Hurrah, my MFW quest has started

StuartGMC

abouttimetoo wrote: »

I've been trying to look for some positives on the S&S front and I think I've found one! see what you think - because the share price had plummeted so much I was able to put in twice as many shares into my ISA to use my £7600 entitlement than I would have done a few months ago - does that make sense or does it sound as if I've scraped the barrel for positives?:rolleyes:

ABTT
We've also maintained ISA S&S contributions and similarly I noted that the monthly DD was buying twice as many units (OEIC) than before, plus of course, you get the averaging on the prices by spreading the investment period. So, no, I don't think you are scraping the barrel, rather you are indeed maximising the situation for some 5-8 yrs from now.

That said, for a short time we've reduced the monthly contribution into the S&S ISA and use that amount to increase the OP on the mortgage. So we're balancing things to some degree. Like you, the funds are all down significantly at the moment, performance is best in Latin American fund > UK Smaller Co > Russia & Greater Russia. I need to review the allocation and possibly freeze input to the latter.

Your summaries above are very good and well reasoned. Well done on the progress.

abouttimetoo

Thanks Stuart

I'm always very conservative when it comes to S&S and stick to the financial institutions which I know a wee bit about. Whilst this sector is taking a hammering at the moment I'm quietly confident that things will pick back up in time.

Apart from my employee sharesave scheme I have absolutely no plans to make any further S&S purchases in the short to mid term, I just don't know enough and don't have the money to gamble - well, any money I do have is going into OP which seems a nice safe bet...

PS Got a cheque for £100 car tax refund this morning which was part of the deal when I part-exed my car (had just taxed it for a year 2 months prior:rolleyes: but £100 is more than I was expecting as I had been lead to believe refunds were not pro-rated so I'm pleased about that

abouttimetoo

I received written confirmation of my revised mortgage payment this morning, following base rate cuts to be effective from January, the payments are now 50% of what they were at the highest rate I ever paid so all the more for the OP pot:j

I've also spoken to the book dealer this morning about having my books valued. He seemed very nice and knowledgable so I'm going to email him all details as a first step.

Just had a lovely play with spreadsheet, don't the years just whiz by as you move the mouse wheel down the page:o If only I could guarantee the 2% rate for the whole term....

SmlSave

Afternoon!

Yes, SmlSave stands for small save as that's what I do! I never have much to put away

paying more attention to where my 'spare' money goes....
[*]

My personal theory is that there's a spare change dragon (miniture of course ) that steals all spare change and takes it to his hoard.

Getting your books valued sounds like a really good idea, promise you won't sell them unless you really want to?

I was amazed that my spreadsheet actually went back almost two years :eek: I've just been adding onto it, never looking back. Hangs head in shame and waits for StuartGMC to shake his head in disbelief

StuartGMC

SmlSave wrote: »

I was amazed that my spreadsheet actually went back almost two years :eek: I've just been adding onto it, never looking back. Hangs head in shame and waits for StuartGMC to shake his head in disbelief

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Now I just don't think I can win with any form of reply to that, so, I'll just say "All the best for 2009"!!

SmlSave

Thanks for not beating me up Stuart! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

abouttimetoo

abouttimetoo wrote: »

I've just updated the OP part of my signature but I can't do it fully until I pay the further £300 next week and then I'll have to ring C&G and get a mortgage balance (which i love doing) quote]


I've just made thar extra £300 OP which takes my total since April to £4900 and 181% of my original target of £2700:j

I've updated my signature with the Op details but can't do the balances until I ring C&G next week. I've never amended the daily interest figures since I started as I only work them out manually and at first wasn't fully confident they were correct but the spreadsheet has been going long enough now for me to confirm my figures against C&G's each month so from january I will update my daily interest figures in my signature on a monthly basis.

I'm supposed to be working today but I'm not quite 100% so I'm just going to do a few hours then know off for Christmas:D

abouttimetoo

SmlSave wrote: »

Afternoon!

Yes, SmlSave stands for small save as that's what I do! I never have much to put away


My personal theory is that there's a spare change dragon (miniture of course ) that steals all spare change and takes it to his hoard.

Getting your books valued sounds like a really good idea, promise you won't sell them unless you really want to?

I was amazed that my spreadsheet actually went back almost two years :eek: I've just been adding onto it, never looking back. Hangs head in shame and waits for StuartGMC to shake his head in disbelief

Hi Smlsave - loving your idea of the spare change dragon lol, my change always goes in a 2 foot whiskey bottle at the end of the week.

Re getting my books valued; I promise I won't sell them unless I really want to and I can't envisage a situation where I would have too. I also can never see a point where I would have sold them all as some of them have been bought for my own enjoyment of tracking them down and owning them (sorry if that makes me a bit of a saddo, I guess other book lovers will understand)

I'm just curious as to their current value and also concerned that I may need to adjust my home insurance to cover them:rolleyes:

I know what you mean about your spreadsheet, it's amazing how the time flies isn't is although I do look back at mine to see how far I've come:D

abouttimetoo

Just been catching up on a few other threads and I can see potential payrises have been mentioned. This is something I've not factored into any plans yet as a) I've not any idea what mine is likely to be and b) I don't even know if I will get one!

abouttimetoo

Hi all

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas

Just a quick update (now where have you heard that before and then gone on to read war and peace:rolleyes: )

Just checked my bank accounts and all my expenses are up to date bar £103 which should come in next week. My £350 from the PEP cash equity has also arrived today so that has gone into my savings account - I was tempted to OP it but managed to resist as I need to build savings up a wee bit again.

Now for a very shameful confession:o I've just worked something out that I should have done months ago and that is how much of my salary goes to a) the mortgage and b) all the bills. The confession wouldn't be as bad if it was just that I hadn't got around to doing it but it's actually far worse than that in that I hadn't even thought about doing it!!!!! (Stuart, I quite understand if this means that you send my thread to coventry and put me on an ignore list:rotfl: )

I'm really unhappy not to mention shocked by the outcome and I've got a lot of work to do! Sorry, didn't mean to keep you in suspenders - the result is that with effect from January 23% of my income goes to the mortgage (not including OP's), and 41% goes to all bills/committments in total. During 2008 approx 40% of my salary went to mortgage (excl. OP's) and 54% to all bills.

The bit I'm really shocked by is where the h*ll has the rest of the money gone??????? Thank goodness I said last week that I planned to do a spending diary in January, however, I only said this mostly out of curiosity rather than thinking I had a big problem. I need to work things out carefully as roughly speaking I would say that 20% goes on holidays and eating out but that still leaves an awful lot unnaccounted for and I'm not one for buying clothes, only food shop a few times a year due to working away all the time and my 2000 miles a year in the car can't amount to much in petrol costs even though the price of petrol has been a hot topic:rotfl:

Now feels like the time to have a proper rummage through Stuarts spreadsheet which I've been meaning to do all month and pinch the bits I need to add to my own [strike]baby[/strike] errm spreadsheet