Hurrah, my MFW quest has started

SwitchyChick

StuartGMC wrote: »

especially as our ISA Funds all turned negative yesterday

Oo, don't like the sound of that Stuart, whatever do you mean?

abouttimetoo

StuartGMC wrote: »

Well done; you're overpaying more than me, which makes me cringe at where our money is going, especially as our ISA Funds all turned negative yesterday, but hey, it's what you expect in short term cases.

Keep up the good work

Thanks StuartGMC. I might be overpaying more than you but from reading your own thread you are paying more into your investment side than I am. I'm 'happy' enough with my investments/savings at the moment and as my mortgage is so high this is the area that I really want to throw myself into in the short to medium term, although I know I will need to look at my pension provisons in greater detail before too long....

I work away all the time (only home at weekends) and although it's very hard to do and I don't want to be doing it for ever, it does mean that my utility bills and food etc are really minumal; every cloud and all that :rolleyes:

I'm not sure what you mean by your ISA funds turning negative?

Regards

abouttimetoo

I've just updated my signature and I'm sooo pleased to finally see the interest only part balance come down:j

Between my overpayments and normal payments my total balance has reduced by £1482 since 23rd April, needless to say I'm really pleased by this

Next task is to see how much the daily interest has reduced by but I know that the fact the interest rate has also dropped will play a part in this.

I guess the last thing to report is that the amount I was in credit by when I got paid balanced with what I had expected it to be when I had done a rough budget - amazing!

abouttimetoo

hmm, don't know what's happened to the amendments to my signature, I'm sure I saved them. Oh, well, off to do it again....

setmefree2

Well Done:T:T:T:T:T

StuartGMC

SwitchyChick wrote: »

Oo, don't like the sound of that Stuart, whatever do you mean?

Hi, you'll see in my thread that whilst we offset and overpay, I've taken the decision (risk) to invest in ISA Stocks & Shares (via Funds) rather than a Cash ISA. Of course the normal situation is pound-averaging whilst investing on a monthly basis, but having decide one of the UK funds wasn't going to improve we took the money and instead put in Latin American and Russia/Greater Russia Funds, which are high risk but with growth potential, so they are much more volatile. In this case therefore the lump sum value os subject to day-to-day swing as value changes, hence negative profit position at the moment.

These are 5-10 yr investments, and I hope to be able to set up Cash ISAs as well next year if we can be 100% offset (gas, electric and petrol price allowing!). The hope is the Funds will out-peform cash savings in that time, and of course you get a lot for your money now whilst equities and markets are down.

Don't worry, eggs are in various baskets, and the Funds are fun to watch and monitor but we have final salary pensions too, so the risk is acceptable in our case

abouttimetoo

Hi all

Just made myself a bit miserable by replying to the 'how much interest do you pay daily thread' as I don't include my BTL mortgage in my MFW journey (yet!). The BTL ticks over nicely but I know that this approach is a bit lacksadasical (spelling?) of me and before too long I need a plan of attack for it so I'm doing that awful thing of putting it to the back of my mind:rolleyes:

In an attempt to cheer myself up I've just looked at my spreadsheet to remind myself of how much I've paid off and it's £4338.16 in 19 months :eek: (hmm this cheering myself up thing not going to plan) but £1482 since April this year when I started my MFW quest and if I stick to my plan by the end of this year it should be £4000 paid of this year and at least £9000 next year and this is based on no pay rises which short of a disaster shouldn't happen....

Right, feel slightly better now:D

abouttimetoo

Crikey, it’s been a long time since I posted - I'm on page 6 - so I thought I would just jot a few random MSE things down and amend my signature. I made my usual £350 overpayment in July and I’m on track for the same again this month. As well as this I’ve also completed a couple of other MSE/MFW things on my to do list
· I’ve cancelled an Income Protection Policy that I took out 10 years ago so that will be an extra £16 per month into the OP fund. I had to laugh because when I first took it out it was to cover my £383 per month financial commitments, oh for those days ay
· I finally got my gas situation sorted out which means I’m due a nice refund

With regard to the gas - I’ve been paying massive gas bills compared to my upstairs neighbour who has theirs on nearly 24/7 and I work away a lot and only use the gas here and there at the weekends. After many painful hours on the phone with British Gas and numerous trips to the all the different gas meters in my building the upshot is that I have actually been paying my upstairs neighbours bill!! As if that wasn’t enough the people in the flat upstairs to him are also in the mix and Br Gas have confirmed that all three of us have crossed meters and have had for nearly two years since the build was completed. To be fair to Br Gas it doesn’t seem like it is their fault as it seems the builders advised the National Grid of the wrong meter serial numbers that had been allocated to the three properties. I don’t suppose I’ll ever really know who is to blame but it will now take 12 weeks to resolve and ‘my’ bills have been put on hold. I haven’t worked the refund out yet but as I’ve paid for in excess of 1000 units that I haven’t used I think it will be sizeable. :j

My electric is also via British Gas and as my bills for the last 3 months have been £1.03. £6.74 and £8 respectively and this was helpful in getting them to realise I wasn’t in my house very much and that my supposed gas usage wasn’t in line with my occupancy rate. When I swapped the electric to Br Gas they set me up on a £33 per month Direct Debit (I didn’t know this until I saw it come out of my account). I rang them to explain I would be unlucky to spend that much in a quarter and they grudgingly reduced the monthly DD to £18, of course now I’m in credit with them by £90 so I’ve also got that refund coming my way and will then reduce the DD again. I wasn’t really sure whether to leave the electric account in credit IUSWIM but then convinced myself it wasn’t earning any interest and could go into the OP pot so I now think I’ve made the right decision.

I’ve also paid for nearly half of my holiday and as I don’t go away until March 09 I’m pretty pleased about that. In addition I also have nearly all of my spending money saved and as I have my own skiing equipment etc I don’t need to buy any new holiday clothes.

When it comes to Christmas I’m usually a very last minute shopper. This is more to do with the fact that I don’t like shopping rather than being disorganised so very unusually for me I’ve already got three Christmas presents in – woohoo

My BTL is ticking over nicely and so far this year has been continuously occupied. I’ve actually had a bit of a bonus on that front as the tenants company forgot to give notice and ended up paying me for an extra 5 weeks when it was really unoccupied. The tenants company is my main occupier and I have had their employees in my place approx 16 months out of the last two years. If I’m really honest I wouldn’t have been any the wiser if they hadn’t paid me so full credit to them for their honesty!

My savings are building up nicely but I’m not too impressed with the rate I’m getting so my next job is to have a look at some internet savings accounts.

Jobs still to do
· Sort share situation out – been really lax with this as the problem cropped up in May!
· Work out 2009 OP’s as I want to pay at least £500 in OP’s between January and June and then increase to £800 after June
· Visit mortgage broker to see what might be best when my current BTL rate expires
· Submit outstanding work expenses or I’ll have to pay this months bills out of my savings

If anyone is still awake by now after this long - and very random :rolleyes: - post I hope you are well and that your own MFW plans are going well

Regards

evab_2

I hope you get a good refund from BG, and well done for brilliant overpayments.

abouttimetoo

Thanks evab, yes I'm very pleased. If I'm honest I know I could have paid a bit more but I wanted to settle into it a bit if you know what I mean but I'm committed to really hiking the OP's up next year.

At the minute I've got that horrible dillema (spelling?) about having a bit of work done in the house that I really want done but don't need doing if you know what I mean - the cost will be c. £500 - I'm going to see how my budget is next month but at the moment I'm on the side of treating myself 8:)