FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

StuartGMC

financialbliss wrote: »

Excellent tip EssexHebridean. Unfortunately, no one appears to want to offer me anything for my old phone. A penny would have been ok - would have got the 4.50 quidco tracked for that!

FB.

Very useful for us, following OH leaving her phone in a fleece zip pocket and putting it through the washing machine as I see this company will also take damaged phones, but of course once sent you have to wait to find out what they'll offer; at full price her's would fetch £16.10 or £18.52 Argos voucher (plus the £4.50 Quidco, which would be taken as the first annual £5 so then need to spend more but will be online for Xmas shopping soon so perhaps worth it). I guess even if they make a few pennies offer it is more than we'll get elsewhere?

Also just looked up Mobilephonexchange via Quidco, lower cashback on Quidco, but phone valued at £20 with damaged phones noted as 30-90% of this. I may use this option because I at least know we'll get £6 for the phone as a minimum...

abouttimetoo

Hmm, mobile phone exchanges is something that has been on my to do list for what feels like for ever! Currently, I have 9 old phones lying around :rolleyes: , some broken some not.... Just about to look at the mobilephoneexchange site as mentioned by Stuart to see what's what. Anyone else know the best places to use for the best money? All advice welcome:D

plzhelpmesave!

another one here with loads of old phones lying around - none of them seem to work though! anyone know where i can get points or cash for NON workin phones?? thanks

gallygirl

plzhelpmesave! wrote: »

another one here with loads of old phones lying around - none of them seem to work though! anyone know where i can get points or cash for NON workin phones?? thanks

Try THIS LINK - worth going through them all as it only takes a few minutes. Good luck - every little helps!

financialbliss

ali007 wrote: »

Try THIS LINK - worth going through them all as it only takes a few minutes. Good luck - every little helps!

Hey, Well done Ali :j

Had two hits - Banana Green willing to pay 1.00 for the mobile, but Mopay are willing to pay 3.90 for the mobile.

Mrs Bliss reports that she has a Nokia, so when we've found the model and checked the site, we'll potentially send off both together.

Many thanks,
Financial Bliss.

EssexHebridean

I sold a phone to Mopay a while back - they were very quick and the cheque came through nice and quickly. As a plus point though, six months later, another cheque for the same amount (£48) came through.....I hot footed it to the bank with that one, I can tell you!

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.

JonnyBravo wrote: »

(bold added to highlight)

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

JonnyBravo wrote: »

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?)

JonnyBravo wrote: »

Please don't throw any money at this institution.
It really is on its last legs IMO. It's share price has been as low as 34p this month.

As I've alluded to before. There really is no rule saying that the share price must go back up cos of its historical highs. Just think about Network Rail, Northern Rock, and Bear Stearns to see that.
To gamble with your "free" shares is one thing but to gamble with your salary is arguably even worse!

Please tell me you did see sense in the end and did sell them. You got something.... anything....

no??

tut. :mad:


Incidentally all three of the institutions I mentioned up in post #320 are now defunct/in Govt hands/bought up by Santander (delete as you see fit)

Any money on who's next?

The markets this morning would seem to be most worried about Royal Bank of Scotland. Don't tell me youve got shares in them too? :rolleyes:

financialbliss

JonnyBravo wrote: »

Please tell me you did see sense in the end and did sell them. You got something.... anything....

no??

tut. :mad:


Incidentally all three of the institutions I mentioned up in post #320 are now defunct/in Govt hands/bought up by Santander (delete as you see fit)

Any money on who's next?

The markets this morning would seem to be most worried about Royal Bank of Scotland. Don't tell me youve got shares in them too? :rolleyes:

Hi JonnyBravo,

I'm not quite sure if I'm depressed / annoyed with myself for not learning from Northern Rock or something else entirely.

No - I didn't sell. And yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but you're right - the writing was on the wall.

I've been lurking over the weekend on the Savings and Investments forum.

A few people have commented - oh well, they were free shares - I've not really lost anything. Bzzzt. Wrong. I've lost real money. At one point, my Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley shares were at around the 15k mark.

That would easily have taken a year off the mortgage free date and I could have been talking about 11/11/11 instead.

Clearly, shares isn't my game. Guess I somehow need to learn from this / bounce back...

Feeling a little low this evening...

FB.

StuartGMC

FB, any experience is worthwhile provided we gain something from it (whether positive direct feedback or lessons learned). I sympathise with your situation; personally I don't have time to monitor individual equities so invest via OEIC Funds, but all the same these are down presently a massive amount for past 18-24 months. We sold a range of shares we had back in 2005 and put the cash towards our kitchen refurb, even then their value was a way off their peak! :rolleyes:

Perhaps you should look at the value as what you actually had invested originally; afterall, a house is only worth the amount we can sell it for, and, the cash value to you is only the difference between the price you sell at and the costs for somewhere to continue to live (smaller, rented, abroad or whatever). Shares and indeed Funds etc are only worth anything at the time of sale (dividends excluded), but we all look at their present "value". My spreadsheet shows the invested amount, costs such as stop-loss exit taken previously and then the present value if I'd sold them... it is afterall the only way to get a number for them of course.

A balanced portfolio for your money, which of course includes your mortgage, is what we all highlight here and the present markets' positions show us why.

What's done is done, the past is another country etc I know these won't help but you can only change what lies in front of you.

Mumto5

Keep smiling FB. It's a stutter but nothing in life is guaranteed. So you could have ended your mortgage a year earlier.... then I'd lose a year of your inspirational diary.