Busy Mee's Last Leg

Busy_Mee1

Small MSE happy dance this morning.......£150 N@t West switching bonus has dropped in :j

Think that was the easiest switching bonus ever as it didn't require the switch of an account with direct debits. Just opened a H@lifax donor account, paid in a few odds and sods to make it look active and then switcheroo Just needed to swish £1500 through the new account ...literally in one day and out the next.

Just waiting for FD to have another switch offer, as we could use another regular saver. In the mean time I am using this account for odds and sods (rewards,TCB and Tilly Tidies ) and there is now over £400 in there.

:j:j:j:j:j

beanielou

Excellent on the switch money :j :j

wishingthemortgaheaway

Is that the same deal I'm attempting. If you use the debit card once a month you get another bit of money in June/July of next year.

Busy_Mee1

Thanks Beanie :j

Wishing - I think you must be doing the later deal which is £125 now and a further £50 June 2020. I think this one is designed to get customers to stay :rotfl:

wishingthemortgaheaway

Busy_Mee1 wrote: »

Thanks Beanie :j

Wishing - I think you must be doing the later deal which is £125 now and a further £50 June 2020. I think this one is designed to get customers to stay :rotfl:

Yes, that sounds right. I can keep an account open for 12months for an extra £50.
I need to open the one that's offering 5% on balances of up to £2,500, as my current one is dropping it's interest rate to 3% in July

Suffolk_lass

I hope all is well with you Busy Mee1 - you have gone a bit quiet here... I am so used to seeing your monthly summary. I am missing it.

Busy_Mee1

A bit late this month ( and thanks Suffolk Lass for thinking about me...it means a lot)

Real life has been difficult . We have been touched by a tragedy, not within our immediate circle of friends, but near enough for the shock and ripple effect to make us reevaluate and gain some perspective on life. I don't want to write about it here because it doesn't feel right to trade on someone else's grief, but all I would say is hold your young people close, particularly your young men and encourage them that it is all right to talk.

Work has also been hard, very pressurised and I need to sort that out. A good chat with my boss is brewing.

Anyway all of this means I have lost a bit focus on the finances...it has been well down my list of priorities and I stopped tracking our spending somewhere in the middle of the month. Luckily most of our MSE stuff is habitual now, so there wasn't a lot of damage done and our savings are all on track.

The totals for April are as follows:

Monthly Savings £1500
Total Savings. £75000 :j

Repayment Mortgage. £57,477.81
IO Mortgage. £169,000
Total Mortgage. £226,477.81

Savings offset mortgage to £151,477.81

Holidays savings. £1500/3288.52

Overall I am quite happy. Some large credit card bills with the NYC flights were paid using the interest from the regular savings :T

On that subject I have opened a FD account for Mr Mee (£125 switching bonus is back on) and will switch the N@t West odds and sods account. This will also give us access to another regular saver account @5 %. This means we will have 8 regular savers with £2050 a month being siphoned from our Mortgage offset account into them :eek:

May should be OK financially as we are away for two weeks, but the credit card bill covering all the car and house insurances need to be paid.

Think that is all...have a good weekend x

Suffolk_lass

I won't speculate about what has happened but there was an item on a news programme about taking a more holistic approach to young people's MH. We had a situation with our Son a few years ago and I just had a 6th sense and forced him to do something that I believe changed his life. I am ever watchful.

Good strong update Busy Mee1, as I have come to expect. I might try a FD account myself! We trail in your wake on these things but have 3 currently but I would need to set up a feeder account to switch from as I am content with the rewards in the Coop and the ease of the HSBC (and the interest and proximity of the branch on the TSB)

Busy_Mee1

Well done Suffolk Lass on spotting that your son needed help. I worry about my son a lot. He works long hours in a high pressured job and doesn't have a partner, so I regularly check in with him to see how he is feeling ( and get on his nerves ). Our daughter lives with us and lets us know how she is feeling on a regular basis.....generally by slamming the door :rotfl:.
Seriously though, boys/men do seem to find it more difficult to talk and the consequences of not doing so can be devastating.

In terms of donor accounts, I use banks where it is quick and easy to open an account on line and where I don't intend to switch to in the future. I used the H@lifax this time as I have already had a switching bonus from them. I started by opening two, one each for Mr Mee and me and switched them more or less at the same time to double the bonuses. I switched first to the banks that I didn't want to stay with long term, and then switched on to the ones that I did want to stay with to get the regular savers. That way you can pick up all the switching bonuses on the way :T

I forgot to say in my update that we now have £442.85 in the N@t West odds and sods account. This came from the switching bonus, Tilly Tidies, topcashback and other rewards and I have now started the process to switch it to FD for the £125 switching bonus and a 5% regular saver.

I know having a number of regular savers is a faff but the rewards when they drop in together are good (£80-£90 an account per year ), and tbh I treat it like a little hobby. I do need to get out more :rotfl:

shangaijimmy

I envy your fun gathering all the switching bonuses... and i remember the glee of the bonus arriving. A little victory! I'm certain that we didn't try for Natwest. I was an account holder there around 2002-2004, so i'm wondering if i could have a go... (will scurry off and investigate).

Great progress in here. Unfortunately life does through up circumstances that takes focus away, and some things are more important.