Financial planning

[Kazz]

Do you plan ahead....with your finances, I am changing a few things round and cancelling a few unused credit cards. Thus in effect "increasing" my credit worthiness. to lenders although I do not want to lend but will be remortgaging shortly to use a little % of the equity in the house. So I am working in advance ie want to remortgage Sept time so working in advance, also looking at changing a couple of credit card in the next year as the 0% deal is running out so want to time it right.

So in effect I am doing a health check of my finances....this week. Seeing if any better deals out there as if I change I want to change now more than 6 months before Sept.

Just saying this to my friend and she looked at me like I was from another planet.She just leaves her finances alone until the red letters or rejection letters turn up. or the cash point says no money available.....

Strange points of view but I understand the "head in the sand" action and letters in a drawer but unless you take control you can't get ahead.....

[EmmaG]

Personally I don't do much planning ahead, although we do now save (what I consider) to be a substantial amount of money each month which goes into premium bonds. Luckily at the moment our mortgage is quite low (less than £500 per month) and we are trying to lower any debts that we have (paid off a catalogue and only have a Next account and I only have one credit card with a small amount owing)

Obviously for us at the moment we are also trying to pay for our wedding out of our disposable income and not borrow to fund it (which thanks to our savings which shouldn't have to do - or touch our existing savings)

We do try and get the lowest insurance quotes etc- our household insurance has just come through and OH did mention that he thought it was quite high and we would shop around (we did this last year as the premiums went up a lot - but the insurance company reduced it after we phoned them saying we had found a better quote)

[Kazz]

Thats the sort of thing I mean Emma I think, I plan to put extra money into premium bonds too....I think its a great way of saving......and a chance to get lucky too. Better than anything else I can find savings wise. I am rethinking due to becoming a one income household now (i.e mine)Plus having Mom and Dad livin here means the T.V. central heating, electric, etc etc are on 24/7.

[dandysmom]

Kazz, I don't know if it's the same in the UK, but here it's considered unwise to cancel unused credit cards as it can have a very negative impact on your credit score!!! This link will explain it very clearly. I have 3 active ones and an unused one which I use once or twice to keep it active, especially it's my oldest and longest credit history.

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-ca...score-1267.php

[fancyabrew]

you might want to have a rethink about premium bonds the payouts are really poor at the moment! I've got the maximum £30k and we're only averaging about £25 a month (had 25 this month 25 december nothing November, £75 October, nothing august) I inherited the £30k as my mum died in April, you can only keep them in for 12 months after death and I was going to reinvest them back in again come April but now I'm not sure that I'm going to bother. I'd get more in interest if I stuck the £30k in my ING saving account, only trouble is I have the rest of the money from mums estate in there and I'll be nearly double the £50k government protection limit. But saying that we're currently renovating her old house and our budgt for that is around £100k so it'll soon all go! ;o(

[EmmaG]

Oh I know that the prizes have gone down, but for us PB work really well as if we have the money in a savings account I think we would spend it. We have had a fair few payouts over the years the PB have been in. Also me and my OH are both higher rate earners and we would have to pay additional income tax on any savings, at least if we win on the PB it is totally tax free.

Personally for me, the idea of winning (and them being tax free) far outweighs the disadvantages of not earning so much interest from our savings.

[angieh]

I won my first PB at the beginning of December - only £25 but it felt like a lovely present. I've had PBs since I was a child (given as Christening presents I think) and not won anything in all those years. They are only low value ones, not worth cashing in.