Introduction, MF wannabe

lincoln-potter

kiran83 wrote: »

found you! im going to phone up my energy suppliers and see if they are able to provide the energy monitors for our home!

Its worth a try, British Gas only has a basic online analysis so I had to buy one myself.

I opted for http://www.efergy.com/ got it from Maplin for £40.00.

Seems easy enough to install.

kiran83

we are with Southern Electric... does anyone know if they do them???

lincoln-potter

kiran83 wrote: »

we are with Southern Electric... does anyone know if they do them???

New members to Southern Electric can but exisiting ones? I am not so sure
http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/gasandelectricity/iplan/

abouttimetoo

Hi there Lincoln-Potter and welcome to the board :hello:

You sound like you are going great guns already and the others have given some good advice.

Have you looked into getting a water meter? I'm not able to have one myself unfortunately but family and friends tell me it has made an enormous difference to their bills, some say their bills have been reduced by 50 and 75%

In my area the water board have been doing a type of green/save water promotion. They come to your house and do a review of all taps, toilets, showers etc and then give you remedies to save water. There are no catches or age restrictions either, my mother did this recently and got a fancy gadget for her kitchen sink which you can switch to spray e.g. if you are rinsing dishes etc you lose/use less water than normal tap flow, she also got two new shower heads which reduce the spray and a huge water butt for the garden as well as a fancy trigger spray head for the garden. She could have had other things for bathrooms but she was already using the best type of water savings 'gadgets'

Re stoozing, this is something I have done myself in the past (got just one on the go at the moment). There is a great stoozing thread on here but at the moment with the way the interest situation is the general concensus is that there is not much money to be made as the typical handling fee is 2.5 to 3% and its hard to find a savings account with a net interest rate better than that, hard, but not impossible. That said I'm assuming you are talking about cash advance stoozes, the other kind is often referred to as 'slow stooze' where you take a 0% cashback card, make all your purchases on it and instead of repaying the card monthly put it in a savings account to gain interest repeat this monthly etc and you pay off at the end of the term but will have benefitted from the interest. Notes of caution would be: set up a direct debit for minimum monthly repayments as you don't have a leg to stand on if you miss a payment and your full balance will lose it's 0%. Also, check the T&C's as some out there have pesky little catches in them.

I don't have all the details to hand but apparently some clever folk have worked out a way to stooze using M&S travellers cheques, something to do with them only having a 1% handling fee then you can pay them into your account like cash,

If you are going to get a credit card for whatever reason then don't forget to check Topcashback and Quidco and other such sites as they usually give one off 'cashback' for signing up with a range of c/c's. In fact before buying anything at all I would always check such sites.

Just stopping for a bite to eat, I shall return :rotfl:

abouttimetoo

I'm back

Some other things that might be worth checking are, do your gas, electric phone suppliers give you a discount for a) paying by d/d and b) going to paperless bills - mine do

Bank accounts, the budgets and bank account thread on here is good so have a mooch there. Check out the Lloyds Vantage account, a range of interest rates but you get 4% Gross on balances of 4-7k (off the top of my head, this rate is better than the majority of ISA's (do you have one?) and often flies under the radar on best savings rates sites as it is a current account - you need to pay in 1k monthly but you can kind of get round that if you don't want to direct you salary there e.g. as long as you transfer 1k in a month you can transfer it straight back out again and re-use the same 1k next time if you see what I mean. You can have up to 3 of these accounts.

You say your OH is on board which is good, another thing which might hellp if she wavers is working our the daily interest you are paying, it's a real eye-opener and lots on here find it particularly motivating, at it's highes I was paying over £28 per day interest.

I don't know how into cooking you both are but the old syle board has great advise on how to live/eat cheaply and healthily.

They say this is a marathon not a sprint so don't forget to have fun on the way, this can still be done in a MSE fashion, i'm a recent convert to Groupon and would recommend it highly whereby you can get all sorts of things heavily discounted e.g. meals out, facials, holidays, golf courses etc. On top of that you can even get cashback on it if you access it via Topcashback.

abouttimetoo

ok, so i'm blushing now, I'll try and make this the last one.., your SOA looks good but have you done a sense check e.g. does it feel/seem that the money it says you have surplus is actually what you do have?

Other small tips, do you get two months off paying council tax? Think about how you will use this money, OP, save to use for the one-offs you mentioned etc?

I know a young family can be costly but challenge any pay rises you get, do you really need the extra money or can it be used to save or OP before you get used to having the extra.

Have you looked at any of the challenges on here e.g. Cake's 2011 challenge?

Also, Financial Bliss has young children and he often refers to deals etc that he has discovered for holidays, activities to do with the children etc

Right, I think that's more than enough from me now!

Very best wishes with your plans, I look forward to reading about it

Regards
ATT

lincoln-potter

abouttimetoo wrote: »

Hi there Lincoln-Potter and welcome to the board :hello:

You sound like you are going great guns already and the others have given some good advice.

