FTB - How to 'allocate' savings

lostinrates

OK, well if we are onto sofas, I have 6, five of them antique, one of them woul seat about 7 freindly people and a dog and ALL of them together cost less than a grand (though the storage they are in now has added up to be fair.) 2 of the nicest were reupholstered by my parents for a wedding present so that DH could have a say in our future interiors- and again, to be fair that was very expensive BUT they are in mint condition and beautifully furnished and from a smart antique shop would have cost more than your £2,500 sofa, so there ROFL


Seriously, we are entering a tough time so I agree I'd borrow less and if you can afford it and are determined press on to extend borrowing later maybe.

TT1_3

ziknik wrote: »

How secure are your jobs? How secure will they be when we are in recession?

I don’t have a secure job so I would keep the £18k as an emergency fund in ISAs/ Cash Savings.

Both our jobs are secure at very large companys that won't do a Marconi.
The OH has just had a promotion and is in payroll and i got a promotion 18 months ago into a service/repair department so i doubt a recession would affect either of us (thats why i got out of production).

We can afford the bills+interest only mortgage off a single salary and i'm sure one of us could get a job stacking shelves so we could make the full mortage payment.

This is my thinking though about the savings, i'm suprised your the only one to mention it.

TT1_3

PasturesNew wrote: »

£8.5k on furnishings seems a bit ott.

Theres a few jobs need doing that are included in that figure.

Kez100

TT1 wrote: »

I'm suprised you didn't think keeping some for a rainy day was a good idea.

I did, as your overpayments will build up and give you that buffer to draw on if you need it. If you don't it's saving you interest and helping repay even more. ISA's are great too but I can forsee you spending them with the talk of extensions (when you aren't even in the house yet and when you are it's four bedroomed!) and expensive sofas.

No one thought Marconi would die! I agree, you have to remain positive in the absence of any evidence but to think you will definitely be immune is naive.

Kavanne

We are setting up offsetting for the rest of our savings, so we have access to the money (in 3 working days for the transfer) but aren't paying any interest on it

(PS My suite cost £2000 and is worth every penny but I did like some that were cheaper too, it all depends on your personal taste)

PasturesNew

TT1 wrote: »

i'm sure one of us could get a job stacking shelves

I think you will find it a shock just how hard it is to get jobs that an employer would think you weren't suited to.

When you are out of work, you can't "just take any job" because all those other jobs have another 200 people going for them. And many of those applicants will have experience, or be deemed "the right sort of person" for the task.

They might deem that you're only there until you can get a better job, at which point you'd suddenly stop turning up. So they'd rather employ somebody who was doing the job for different reasons. e.g. students, housewives fitting in the hours around their kids, people who will never have a desire to go anywhere else.

ziknik

TT1 wrote: »

Both our jobs are secure at very large companys that won't do a Marconi.
The OH has just had a promotion and is in payroll and i got a promotion 18 months ago into a service/repair department so i doubt a recession would affect either of us (thats why i got out of production).

We can afford the bills+interest only mortgage off a single salary and i'm sure one of us could get a job stacking shelves so we could make the full mortage payment.

This is my thinking though about the savings, i'm suprised your the only one to mention it.

I’m not. Borrowing less and spending less are the obvious moneysaving things to do.

I don’t want to go on and on about the point, but (I’m going to anyway), there are very few jobs that are totally secure in a recession.

Service and repair of what?
Is it essential equipment? i.e. Trains, electrical generation equipment, water pumps.
Or none essential equipment? i.e. air-conditioning that you really could live without.

Payroll in a big company can be one of the most insecure jobs.
Example, If you were Honda UK, and things weren’t going so well, would you give redundancy to someone who works in admin or production? (assuming you make others work harder to cover the loss of a member of staff).

Don’t be so sure you can just nip down to Tesco and get a job.
1. There will be many other people who have the same idea, who will be there before you because they have a less secure job
2. Tesco will need less staff because people will reduce food wastage

I know it sounds like I am being a bit extreme, but can you really be a 100% sure I am not spot on in my thinking?

TT1_3

Kez100 wrote: »

I did, as your overpayments will build up and give you that buffer to draw on if you need it. If you don't it's saving you interest and helping repay even more. ISA's are great too but I can forsee you spending them with the talk of extensions (when you aren't even in the house yet and when you are it's four bedroomed!) and expensive sofas.

No one thought Marconi would die! I agree, you have to remain positive in the absence of any evidence but to think you will definitely be immune is naive.

Both our employers customers are involved in supplying essential services and we're both in departments that shouldn't suffer during a recession, my department should prospur during one as people aren't buying new.
However, i'm anything but naive and have considered every possibility i can think of.
We've made sure we can afford all bills and interest only mortage payments off either salary - thats without cutting back to just the basics (which we would).

The extension would be fantastic but something i would consider a 'luxury'.
I was thinking of keeping the ISA's, saving more and only building it when we'd have 10k left after it was built/furnished.
I didn't know about drawing on the overpayments, it seems like having my cake and eating it. I know what i'll be looking into this weekend now, lol :beer:

TT1_3

ziknik wrote: »

I know it sounds like I am being a bit extreme, but can you really be a 100% sure I am not spot on in my thinking?

I totally agree, thats why we looked at houses in the bracket we did because a 205k mortgage willl allow us to contine making payments off either salary.
This is also why i'm wondering what to do with the extra we have, 18k is a very nice umbrella for a rainy day.

ziknik

You have put a lot of thought into this and that is good.

Which leads me to ask; What rainy day could possibly occur that would force you to draw on the £18k?

Are you down to 2 options now (plus other)?

Save it for the extention (i'm guesstimating 20k for the extention)? Borrow less on the morgage? [STRIKE]Leave it in the ISA for a rainy day?[/STRIKE] Other?

You may as well hang on to the money if you are 100% sure of the extension.

Or borrow less if the extension is a maybe, you could re-mortgage for the extension money in the future if house prices don’t fall too much

(my view is house prices will plummet hard, but that’s a whole other discussion)