Interest Rates

[SpokeyDokey]

Ive said before, take responsibility, take care, it's one of the very best things you can ever do.
We married young, that puts a financial burden on you. I had a very modest paid job for 23 years while we were bringing up the kids, my wife occasionally worked part time, pin money kind of thing. It was ALWAYS a struggle making ends meet.
But we budgeted relentlessly, where we took loans, we paid them off asap, we saved whatever we could. Brought our modest house at 40
Slowly slowly, you get topside. I did get a well paid job for the next 10 years and the upshot is..
At 64, i have no mortgage, virtually no credit card use or debt, anything and everything we have on the never never could be cleared if i lost my job tomorrow
On paper, we can scarcely believe our worth. I never earned big big money, but we budgeted and lived as much as possible within our means, sensible cheap cars, never waste money. It really is amazing what you can achieve.

Nice one and well done!

Many people simply do not understand that they need to live within their means.

Even if it means not having the latest and greatest whatever...

 

[Deleted User]

I think he runs a similar thing to us here.

We have a 20 year cash flow forecast. A pretty complex beast but one that is, nonetheless, very easy and quick to update each month. Took a while to build though and it evolved over time.

Each month we know exactly what we have in terms of cash/investments and know our 'wealth' position ex' (mortgage free) house.

We originally built the spreadsheet to enable us to have confidence that switching off our corporate careers and downshifting would work. Bear in mind that we were downshifting our annual net income by 80% - the numbers eased a lot of the scariness!

Takes very little time for Mrs SD to run the month end numbers but, whilst we are both retired and will never run out of money, it is a habit we both do not wish to break. It's quite good fun really.

In December we spend an hour together planning the next year - likely investment returns, inflation rate, major purchases etc. This is a really useful exercise too.

We don't really budget as such we just use historical data to estimate income and expenditure - we are able to buy what we want and when we want it, and then use this as a guide for the year ahead and subsequent years.

Some people think we are crazy but in all honesty I am of the opinion that if more people actually 'managed' their finances they would be able to make better monetary decisions and be less stressed about their long-term financial wellbeing.

Wow, sounds complicated and a bit too business like for me but each to their own.

I've always just made sure I earned more than I spent and put some away for the proverbial 'rainy day ' along with ensuring I pumped as much as I could into my pension.

We don't really have an exuberant lifestyle compared to some and any 'toys' I do have are of the classic variety so cost next to nothing to run and don't really depreciate, I doubt we would ever spend much more than 5k on a car (well the missus as I have a work van) so not hard for us to plan ahead really.

Now, helping the kids out with mortgage deposits will be another story but we have that covered.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Wow, just read that mortgage offered at 4.5% has been withdrawn and 10.5% offered. Never seen anything like this in my life time. Seen slow rise to 17% in 1979 but not like this.

I feel sorry for those who are in the midst of securing a mortgage or those on variable rate.

 

[Tom...]

Wow, just read that mortgage offered at 4.5% has been withdrawn and 10.5% offered.

Have you got a link, please? Sound's improbable, even in extraordinary circumstances.

 

[fossyant]

Wow, just read that mortgage offered at 4.5% has been withdrawn and 10.5% offered. Never seen anything like this in my life time. Seen slow rise to 17% in 1979 but not like this.

I feel sorry for those who are in the midst of securing a mortgage or those on variable rate.

We're selling MIL's house, so hoping our buyer's don't pull out and their deal is 'secure'. Otherwise we might be screwed ! The council is after it's care home money.

 

[Deleted User]

Can't understand married couples who do not share their finances. Each to their own of course.

I can see both sides to this and have discussed it with work colleagues many times.

When I first met my Wife she had her own flat (rented) and had just qualified as a Nurse so fully self sufficient, this was in 1990 mind you.

As we got to know each other I would stop over more and more and eventually moved in, at this point all the household bills were in her name as you would expect so I simply 'bunged her a bit' towards them.

As time went on we decided to get Married and buy a house together (1996) so off we went and the rest is history as they say.

Now this is where the paying of 'joint' bills raised it's head, we obviously had a joint mortgage but all the utility bills were in her name and coming out of her bank from the previous flat so when we moved into the house she just carried on paying them and I set up a standing order for a set amount each month to cover my 'share'.