Have you looked into getting a water meter? I'm not able to have one myself unfortunately but family and friends tell me it has made an enormous difference to their bills, some say their bills have been reduced by 50 and 75%

In my area the water board have been doing a type of green/save water promotion. They come to your house and do a review of all taps, toilets, showers etc and then give you remedies to save water. There are no catches or age restrictions either, my mother did this recently and got a fancy gadget for her kitchen sink which you can switch to spray e.g. if you are rinsing dishes etc you lose/use less water than normal tap flow, she also got two new shower heads which reduce the spray and a huge water butt for the garden as well as a fancy trigger spray head for the garden. She could have had other things for bathrooms but she was already using the best type of water savings 'gadgets'

Re stoozing, this is something I have done myself in the past (got just one on the go at the moment). There is a great stoozing thread on here but at the moment with the way the interest situation is the general concensus is that there is not much money to be made as the typical handling fee is 2.5 to 3% and its hard to find a savings account with a net interest rate better than that, hard, but not impossible. That said I'm assuming you are talking about cash advance stoozes, the other kind is often referred to as 'slow stooze' where you take a 0% cashback card, make all your purchases on it and instead of repaying the card monthly put it in a savings account to gain interest repeat this monthly etc and you pay off at the end of the term but will have benefitted from the interest. Notes of caution would be: set up a direct debit for minimum monthly repayments as you don't have a leg to stand on if you miss a payment and your full balance will lose it's 0%. Also, check the T&C's as some out there have pesky little catches in them.

I don't have all the details to hand but apparently some clever folk have worked out a way to stooze using M&S travellers cheques, something to do with them only having a 1% handling fee then you can pay them into your account like cash,

If you are going to get a credit card for whatever reason then don't forget to check Topcashback and Quidco and other such sites as they usually give one off 'cashback' for signing up with a range of c/c's. In fact before buying anything at all I would always check such sites.

Just stopping for a bite to eat, I shall return :rotfl:

Hi abouttimetoo!

Thank you for the greeting.

Already on a water meter although I have it on my to do list to check for water efficiencies (not in the area for Anglian water to provide them FOC). Already have a water butt and just got via the council a compost bin so have looked into most of the "freebie" countril treats (least that i can find).

Great advice on the stoozing, however I was thinking for now to go for the simple Halifax CC with £5 when we spend over £300 per month. One for me and the OH and thats a simpe £10 without having to think over it too much. But i will check quidco in the morning at work. Wouldn't have thought of that so thanks!

Plan on going to the bank Saturday to tidy up my accounts and sort out ISA.

Many thanks for the advice

lincoln-potter

abouttimetoo wrote: »

ok, so i'm blushing now, I'll try and make this the last one.., your SOA looks good but have you done a sense check e.g. does it feel/seem that the money it says you have surplus is actually what you do have?

Other small tips, do you get two months off paying council tax? Think about how you will use this money, OP, save to use for the one-offs you mentioned etc?

I know a young family can be costly but challenge any pay rises you get, do you really need the extra money or can it be used to save or OP before you get used to having the extra.

Have you looked at any of the challenges on here e.g. Cake's 2011 challenge?

Also, Financial Bliss has young children and he often refers to deals etc that he has discovered for holidays, activities to do with the children etc

Right, I think that's more than enough from me now!

Very best wishes with your plans, I look forward to reading about it

Regards
ATT

Well having only moved middle of Dec there have been several one off payments which fingers crossed should reduce now. But overall yes I do have plenty left over at the end of each month. Previous mortgage I reduced the term by 14 years in 4 years through OP although the mortgage was only £450ish per month whilst on my current wage. My main PC is currenty being fixed so once I have that back I cam give 100% accurate SOA.

But I am expecting to take a paycut midway through this year so hoping to make quick in-roads and to be prepared before the cut rather than after.

No can't say I have seen any of the challenges, seen people mention them but not figured them out yet :rotfl:

The OH and I used to go abroad quite often however since the little ones we have settled down to camping trips. Which in al honestly we enjoy far more than either of us expected to. But I shall have a look for FB's post on activities.

Also just realised that Halifax accept OP over the phone, saves myself the annoying 40 minute journey into town too!

lincoln-potter

Had a sort out of my bank accounts today, swapped my CC from an old 2004 cashback to the reward clarity £5.00

Had several old accounts so closed them all down and switched a web saver to an ISA, should be making the first OP of this diary of £300 in the next day or so.

lincoln-potter

Small update

- Draft proofed the doors (appears to make quite a difference)
- Installed the energy monitor (£3.90 per day apaprently) going to leave it for a month with normal use so I can gauge any improvements we try to make
- Signed up for online survey sites
- Fitted blinds to most the upstairs windows along with curtains

My next few jobs are going to be:
- Re putty the windows on the outside (haven't been tounhed in years)
- insulate the attic trap door
- Tidy garage to make space ready for sorting items for a car boot

Oh and made the £300 overpayment yesterday.