44 months to 40

starnac

Do you know? I think I may have cracked YNAB! I budgeted £100 to a "Budget Fiddling" category so that I had a bit of leeway in case I couldn't get to grips with and make it tally to the account, but I haven't needed it so I've diverted the majority of it elsewhere and only left £10 in there just in case. The only thing I need to crack now is how to get the money I paid out for the car to come out of the Car Fund account on the accounts page. I need to look into that a bit more I think. I have to admit the video tutorials have been fab. I was really skeptical as I've tried it before and couldn't get to grips with it so I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself at the moment.

3 days to payday and we could use it! I haven't made any mortgage overpayments this month at all! I feel a bit of a fraud being on this board to be honest. I'm still trying to put money aside in case our BTL needs a lot of work and that's been diverted from what would be overpayments. Ah well! I can't have it all.

gallygirl

starnac wrote: »

We are currently saving £200 a month in a 5% savings account. This is for 12 months at which point the interest rate will drop to pretty much nothing so we will move the money into something like a 3year bond, depending on interest rates. We will then open a new high interest monthly savings account and do the same thing again.

Rather than a three year bond would you not be better with a NWide Flex Direct account? Pays 5% on balances up to 2.5k as long as you pay in 1k a month (and take back out the next day obviously :rotfl:). And TSB do one with 5% up to 1.5k.

starnac wrote: »

Our mortgage statement arrived yesterday. I was a bit disappointed as it only showed one overpayment. I know the others would have just missed the cut off date for the statement but I was looking forward to seeing them on there! Never mind, it just means that next year's will look pretty good. Hopefully :rotfl:

Remember to make sure small children and pets don't stand near the letterbox in case it flattens them when it arrives, and buy the postie a nice Xmas pressie .

starnac wrote: »

Tenant hasn't paid rent for the second month running. This is not an unusual occurrence unfortunately so notice has been served.

Ah yes, the 'rent's nice to pay but not an essential bill like Sky etc.' mentality :mad:. I've been letting houses for twenty years and rarely had a tenant who genuinely couldn't pay but a few who couldn't be *rsed to pay :mad:. Here's hoping it's resolved easily and house is ok.



Another mum here who actually enjoyed her children being off school, even if it was difficult for me to juggle work. So many people seem to hate it .

starnac

Hi gallygirl :wave: Thank you for popping in.

gallygirl wrote: »

Rather than a three year bond would you not be better with a NWide Flex Direct account? Pays 5% on balances up to 2.5k as long as you pay in 1k a month (and take back out the next day obviously :rotfl:). And TSB do one with 5% up to 1.5k.

Ah now there's an idea. So I put the money into the account to sit and earn interest, then I put £1k a month into it on payday and then take it back out the next day? Interesting!

gallygirl wrote: »

Ah yes, the 'rent's nice to pay but not an essential bill like Sky etc.' mentality :mad:. I've been letting houses for twenty years and rarely had a tenant who genuinely couldn't pay but a few who couldn't be *rsed to pay :mad:. Here's hoping it's resolved easily and house is ok.

Yep! I think we are genuinely good landlords. We get work done asap (if it's reported obviously!;)) and we realise that things happen. But I get the feeling that now she's had the eviction notice she won't bother with the rent :eek:

gallygirl wrote: »

Another mum here who actually enjoyed her children being off school, even if it was difficult for me to juggle work. So many people seem to hate it .

I know. It's just lovely isn't it?

starnac

I had a lovely evening with DD yesterday. Every year our village has an art and literature competition. It's open to schools and individuals. Over the years DD has become more successful with her stories (I haven't even placed with my fabric art entries :rotfl: )

Anyway it's almost time for the literature submissions so we put last night aside to look at the entries. The plan was for me to help and encourage if needed but I honestly wasn't needed! She blows me away with her ideas sometimes. I'm not even needed for spelling help anymore But it was still lovely to sit beside her and listen and watch her put her ideas on paper and reword them and change them. I felt privileged to be able to watch her.

On the downside though I did have to reassure her that it doesn't matter if she doesn't win. I think her success over the previous years had put a bit of pressure on her. I told her that we are proud of her no matter what and that it's only supposed to be a bit of fun. It's sad that she already feels pressure to perform.

DS is actually planning to submit a piece of artwork too. He's got ideas of what he wants to do so I need to help him organise his thoughts (he's 6). We might start it on the weekend.

Has anyone else got any nice weekend plans?

starnac

Happy New Year. Sorry I disappeared for a while. Life just kind of got in the way.

We ended up having to buy a new (to us) car so that pretty much wiped out our savings. We've also had a few other issues to deal with, one of which being the fact that they might not renew the funding for my job next year.

The issues with our tenant has finally come to a head. We served her notice which she ignored. We finally served her a court order and it seems that she has moved out over the past week. I've been sent photos of the house and it is filthy!! How do people live like that?? Anyway a bit chunk of our money will now need to go on cleaning the house and fixing things. We've changed letting agents since this tenant moved in so I'm hoping that the next tenant will actually look after the place. I'm waiting for DH to get home from work so we can have a chat about where we go from here.

Reading back through the diary, I see that my last post mentioned preparing for the local arts festival....

starnac wrote: »

I had a lovely evening with DD yesterday. Every year our village has an art and literature competition. It's open to schools and individuals. Over the years DD has become more successful with her stories (I haven't even placed with my fabric art entries :rotfl: )

DS is actually planning to submit a piece of artwork too.

I had a phone call the friday before the arts festival saying that both DD and I had placed and we were invited to the Prizegiving night. I felt awful as it was the first year that DS has entered and now he was going to be the only one who didn't get anything out of the 3 of us. Anyway blow me down with a feather, he did win a prize. His mixed media entry came 3rd, DD came 1st with her literature entry and not only did I get 1st prize for my textile entry, I actually won Best Overall Entry too! I couldn't believe it. Problem is next year is going to be a difficult one now :rotfl:

beanielou

How fantastic to all win prizes.

Boo to the tennants though

Petronisoup

New to the forum and love seeing your overpayments , I think ours will be similar to yours in amount sizes.

Sorryto hear about the tenants, my sister rents her house out And has had similar problems a few times having to renovate after the tenants leave. Hope it goes well! Great news on the literary festival!
All the best x

starnac

Hi Petronisoup. Welcome. :wave:

Well today didn't turn out as planned. We were supposed to be going out with my parents and sister but it got cancelled at the last minute so we went to a local cafe for brunch instead. Worked out very MSE for me though as my mum treated us which was very kind.

Other than that I've just pottered about the house. I must take the Christmas tree down today so I should crack on with that. Has everyone else taken their decs down already?

julietbaney

Thanks Giblet1979! Its such an exciting journey isn't it! Good to hear off someone else who needs to spend a little/lot and its working out well!

starnac

Morning.

DH has spent a few days at the property cleaning and re decorating. He is going back next week to fit a new kitchen and we need a quote on new windows too! Sigh!

2019 has not started too well financially. Although having been on MSE for a number of years I am trying to keep spends to a minimum. For instance, our washing machine died just before christmas. It's 15 years old and has been repaired by DH on a number of occassions so we can't really complain. We looked in the sales for a new one and by using a combination of money earned marshalling and vouchers from survey sites we ended up paying £14.99 for a new washing machine :money:
We also looked round at broadband and by ringing our current provider and telling them we wanted to leave, they matched the cheapest quote we found. Well worth a 10 minute phone call.:money: