Learning to walk before I run

Suffolk_lass

It's hard isn't it, the what do do with a short-term cash lump. My suggestion would be to pay off all your credit cards and any residual loans. Then you are best placed to make savings without the drain on resources. You will quickly make that up and you have effectively given yourself a pay-rise of those outgoings each month, plus saved any interest and worries about deal dates ending. You need to be disciplined about replacing it though.

Any residue, you could then use to shuffle round current accounts - Martin's email said HSBC is offering £130 to open an account with them (one each), and (from memory) First Direct were close behind with £125 (each). Coop offer a tiny reward scheme still (about £1.40 per month) or some offer cash-back (Santander used to) on bills. As long as you keep a record and keep things up there is still free money - the link to the page is here and there is a table of easy access (with protection up to £85k) and which offer what under whatever terms.

edinburgher

@Suffolk_lass - by and large I agree with your suggestion that it's a good idea to pay off credit cards, but I've perhaps not 100% managed to let go of the idea of getting the full build done at once and am reluctant to give back the cash  I think, however, that I should, as our best quote so far would be £110k assuming no use of contingency (and there would be no contingency). Even with the borrowed money (and borrowing the maximum additional that I could on my existing credit cards), we'd *only* have £88k.

I currently owe c. £14k on credit cards, which sounds horrific, but I'm quite sanguine about it as they are long term 0% cards and what little we stooze in the interim is ours. Minimum repayments are currently c. £250/mth, so repaying them would take 56 months to make back the difference with increased monthly savings. As we will hopefully remortgage one last time in 2 years to release funds for the other part of the extension, I can't see any value to paying them off before say, September 2023. Alternatively I might just pay off the minimums for as long as I can, as I'm not convinced the £10k of debt (as it would be by then) is likely to scupper any remortgage with a household income of £70k+?

Not sure if I'm just trying to play the finance game to the best of my ability, or whether I'm being a dafty taking unecessary risks. I've done so much to de-risk our family finances over the last few months, but I don't want to completely abandon attempts at making a wee bit of "free" money

Ooh - and I can now switch again as the money is here.

Today was dreadfully dull, but productive. Picked up a Kallax for DD's room as her toys are getting out of hand. She's agreed to box up a few out of favour themes (Playmobil etc.) for when DD2 is a few years older. Then spent far too long visiting various supermarkets and hardware stores (food for the next few days, repairs to a couple of leaky taps etc.) At least I had an M&5 voucher for most of the food.

Suffolk_lass

Just popping by to wish you and yours a happy, healthy and wealth accumulating 2022 (and beyond). Gone, I think, are the days of the smartie-like £15k credit cards but my John Lewis one is £15k and DH has a similar balance on his Barclaycard. Seems a waste really as we clear the balance every month. Must go, first visitor is downstairs now...

edinburgher

@Suffolk_lass - Happy New Year! I hope they were tall with dark hair? I miss being co-opted into this role by my gran. Not that I'm particularly tall (a smidge under 5' 11", but make the best of what you have)

I started the New Year with vaguuely good behaviour by going for a long walk this morning. No doubt ruined entirely by my large lunch of steak pie made by Mrs E's dad and quite a few glasses of wine Tomorrow will be my last "naughty" day of the holidays, as we're visiting friends for a games evening with a takeaway. After that I'm keen to get back on the straight and narrow before my exercise class starts again (probably a mix of 5:2 and a high protein and fibre diet).

Today's finance news saw slim pickings, 18p cashback from TCB. We have, however, decided that we will set aside a small amount of our additional borrowing to help balance out the loss of earnings during Mrs E's maternity leave. As we already had 60% of the monies covered by my 13th wage (May) and money that we had saved, we are comfortable enough with that decision. Granted, it's not an extension, but it is an extension to our family. The sums involved are very low £2xxx and we can live with paying interest on that for a few extra years. The purpose of this was twofold. 1) certainty of cashflow over the rest of 2022 and 2) fewer financial goals on the go at once. This means that all future money will be split between the extension and our EF. We won't be having any more kids after this, so I'm not worried that we're setting up a constant drain on our equity to fund a growing family.

I have also decided that I will switch to N@tionwide at the end of the month - the only switching offer currently open to me (as I completed a switch to H5BC during 2020). Mrs E will switch to H5BC.

*Edit: and cancelled a subscription to a magazine that I enjoy, but that I never have time to read!

edinburgher

After a few days of trying and failing to get Mrs E to open a PB account I did it for her (with the odd security detail shouted up the stairs). It wasn't a lack of willingness, but the pregnancy has definitely affected her short term memory! I have transferred £10,000 to her so that we have as much stashed away in accounts that will/might pay some sort of reward as possible.

We are off to a cat café today, DD is very excited. Also planning to exchange a couple of items of clothing and perhaps see if we can find a few reduced Christmas decorations for next year, suspect we might be a bit late

greent

Haha! I opened Mr g-t's PB account for him- he's just not interested enough to do these things. 

Good luck with the decorations search - I need some Xmas cards but also suspect I may be too late - I am sure everything disappears more quickly nowadays!

Karmacat

Yay to visiting a cat cafe!  Brilliant idea  

edinburgher

@greent - I think you're right - I was in L1dl on Boxing Day and the staff were tearing down the Christmas stuff like the hounds of hell were after them!

@Karmacat - unfortunately the cat café felt like an expensive disaster While it was entertaining enough seeing cute cats for an hour, it felt like there were far too many (30+), it was a bit clawstrophobic and DD had a mini meltdown on the way home because she missed one of the kittens she had met. Talk of getting to go home and hug her own Maine Coon kitten was unsuccessful! Pretty dreadful considering we spent £57 including parking 

No real finance news today, grocery spends were a bit lower than usual. I am sick to death of the Christmas/Covid/Brexit supply chain nightmare that seems to have overtaken the shops, it took me 5 different shops to complete the shopping list for a smaller than average weekly shop. It's very hard to make creative substitutions with a picky 6 year old - I dread to think how the parents of neurodiverse children with fixed routines/diets cope.

Cornish_mum

Groceries were a total disaster for us today too, no baked beans, tinned tomatoes, or cabbage. Ridiculously I did a little dance when I saw that we had a cucumber for DD. I can’t believe how I used to just take it for granted if you went to the supermarket they had the food you wanted to buy. 

Sounds like DD loved the Cat Cafe, mine often meltdown after an exciting outing.

CM

edinburgher

Good point C_M - I forgot that me being glum because DD was upset can in fact mean she has enjoyed herself! She even dreamed about the kitten last night