Hurdler's Race to be Mortgage-Free

Hurdler

Thus completes the shake up of the credit cards.
I swapped a recurring payment from my now ill-fated Barclaycard Platinum to my Amex Cashback card and applied for a Halifax Clarity card for overseas.
So...
Amex Plat Credit Card - Petrol, Occasional Supermarket trips, TfL Lobster Card Top Ups and anywhere else that will take it for big purchases
MBNA Play.com Visa - Eve Online Subscription, Play.com purchases (obvs!), Hairdressers and anywhere else that won't take Amex
Halifax Clarity Card (Mastercard) - Overseas
M&S Credit Card (Mastercard) - M&S Purchases and (more importantly)... ALL FOREX Purchases, commission free. Vital when I have been travelling a lot for work!

Let that be a lesson to thee... Barclaycard - your shoddy customer service cost you my custom of almost 24 years (since I was a student)...

Lois_E

It's 24 years since you were a student???? You are full of surprises. I was imagining you as late 20s now. Don't know why. Maybe it's all the youthful energy in your posting style. You must be about the same age as me. :wave:

I love your pic of Vernon. I want to stroke him, but it's a bit difficult to stroke a virtual pig.

Hurdler

I am just so down wiv da kidz me! Yeah I am 42 ... And this time in the morning I feel every one of those years!!!

Alas no Mr Hurdler - still looking for the right one but dammit they're all too fast for my little old hurdling legs!!!
:rotfl:

Hurdler

Grrr - today was going to be a NSD - but I realised I had to go into town and post the Stakeholder Pension stuff off... and then realised that I'd spent £3 on a book of 4 x Large 1st Class stamps - and never got them.

So I have to traipse into town anyway.
Bit annoyed about that - but I do have to take in 3 bags of old suits to Oxfam so feel slightly more noble.

Bet they won't refund the money/won't believe me.

gratefulforhelp_2

Hurdler wrote: »

Introducing Vernon - The Virtual Mortgage Pig - he has accumulated £1814.66 already to go towards October's overpayments ... it could be as much as 3 additional months!!!

:beer:

Vernon and the Excel house will soon be appearing in "Huff, Puff, blow the house down"...

:rotfl:

Nice to meet you, Vernon.

He reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Homer goes into an alternative dimension.

poorbutrich

Hurdler wrote: »

Let that be a lesson to thee... Barclaycard - your shoddy customer service cost you my custom of almost 24 years (since I was a student)...

I took great delight in getting rid of my Barclaycard too! And then I got a Morgan Stanley cashback credit card. The company was then bought by.......Barclaycard....:mad:

Hurdler

Mehhh NOOOOO! @Poorbutrich... that's funny but terrible too!

It's amusing though as I was chatting with the perkin on my telephone banking as I was setting up my new payment details to my new cards, and carefully avoided saying that I was using them to replace Barclaycard ... and she asked me had I considered Barclaycard! So I had to fess up and tell her I was voting with my feet, and she did say that I should have raised the dispute using the Premier team... rather than going direct. But anyway their rewards are just a big pair of grey saggy pants...

That being said - I am just about to sign off a staggering £300 paying into a new pension pot as I don't qualify for my new job one until a year, and also I don't envisage being there that long ... so I think I am going to limit my credit card spending on essentials for a bit (Lobster Card, diesel, etc) and behave a bit!

BaconandEggs

I like your virtual pig! How are you assigning money to Vernon? Are they amounts that are surplus to your normal OP's?

Hurdler

This should be the first proper salary month after last month's screw up.
End of Sept - get paid
1st of Oct - leaves a chunky balance - enough to cover all the essentials
Anything that needs bolstering for extra expenses (usually what's on the credit cards) I'll nab back of Vernon, along with rent that's paid on my flat which goes to a separate accounts and I transfer that back in monthly.

Then anything left in Vernon should be fair game for Overpayments, as I have JUST set up a monthly saving account, and also just finishing the paperwork on a new pension as I won't qualify for my work one until 1 year with them (and I want to leave after 2)... so I'd rather start one independently and prepare for leaving and returning to either IT contracting or a new career as a journo (fingers crossed!!!).

I have just to register for Life assurance from the company and then perhaps look at income protection when things have settled down as I have some left over tax owing that will affect my tax code based on my last return.

I think it's beginning to sort itself out... and I need to make the most of this salary for the next two years to put me in a better position for following my lesser paid dream [/eek]

Hurdler

Came back from a good meeting with a local IFA... he's going to look at a couple of random (probably mis-sold) policies I had and help me decide how to plan for my pension in light of my plans to change career and for the first time I feel like I am going to get a lot of things sorted.

I have had lots of one-off meetings with Financial advisors in the past and then been working away or they've not followed up and the upshot is... finances-a-mess!

I did tot up what my share portfolio is and he laughed because I am quite risk averse, but the portfolio I had of public issue shares and inherited my dad's portfolio now adds up to a nice sum, but with the markets as they are, there is just no strategy. But what impressed me about this firm is that he was all "let's deal with one thing at a time - let me look at your Bank's stuff (Initial Pension, AVC and Life Policy) and then see what works best ... THEN we can sort out other stuff..."
And let's face it - they've been ticking along for 5 years now with no attention, another couple of months isn't going to affect them any more than they are now with the markets slumping more often than not.

So - hopefully in a couple of weeks or so, I will know whether to actually "commit" to paying into my company pension scheme... because even though I am now on the Journo Diploma - I have to pass the damn thing AND persuade someone to give me a job at some stage in my future plan - and who knows how long that will take!!!

I feel a more relieved Hurdler. Even more so as I JUST managed to get the washing in (including giant sheets) before a deluge of rain!!!