Turning Straw into Gold: Creating Long Term Security & A Solid Home

MillQueen

@Rhyddid2026, I will keep my eyes open for good ones to recommend back to you. I really like the ones about cleaning (honeyjubu is my favourite) but I haven't yet found any new financial favourites. The repetitive feeling must be showing you have learnt a lot and you now know all the stuff those experts are saying 😀.

Well, after earlier saying I never socialise, I have now been invited out with a friend at the end of May. We will be going to a botanical garden, which I imagine will only be about £10 to get into and maybe £15 for fuel cost of driving there. If I can take a sandwich in my bag, I can just get a cuppa when we inevitably go to a cafe.

I will try to keep the cost of the whole day at £30 or under, that feels do-able.

In other news, I am thinking of swapping my investments from HSBC to Trading 212. I opened a stocks and shares ISA with HSBC (it's a global ETF) just because I already have an account with them, so it was easier. But it looks like Trading 212 will be better in terms of fees, since I will just be holding rather than frequently trading.

Rhyddid2026

I got a 212 account last year, when they were offering £40 of have a look to see if they still have that deal before you transfer. That's the only money I've put in to it at the moment, have to get the big and costly debts down first, but it's nice to know I have a S&S ISA and can add to it any time. I sometimes just log on and have a look, trying to get it to seem less scary.

MillQueen

Was it easy to set up, @Rhyddid2026? You're probably right to wait if you have debts with higher interest, as I think the general wisdom is to get higher interest debts down first isn't it, before investing and just prioritise having an emergency fund whilst you overpay debts as much as you can. That's sensible. Otherwise you will be earning small amounts of interest on investments while spending big amounts on interest on debts.

I have a tendency to want to do everything at once though, so I was impatient to begin the investing and watch it grow, alongside paying off debts, as I thought it would be interesting. My debts are not too scary in their interest (both loans are currently 6.2%), so it seems ok to invest a bit each month, as well as overpaying. However, so far what I have gained on the investments has not matched the interest on the loans, as world events have lowered any gains. My postgrad loan interest actually goes down a bit in September to 6%, which has excited me. I am planning to reduce my over-payments on the student loan slightly in September in order to focus on over-paying my bank loan instead, which will at that point be slightly higher interest.

If I keep my mortgage I'm anticipating it will go up at renewal next year, which is a bit depressing, as I had hoped to be able to reduce the term by a couple of years, so it could be 25 years at renewal instead of 27.

Rhyddid2026

It must have been easy if I did it 😂

Same, my mortgage needs renewing next year, but I'm hoping if I can get my house revalued it will have gone up a bit and I can get a better deal because of the reduced LTV. Fingers crossed!

MillQueen

Yes, hopefully the universe has good things in store for our mortgage rates next year. I have been obsessively keeping watch over the rates since they started going up again. Made a little chart of the different LTV percentages. My next milestone will be reaching 85% LTV once I reach £212,500, but that's a long way off, unless the valuation goes up quickly, which I don't think it will due to the area I live in.

Today's calculations have been about how long it will realistically take me to pay off the postgrad loan and the personal loan, and the answer is 3 years if I overpay each by £100 a month. That's achievable without doing much differently than what I do now, so the choice is whether to stress myself out trying to pay them down faster, or just let those run with the £100 overpayment and focus any other money on things I need.