wish to divide up response and reply in parts, manually type [ / quote ] *without spaces - had to use them to show in the posting!* after the first bit, type in your text,

then
[ quote ]
again no spaces, for the next text to include in quote, and finish with
[ / quote ]

HTH