What are you all up to
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He has helped by driving over here to deliver our mail when I was unable to drive. Unfortunately, he can't help in any other way because he's in a wheelchair due to being paralysed from the chest down. He was in the Purley train crash about 25 years ago and suffered spinal injury from it.
The Community nurse attends to him each morning, so he needs the house to himself. His car is specially adapted so that it can be driven using hands only. So at least he can still drive and as he has use of his hands, he can do most other household things. So he can live an independent life which he prefers but he does need the house to himself.
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At the time when I tried to book online, all the other hotels in the area were fully booked. So were lucky to get a room available.
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I have no savings and need to use credit cards to make payments. For this I need low interest or no interest to save costs. So any rise in interest rates would make life more difficult for me. I rely on interest free credit and this is possible for me because of excellent credit rating that has come about because of having no mortgage, rent or other household expenses such as electricity and gas accounts all of which are entered on to your credit report and can potentially reduce your credit rating.
Whenever, you apply for a loan or credit of any kind, the bank or credit provider looks at your credit report. If your credit report shows that you have borrowed £200,000 to buy a house, it stands to reason that lending money to you is going to be of higher risk than if you didn't have that debt! When they look at my credit report and find a credit. rating of 999 which is the very top credit rating, when I need to borrow money for anything, it is easily available to me at 0 percent interest. In that situation there is no need to have savings.
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Exactly, Bakers2. So what's the point in hoarding that money in the bank when you could be using it to get a better and a more enjoyable life with it?
When I spent £383 on our hotel bill, it helps the staff there to have a job and earn money themselves. So it's good for the economy! On our last afternoon, there was hardly anybody else there in the bar/restaurant, so we were enjoying good service whilst others were staying at home paying their mortgages!
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Even when they don't have a mortgage to pay, they still have the worry of the electricity or gas bill. Not for me, thank you! For me, it's the freedom of the road! I'd rather spend £12 a night to the site owner to help him pay his bills rather than have those bills myself!
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You have a strange sense of reality Malcolm. I'm guessing that a lot of people posting on here have paid their mortgages and have a ever increasing asset.
£383 for a 2 night stay in a hotel doesn't sound like value for money for me, I would have been grieved if I had spent £200 for 2 nights
Of course its up to you how you live and spend your hard earned
Off to Strumpshaw shortly to see whats around
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Just catching up,
Husky, Glad to hear your Dad's cancer hasn't spread, it amazing what they can do these days, hope everything goes well.
I think I need Bakers and KjellNN as my financial advisers, after years in Banking and accounts I'am terrible with my own money.
much better with others people's 
Very misty this morning, but the sun is breaking through, hoping to get washing pegged out before work, new bath is supposed to be delivered today too. Not looking forward to taking the old knew out though, I remember putting it in!
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Congratulations on your news KjellNN,
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Just to put it in prospective our community charge, gas, electricity, water, sewage, telephone, TV and Internet amount to less per month than your 2 nights away 😃. We don't have a mortgage these days but we were paying 17% interest for several years on our mortgage, which taught us to be frugal having one wage and 2 children and there was no such thing as interest free credit. Luckily we didn't need it but loans had to be discussed with the bank before being considered let alone granted.
We all live our lives the way we choose and I personally like to have more than the recommended minimum of 3 months income behind me, just in case 😃
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Lovey bright sunny morning here so hopefully we can get the last of the awning and groundsheet dried and aired. I have been asked to swap my duty at the Cathedral today so I am doing this afternoon instead of the morning.
I agree about finances Bakers2. I remember when we were paying 17% interest on our mortgage for some years. I had to go from part time work to full time and even had a 'Saturday job' in a show house for a while. I hope those rates don't come back. We don't have a mortgage now but I fear for our children who do.
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Yes but you can lose your home when things go awry! When you've got nothing, like me, you've got nothing to lose!
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Yes but it was only once in 3 years because of things having gone awry with my hand! £383 to pay for one emergency event in 3 years works out to just £2 per week when spread over that period of time!
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Yes, so the best thing to do is to teach your children to enjoy the freedom of the road and not have a mortgage. Then you won't have to worry about how they can afford the repayments when interest rates go up!
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Yes but I find that this way of life is working out a lot better than the days when I was much younger and had a mortgage to pay at a time when interest rates were phenomenal and feeling trapped because there was no way out. It was almost impossible to sell property in those days.
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Both our children have houses and mortgages, but live well within their means, especially with spouses also working.
Our son and wife had already paid off their first mortgage before they bought their present home 6 years back, and now they are well on the way to paying off this mortgage.
Our daughter bought her present home almost 5 years back, on one income, so now they have a joint income of almost 3 times what she had then, I don't think they will be too bothered if rates go up a little.
She has savings too, enough for a year of costs at least, plus they have both held on to their first flats and rent them out, which gives them a little additional income after the costs are covered.
