Keep calm and carry on....

South_coast

Morning all, quick update:
Current mortgage balance £27,825.61
Savings for OP £3,554.45
Net balance £24,271.16

I wish that was my actual balance, but me wishing is not going to make the global financial situation more secure (maybe if we all wished together???) 
£100 weekly OP's start on Friday

Jessy103

That's a great savings for OP amount, SC. I hope you get to use it soon x

South_coast

Thanks Jessy, me too 😢

South_coast

The pin has arrived for my S&S ISA, so I now have online access. What a terrible website 😦 Turns out I can't set up a direct debit online anyway (but I can top up the account on an ad-hoc basis if I already have one in place), so will call them at the weekend and get that set up. I also discovered that I made the last payment into it in June last year, so not as long ago as I thought. I ALSO discovered that it gained £57 through dividend income at the end of March, which was pleasantly surprising 😀

So now I know I can access the money (£4k) any time I like at the click of a button AND I have about £9k available as a money transfer on the 0% card should disaster strike, I REALLY, REALLY want to pay off the £3k which is now sitting in my bank account 😦 I also foolishly worked out that if I were to maintain the £1500/month overpayments then I would be MF at the end of June next year, which was a very silly thing to do as this would rely on my salary being reinstated in July, which I can't see happening! AAARGH! What to do??? If I still had a timescale of years then it would be obvious that the answer was to save, but MF next summer sounds so close that it's tempting to take a few risks. There's also the idea in the back of my mind about doing the money transfer regardless and having that sat in the savings for OP account and then sending chunks every week across every week and allotting money earned towards clearing that rather than OP's. Think I might add reading up on the fees to my to-do list for the weekend. A £9k money transfer plus the £3.5k I already have in the bank would take 17 weeks to use up at a rate of £700 a week transferred to the mortgage, by which point I should have been able to put at least £4k back in the pot through salary payments and would maintain that as disaster money, plus the £4k in the S&S ISA. Hmmm, think I might be talking myself into something here.... 

themadvix

Remember that that s&s isa money isn’t cash and can’t be guaranteed! (Where the finger-wagging emoji when you need it?)

South_coast

UPDATE: So I have £9,644.40 available to money transfer. There's a 4% fee, so £385.78, which I would pay off straight away to avoid any interest charges (I'm assuming they would charge interest on the fee). It's then 0% for 23 months, so I'd need to set aside £400 a month to clear the balance by the time it's up. Got to say, I'm tempted....

savingholmes

What is your mortgage interest rate? 4% fee sounds steep

South_coast

Interest rate is 2.58%, the interest savings would roughly break even with the money transfer fee. But then the ERC's would be about the same amount again 😢😢😢

BUT is it really a pure financial decision over an emotional one? I paid off my student loan with a 0% credit card despite the traditional advice being not to pay it off early (I had one which would keep running until I was 64, so would definitely have had to clear the balance eventually) and it brought me such joy 😀

savingholmes

I would leave it in your mortgage. There's no real benefit to what you are proposing unless you want the debt to be unsecured for some reason.

South_coast

Probably a lack of fresh air.... I'm just so fed up with being boring and sensible and feel the urge to try something harebrained for once!