V
Varney
Guest
Hello,
My wife and I have recently gone about sorting out our financial affairs ( I just turned 40 and felt it was time to throw a shape on our disorganised ways!)
We had several short term loans - personal and joint - plus each of us had 5 and 4k credit card bills respectively. These in combination were sapping our monthly incomes ( me 1800 after tax, she 2,500 ) so we went along to see a local financial adviser.
We needed some extending done to the kitchen so his advice was to switch our mortgage from Permanent TSB ( which stood at 136,000 ) to IIB bringing it up to 200,000 over 25 years. Incidentally, the house was valued at 230k. The cheque is due to issue from IIB this week, The balance we plan to use to pay off all the short term loans and credit cards, set aside an emergency cash fund in a bank account, then use the rest for the kitchen extension.
The monthly income this frees up we plan to use for:
a. A savings account
b. life assurance and serious illness cover
c. me paying into a pension fund
My questions are:
do you think there are any other moves we can make to improve our financial situation?
Should we cut up the credit cards or try curbing our use of them and setting up a direct debit to pay the balances off each month?
Finally, before we got the financial advice I tried transferring my AIB visa balance to an MBNA card in order to avail of the interest free period they offer. The refused me the card on the grounds that my company had not submitted accounts to Revenue / companies house for the past two years. Foolishly, I tried applying for an Ulster Bank Zinc card right after this and again was refused ( this time no reason given ).
OUr company accounts have since been submitted but now I've been told that these rejections will go on my credit record with the Irish Credit Bureau. I don't know anything about this body and was hoping someone out there can tell me if this is true. How will this affect me if I need to obtain credit in the future? Would it make sense to apply again for the MBNA card ( I'm presuming they'd grant it now the accounts are in and thus show this refusal was only temporary....)
Hope some one can offer advice on some of the above.
Thanks and keep up the great site,
MH
My wife and I have recently gone about sorting out our financial affairs ( I just turned 40 and felt it was time to throw a shape on our disorganised ways!)
We had several short term loans - personal and joint - plus each of us had 5 and 4k credit card bills respectively. These in combination were sapping our monthly incomes ( me 1800 after tax, she 2,500 ) so we went along to see a local financial adviser.
We needed some extending done to the kitchen so his advice was to switch our mortgage from Permanent TSB ( which stood at 136,000 ) to IIB bringing it up to 200,000 over 25 years. Incidentally, the house was valued at 230k. The cheque is due to issue from IIB this week, The balance we plan to use to pay off all the short term loans and credit cards, set aside an emergency cash fund in a bank account, then use the rest for the kitchen extension.
The monthly income this frees up we plan to use for:
a. A savings account
b. life assurance and serious illness cover
c. me paying into a pension fund
My questions are:
do you think there are any other moves we can make to improve our financial situation?
Should we cut up the credit cards or try curbing our use of them and setting up a direct debit to pay the balances off each month?
Finally, before we got the financial advice I tried transferring my AIB visa balance to an MBNA card in order to avail of the interest free period they offer. The refused me the card on the grounds that my company had not submitted accounts to Revenue / companies house for the past two years. Foolishly, I tried applying for an Ulster Bank Zinc card right after this and again was refused ( this time no reason given ).
OUr company accounts have since been submitted but now I've been told that these rejections will go on my credit record with the Irish Credit Bureau. I don't know anything about this body and was hoping someone out there can tell me if this is true. How will this affect me if I need to obtain credit in the future? Would it make sense to apply again for the MBNA card ( I'm presuming they'd grant it now the accounts are in and thus show this refusal was only temporary....)
Hope some one can offer advice on some of the above.
Thanks and keep up the great site,
MH