I doubt any of them would agree that they would be better off renting or living in a caravan!
Like many of our age, we had to pay much higher interest rates than borrowers these days, but we survived and prospered. OH stayed home to look after the children, and later her Mum, but we still managed to put the kids through school and university, pay off our mortgage, and save for our retirement, so we must have done something right.
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You were lucky, KjellNN. There were many people, like Milliehull, that couldn't manage and had to take a second job. In some cases, where both the husband and wife were already earning, they suddenly found that they couldn't afford the higher payments. There were a glut of properties on the market due to repossessions and property prices started to fall because of it. Hard-working people could no longer afford to keep their home!
I remember working in the Ministry of Agriculture at that time and going hungry because I couldn't even afford to pay the subsidized cost of a lunch in the works canteen!
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Not me Helen, I cannot take much credit for our good financial position, it is my wife who is the expert with the finances!. I just earned the money and she spent/saved it.
Her parents had their own business for several years, and her mum was a trained book keeper, so no doubt she takes after them.
In my family, I was the sensible one, while my brother was always in financial scrapes, so I am not a big spender, but never had much time to take an interest in our finances.
These days I am trying to keep up with how OH operates so I will know what to do if she is out of action. She is still the one that keeps up with news on the best accounts, and moves the savings around as required.
We take about an hour at the start of every month to make the necessary movements of funds and check the budget for the month ahead, then we can get on with life.
When regular savers mature she deals with the funds and I then keep a record on a spreadsheet as she is not really into computers and spreadsheets, though she is very good with all the internet banking and the money saving forums.
She is also expert with the tax returns, I just sign at the bottom, but I am also taking more interest in that too these days. Mine needs to be done as soon as we get home, so I am starting to gather together the necessary figures.
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I don't think you need to worry too much in your position, KjellNN. It looks to me like you're doing all right! Enjoy!
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This was a problem much more prevalent in England than in Scotland, our house prices have always been more stable, so much less "boom and bust".
We always borrowed wisely, never overstretched ourselves, our biggest mortgage was £45k back in 1988 when we built our present house.
When the rates were really high, was that around 1977?, our mortgage was £11k on house worth twice that.
I think my salary at that time was £5k, but my memory is not what it was.
I would say we were careful, rather than lucky.
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I remember it being around 1990. By 2001, that marriage was over. Then I lived in a caravan whilst my ex-wife kept the house. After that she failed to keep up the mortgage repayments and eventually the bailiffs came and took the house off her.
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Thankfully, I am now married to a much more sensible girl! I met my present wife online at a time when there was a growing trend of internet dating. I took the view that with a world of 3.5 billion females, there was surely one that was suitable for me!
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We also had high intrest rates when we bought our house and with 2 teenage boys in boarding school things were tight for awhile. I have always been the one who looks after the money, while OH has been the earner.
This was not from choice but living in Germany with the army and moving every 18 mths to 2 years jobs were not easy to get. As soon as i could work i did, the money i earned was always banked and not touched.
When we returned to Scotland in 1990 i was able to get a partime job and once again banked it for the future. I am 2 years younger than my OH who we knew would have to retire at 60, i had no intention of working, while he was at home so my wages were banked to cover my retiring early. I was fortunate in that i was offered a package so this helped, we did however live for 5 years on OH's pension and my savings until our government pension kicked in last year.
I remember when we got married OH had no idea how to look after money, being a single soldier if he had it he spent it, if he didn't have any money left it didn't matter in those days as everything was found for them.
So i took over the finances and taught him how to budget. Even now i am like Bakers2 and Mrs Kj, i check interest rates, move money around, open new accounts etc. I do have it all written down so OH could find it.
I've never been a big earner and my pension isn't great while OH has 2 good army pensions plus government one now, if anything happened to me he would still be ok money wise, so i have to make sure that if anything happened to him i wouldn't be left without financial means. I couldn't /wouldn't want to have to live hand to mouth.
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The only problem with that, Tammygirl, is that people who have scrimped and saved money all their lives are feeling no benefit because of low interest rates, coupled with inflation, that results in a depletion of savings in real terms.If you have £100,000 savings at 0.25 percent interest per annum, that works out to just £4.80 a week, not even enough to buy a daily newspaper! However, even that little money is then eroded by a 2.9 per cent level of inflation!Yet how hard it is to save that kind of money out of your wages at a time when wages were a lot less than they are today! When I was a child, average earnings were 10 shillings a week. It's hard to believe today that people once lived on 50 pence per week!
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When this thread returns to normal and commonsense prevails without further trolling I might look in once more. Thanks to all who use the voice of reason and post about what they are really doing but it appears to be of no avail. We are being led up the proverbial garden path.
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I've been looking through some old (and this years) photos.
These two young farmers were born 84 years apart. I think our grandson has inherited his Great Grandfather's genes.
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