On your marks, get set, go...it's the countdown to Christmas 2020. Thread 1!

[ThatsMySantaHisBeardIsSoFluffy]

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Afternoon.

Here we go again! It feels slightly bonkers setting off again before today is over, but it's tradition, so who am I to argue?!

Ours are down too! The lounge looks enormous!

I took the kids to Tesco to spend their Christmas money while DH dismantled the trees and put them in the loft. We un-decorated together, but it was easier that we went out than hung around while the last bit was going on! I had an extra £5 off £25 toy spend which expired tomorrow, so it was a good time to go!

If we buy more decorations we'll need more storage boxes as ours are rammed! 😂 We have two enormous Really Useful boxes for the purpose.

Digging day tomorrow. Yay!

Emrys debt sucks but you have a plan and as you said, you can afford essentials. You'll get there and this year will fly by.

Fluffy do you rent at the mo? We're hoping to buy before the summer but prices are increasing here to the point I don't think we can keep up.

flouncy I learned long ago to check anything my mum is planning to chuck away (she gave away my favourite ornament when I was about 15 (it was of a Santa looking at the nice list while sat in front of a fire - the fire was a small tea light) so now she lets me look through before anything gets binned)

Were with British Gas after finally convincing the landlady to take us of pre payment meters.
Can I ask why everyone hates smart meters? We don't have one and lots of people are saying not to have one but I'm not sure why.

Wreck jobs I really want keep coming up further away. It's hard isn't it? How much of a commute do you have now? I have between 35-60mins depending on traffic and which office I'm in that day. I'm keen not to add to that.

I'm so happy right now. My house is clean and my lovely ddog2 is home (I know he's the only dog now but I'm still feeling odd without DDog1. I keep checking to make sure she's not under my feet when I walk around the house).
DH is cooking lasagne for tea and I'm meal planning for the week as I need to be 100% on my slimming world plan 💪

And just before I posted I've spotted a Christmas Dec that I missed 😂 it's a gold star that I hung on the kitchen bookcase. Completely missed it and the boxes are in the attic now so I'm going to leave it and see if DH notices.

Ten minutes to the office up do an hour to my furthest visit.

Crazy, yes. We've rented this house for 5 years now. I owned back before law school but had to sell up to pay for my course fees / living costs (£15k in fees over 2 years). Then I've only just started earning decent money as my area of law in this part of the country isn't amazingly-well paid so have racked up debt meaning we can't save for a deposit. Vicious circle. But...time to get on top of it!

How does the standing order thing work with credit cards? I'm a bit very shit with money so don't really get it. But I've set it up anyway (for a fiver over the minimum payment) to see what happens!

Our finances will be great in 5 years, assuming no job losses before then. Something to look forward to (and in time for the kids going into secondary and being more expensive to run!).

We once left a decoration up all year when we'd accidentally left it up.

Even if we had £20k for a deposit we don't earn enough to get a mortgage for a three bedroom house round here. Have to just accept it and hope the government have some kind of solution for all the retired renters once I'm in my 70's (if I make it that far!). Although maybe if we save and save we will be able to buy a small retirement flat in Wales

These are my new leggings. They're no good for yoga though as they rub my knees 🤔

Fluffy with a minimum payment direct debit the amount reduces slightly each time you pay a bit more off but with a standing order it's always the same (more than the minimum) so it gets paid off quicker.

We just renewed our electricity tariff and they offered a smart meter but didn't say anything when I said no. I don't want one because I'm already quite frugal and don't need the stress of seeing that the kettle is using x amount. Plus DH would obsess over it

Is that all there is to it, Wreck, or is there also a reduction in interest as you're paying it earlier than the DD?

Houses round here are going up, and sell quickly. It'll be interesting to see what Brexit does to that (if anything). Once we're in a better financial position I'm going to ask my parents to do one of those deposits where they put the money in an account for 5 years and earn interest, but it also pays our deposit. So it's not a loan as such, as theyre guaranteed to get it back with interest after that term, it's never just given to us and never seen again! Halifax and Barclays offer these type of mortgages.

Oh yes I've seen those mortgages advertised. I'm
Not sure re interest because I always make sure I'm on a 0%

Fluffy I've never heard of that mortgage / deposit scheme. How does it work?

With the credit card standing order, it reduced interest slightly because you pay the debt back sooner. For mine, the highest payment o ever made was £190 so I set the standing order to £210. It meant as my balance came down the cc company couldn't reduce my payments making it so I only paid the minimum, thereby keeping my Balance as high as poss for as long as poss. It took about 10 months off my payment plan in the end.

Wreck keep an eye on flats in Wales - our prices are increasing stupidly.
FIL bought a house locally for £210k. He's been in it just over a year, only work he's done is painting inside and fixing the conservatory roof. It was valued recently at £280k. Bloody stupid.