As time went by my contribution changed to reflect circumstances as she went from full time to part time to full time again to Sister as the kids came and grew and needed less of her time, never once having a joint account in all this time and things working perfectly.

I put this working down to being on an equal, give or take, financial standing to one another and both people having lived alone whereas the lads I work with are all the main wage earners so want to know where every penny of their wages are going.

I remember one conversation with a fella who reckoned my missus was probably 'squirreling away' all the money I gave her and not paying the bills and would one day leave me with a massive debt, I asked him how much his bills were each month and he replied " well, about £1200 and the wife buys the food" we had a similar mortgage at the time and both had 2 kids "I give my missus £600 per month so I doubt
she's making much".

As already said, whatever works for you.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Have you got a link, please? Sound's improbable, even in extraordinary circumstances.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...eals-mortgage-lender-told-best-deal-10-5.html

 

[Arrowfoot]

We're selling MIL's house, so hoping our buyer's don't pull out and their deal is 'secure'. Otherwise we might be screwed ! The council is after it's care home money.

The issue for lenders is uncertainty so they will quote ridiculous amount. It will insane for the fiscal watchdog to wait until Nov to release their report.

 

[Tom...]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...eals-mortgage-lender-told-best-deal-10-5.html
View attachment 662827

Daily Mail

She didn't actually have an offer, she'd simply seen a product she was interested in at 4.5%

 

[Chislenko]

I suppose the "bonus" for the government will be if savings interest rates climb as hoped / expected it will put a lot of us back into paying tax on our interest, something we haven't really done for a while.

 

[jowwy]

Daily Mail

She didn't actually have an offer, she'd simply seen a product she was interested in at 4.5%

no, she had an offer, just not in writing

 

[Tom...]

no, she had an offer, just not in writing

She didn't have an offer.

"I was told my initial interest rate would be 4.5 percent. I was told today that the lender has pulled that offer"

Regardless, something doesn't ring true, no ones getting offered over 10% (yet)

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I can see both sides to this and have discussed it with work colleagues many times.

When I first met my Wife she had her own flat (rented) and had just qualified as a Nurse so fully self sufficient, this was in 1990 mind you.

As we got to know each other I would stop over more and more and eventually moved in, at this point all the household bills were in her name as you would expect so I simply 'bunged her a bit' towards them.

As time went on we decided to get Married and buy a house together (1996) so off we went and the rest is history as they say.

Now this is where the paying of 'joint' bills raised it's head, we obviously had a joint mortgage but all the utility bills were in her name and coming out of her bank from the previous flat so when we moved into the house she just carried on paying them and I set up a standing order for a set amount each month to cover my 'share'.

As time went by my contribution changed to reflect circumstances as she went from full time to part time to full time again to Sister as the kids came and grew and needed less of her time, never once having a joint account in all this time and things working perfectly.

I put this working down to being on an equal, give or take, financial standing to one another and both people having lived alone whereas the lads I work with are all the main wage earners so want to know where every penny of their wages are going.

I remember one conversation with a fella who reckoned my missus was probably 'squirreling away' all the money I gave her and not paying the bills and would one day leave me with a massive debt, I asked him how much his bills were each month and he replied " well, about £1200 and the wife buys the food" we had a similar mortgage at the time and both had 2 kids "I give my missus £600 per month so I doubt
she's making much".

As already said, whatever works for you.

We have two couples that we know who are married and both the girls have no job and hate having to ask for money.

How sad is that?

We have joint bank accounts, joint investments and where we have named investments eg when we used to use up both our full allowances for eg Isa's we have full access by our shared passwords etc.

Never even think about our money as my money or her money.

Bizzarely my BiL & SIL lend each other money.

Still... we are all very different.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I note that the economy grew last quarter and that we are not in redecession.

Not quite as the doomster media predicted.

 

[The Crofted Crest]

Bizzarely my BiL & SIL lend each other money.

An ex-colleague to his wife:

-- "Do you fancy going out to dinner tonight?"
-- "Oh yes, but I don't have any money."
-- "That's OK I'll go by myself."

And he does.
By all accounts they are bizarrely still married.