A little home to call my own

linz

Hi JD,

I've just come across your diary and had to comment as like you I also love travelling on a budget ! Have you thought about hostelling? I would imagine hostels in the Balkans would cost peanuts, probably with breakfast included too. You can also pay a little more for a private room/bathroom in most places. There will be lots of free walking tours in the cities as well which you should look out for. We've had some great long (cheap) weekends where we've just taken a small rucksack and hostelled in eastern Europe (Riga, Sofia, Budapest, Krakow, Berlin) everything is sooo cheap !

Also - you could think about looking for second hand rucksacks on ebay rather than buying new. We went to Nepal a few years ago and managed to get 2 Osprey rucksacks on ebay for half the cost of new ones. I saw plenty on there that had been used once or a handful of times when I was looking for mine.

Hope you have a great time. Balkans is also on my list

JAMIEDODGER

beanie - Thank you! I have no idea how I have managed it this month, but I guess I must have had a lot of food in stock:rotfl:

linz - Thanks for your helpful info:) The reason I haven't looked at hostels for this trip (which I have used in the past) is for a few reasons, firstly there are four of us myself, BF, DD who will be 15 and DS3 who will be 18. I would like to share a room with my BF (we are on holiday after all), also I would not be comfortable with DD in a dorm room (I don't believe she would be allowed either), or us being split up. Secondly DS3 had severe autism, and needs 24 hour care and supervision, a hostel would not be the right environment for him.

When you are travelling as a group like we will be, it is more often than not much cheaper to book an airbnb apartment which charges per whole apartment/per night, rather than a hostel which charges per person/per night. Apartments usually come with kitchen/washing machine/internet too and we will shop locally to have food in to make breakfast and pack lunches:)

Nepal sounds amazing...it is on my list:) Hope you get to the Balkans:D

The info about the secondhand backpacks is very useful! I will absolutely be doing that, so thanks:T Also yes we will be doing the free walking tours :j We are looking to do a food one on our trip to London in April:D

TSB bonus is in:T so I have sent that plus a TT of 96p over to the Travel Fund this morning and it now stands at £38.81:cool::beer:

Back to work yesterday and have also picked up an extra shift this week (more money for the Travel Fund:D) so will be a long week for me but you have to look at the bigger picture, at least that's what I tell myself when the time is dragging:rotfl:

JD x

linz

Ahh, sorry, I didn't know enough about your situation.

Out of interest - I also have a bit of money in Funding Circle. I dabbled with putting bank switching bonuses in there. I think there's only about £500 at the mo but I'd like to put a bit more in there - how do you get your monthly interest out again? I think I understand about selling the loan parts if you need to access your money but I don't know how else to receive the interest. Mine's just sitting in my Funding Circle account - is yours set up so your monthly interest gets transferred back to you ? I only ask as I'm thinking of increasing what I have in there.

JAMIEDODGER

Hey Linz

You can only put minimum £100 into FC each time, so what I do is have another account where I pay in smaller amounts until it reaches the minimum, then transfer in.

You can always withdraw what is in your 'available funds' by clicking on the 'transfer' tab, then on the 'transfer out' tab, then on your bank account (you can withdraw any amount there is no minimum). Obviously FC works best if you don't withdraw, but keep reinvesting your interest payments. To do this go to your lending settings and make sure you have lending switched on, then choose which of the two approaches you will take...balanced or conservative.

If you have lending switched on, the interest will be automatically reinvested, if you have it switched off, the interest will stay in your available funds, but you will have to withdraw manually as explained above. There is no option to have the interest automatically directed to your bank account each month.

Hope this helps:)

JD x

JAMIEDODGER

89p TT this morning:)

Only a few bills to be paid in what remains of this month, so will only be TT's until March:(

The extra shift I picked up has now been cancelled unfortunately, but never mind. I have today at work then two days off then full day on Sunday. That may change if I get offered another shift tomorrow or Saturday.

I have a few jobs to get done over the next few days, but I am pretty on top of things at the moment:T

JD x

Margaret14

This is my first time on here so apologies in advance.

That sounds like a good plan to me but I'm at the other end of the scale (sort of).
My circumstances are that I am single, retired, and own a two-bedroom terrace house in Wales. I took out a mortgage years ago and intended it to be a first time buyer house but for one reason or another I never actually moved on to my 'forever' house.

Contrary to what many believe, most pensioners are not rolling in money and most of my savings have gone in upkeep of the property. Now I want to upgrade slightly as mobility is becoming more of an issue. I do actually own my terrace house, live on a pension, and desperate to know if there are any 'Right to Buy'schemes to help people like me?

Any information or help will be gratefully received. Thank you all.

newgirly

Hi Margaret, the "mortgage and endowments" board may be better to advise you, best of luck.

Pooky

Margaret14 wrote: »

This is my first time on here so apologies in advance.

That sounds like a good plan to me but I'm at the other end of the scale (sort of).
My circumstances are that I am single, retired, and own a two-bedroom terrace house in Wales. I took out a mortgage years ago and intended it to be a first time buyer house but for one reason or another I never actually moved on to my 'forever' house.

Contrary to what many believe, most pensioners are not rolling in money and most of my savings have gone in upkeep of the property. Now I want to upgrade slightly as mobility is becoming more of an issue. I do actually own my terrace house, live on a pension, and desperate to know if there are any 'Right to Buy'schemes to help people like me?

Any information or help will be gratefully received. Thank you all.

You might be better off asking on the housebuying thread for specific schemes but I do know that you can use an equity release scheme to release equity where you are or buy somewhere else, it does mean that, depending on the scheme, you may not have anything left to pass on to family as an inheritance. There’s lots of different scheme like this out there and some are more worthwhile than others so worth reading up on the different ones available and speaking to a financial advisor about what’s best for your circumstances.

Margaret14

Thanks NEWGIRLY. I'll take a look right now. X

Margaret14

Thank you for the info Pooky. Thank you to everyone else who has been kind enough to reply too. X