We both got into debt (me at uni, DH by not understanding budgeting). We ignored for a very long time until our income didn't actually meet our outgoings, then made a plan. We were almost free and clear then DH had a very hard time and went to uni. It's taken us until about a year ago to get on the straight and narrow!

I'm glad we're getting there but if we'd bought a house before the debt, we could have bought for £110k and it would be worth £180k now. Instead we're looking at somewhere smallish, most likely without parking and further away from town for £150k at least 🙄

Crazy, the deposit money goes into escrow, I suppose, so a holding account which pays interest. After 5 years it gets paid back to the 'lender' with interest. Therefore it's not gifting the deposit, it's loaning it via the bank as the holding company.

I don't qualify for any 0% deals now. Too much debt! 🙈 I should in a little while as my balances drop and my credit rating improves due to not paying the minimum payment.

DH will let me use any balance transfer he's offered in the meantime though.

I'm almost half way through my student loan payments now, as they're five year fixed. So I'll be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel soon.

I've had my head in the sand a bit. Time to grow up now. 😁

Ooh, my own bank just gave me 0% for 20 months. That's helpful for the balance transfer which has just ended its 0%! I hadn't even considered them, but checked MSE for balance transfer cards.

Good news fluffy!

I'll be taking the decorations down tomorrow while DS is at RugbyTots.

We remortgaged last year. It was rather stressful. We've been lucky, though. We bought at the peak of the recession, in one of the cheapest parts of the country, and the owner of our house agreed to knock £10k off the asking price for a quick sale with no chain. We'd have to economise a lot more to afford a house round here now!

Great news Fluffy!! We don't have credit cards, the only loan Dh has is a bank one that he got the car out of, that will be paid off in 3 years, plus he said a bank loan looks better than car finance when it comes to a mortgage, hopefully this time next year we will be home owners!! We are hoping to be mortgage free in 10 years once it happens.

I did notice at Christmas that kids loved the personal gifts they got, Dh got DD1 a jumper with Wannun on the front and 11T7 on the back, DD2 couldn't say her name properly a year ago and 11T7 is something Dh jokes about with her, she bloody loved it!!

Swimming lessons are a huge must for DD2 this year, but she's a funny bugger so I'm not sure how that will go.

Flouncy we love watching Martin Lewis so thanks for the reminder

Mine have 1:2 private swimming lessons. Because they do it twice a month instead of weekly it works out the same price as group lessons but they get much more out of it and I have more flexibility because the swimming teacher and I just arrange the lessons when they suit us.

I think that's what we'll be looking for Wreck, she'll be shy initially but hopefully gains confidence, she can be a stubborn little sod

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Morning!

The kids have joined us in bed, which is a bit of a squash! Thankfully it's only been for the last few minutes.

Digging day today. Woooo! I think I'll do everything which can be dug over though, so we'll then be ready to rotavate the rest. At which point we can put the mini pond in and lay the small patio.

I think the weather should hold. Em, did the council man come back to you? Firefly, how's your plot doing?

Brilliant news on the cc Fluffy!
Enjoy your digging day.

PJ are you planning to pay your mortgage off within 10years once you've bought a house?
We would like to overpay but aiming for 15-20 years!

I'm sat in bed drinking tea. I'm having a final Christmas today - dm is doing a turkey dinner and told me yesterday she's also using the last of the crackers etc before taking her decs down tomorrow. That was unexpected but I'm looking forward to it

Morning all.

We went out for lunch yesterday with fil and I think I got a touch of food poisoning. I was heart sick by the time dessert came.

Fluffy good memory. Yes, I did go see Shaun the sheep for DS birthday at Halloween.

I'm lucky in that I don't have any real debt behind me. We've a mortgage that has about 23 years left but we will try and get this down a good bit when I return to full time work, and I have my student loans. I think they finish after 20 years, so only another 9 years left. At the minute we can't afford for me to go to work full time as childcare would cripple us.

@CrazyBaubles we are going to buy our council house, I know it's not a very popular view for some people, but we really couldn't afford to buy otherwise, Dh also has a little inheritance that will go towards it too, Dh used to be self employed and times have been very hard at some point, but now he works for the local council, and me Nhs and the school the kids go to, so we are in a much better position.

Normality has resumed, Ds2 has his first football match of the year, they got thoroughly thrashed by this team last year so I hope it's not as bad, he's goalkeeper too!!

We're not allowed to buy our housing association house as it's in a protected rural area. It was our only hope! Unless DH can built us a house one day

Oh that's a shame @WreckTangled, ha ha if he's anything like my Dh you'd never get it built