The Big Adventure

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Good luck with the negotiations. It does seem that anything like this always ends up being very complicated and rarely hassle free!

My retirement planning (although nowhere near as imminent as yours) is like yours in that I am happy to cut back quite bit, knowing that one car will do if neither of us has work to go to, and spending less on food as we have more time to plan our meals. Less need for work clothes etc too. But we do still want to travel so a fair bit of planning and saving is needed if we want to retire fully before our occupational pensions kick in - still eight years away for oh and more than ten years for me.

So off to be thrifty!

Goldiegirl

Secret_Saving_Squirrel wrote: »

It does seem that anything like this always ends up being very complicated and rarely hassle free!

This is the main reason why, historically, I've always been lazy about switching things and looking for new providers, as it can be a lot of hassle.


I agree with what you say about retirement planning - it's striking that balance to compromise on certain things so that you can do the things you really want.


The Sky saga ....... Sky Movies was only £8.50 pm in the package we had, so it's correct that our bill only drops by £8.50. This is disappointing. We do want to keep Sky Sports, so we could consider dropping to the basic bundle, saving another £6.50, and dropping the HD pack and saving another £10.25. But we like the programmes we get, and we have an HD TV.


For the time being, I think we've stick with what we've got. I've always said there's a compromise point for most things, and we've reached to compromise point here. We don't want to lose anymore of our package, and don't want the hassle of looking around for alternatives, running the gauntlet of calls to Sky to cancel, and getting a new service set up.




But Sky still haven't explained why we will be paying an extra £24.75 on 9th December, so I will be chasing a reply to this point.


The phone we bought from JL has arrived - very quick service.


This evening I've done test payments from our Hx account to our new Santander account and NWide accounts. The Santander one worked ok, and we'll activate internet banking on NWide tomorrow, so we can make sure the payments arrived, and then get the new accounts fully funded.


Also intend to apply for the TSB accounts over the weekend.


Mr Goldie has broken another tooth today, but the dentist has been saying for a couple of years that it's only a matter of time. At the moment it seems to be one thing after another that needs putting right.


Another two days work done :T

shala_moo

Great news on the driving license situation :T:T

I'm too scared to try and cancel Sky.. if I accidently ended up cancelling it OH would never speak to me again :rotfl:

Karmacat

£24.75 is a lot for an extra payment to a tv package! My word ... but I just love that so many of us are focussing on retirement, and active retirement at that, I really do

Goldiegirl

shala_moo wrote: »

I'm too scared to try and cancel Sky.. if I accidently ended up cancelling it OH would never speak to me again :rotfl:

:rotfl:

Mr Goldie watches the Sports a lot, and I like some of it too.

I don't really like Sky as a company, but I like the product and for the sake of it giving us a lot of sports entertainment, it's still just about worth it

Goldiegirl

Karmacat wrote: »

£24.75 is a lot for an extra payment to a tv package!

Especially as we are reducing our package, not adding to it!:eek:

It doesn't mention this extra payment when we sign on to our account, but it was mentioned in an email sent to us. I have a feeling it's a human error, but I'd like to get this sorted out, for peace of mind.

I'm really enjoying reading about everyone's plans for retirement - it's going to be exciting when all the planning comes to fruition.

On that subject, I'll be preparing my resignation letter over the next few days to hand in next Thursday. That will make it very real :T

Pushkin

Goldiegirl wrote: »

Even though we are with the Telephone Preference Service, we still get lots of calls - it was particularly bad yesterday. As we'll be home more, we don't was to be plagued by these calls all the time.


I'm really looking forward to cutting the nuisance calls and these new phones are the cordless type so I'll be able to take calls from the comfort of my sofa



.

Hi - do post how you get on with your new phones and if they reduce the number of cold/nuisance calls you receive. I had a very unpleasant experience recently with a foreign call centre who rang back 7 times each time with me hanging up and telling them to leave me alone. We are therefore also looking into finding new phones that provide better blocking of these types of call. So will be interested to hear how you get on.

Goldiegirl

We've now got our new phones working. We've programmed in as many contacts as we can think of, so people we want to talk to can come straight through to us.


We've blocked number withheld calls, and the system allows us to review unknown numbers and decide whether to accept the call or block the number.


So far, we haven't had any phone calls at all, but I'll update progress, to see if it works.


We've now got our Nationwide account funded with £2500 each, Tomorrow I'll start the monthly funding cycle, so we can make sure we get our interest paid.


I've put a test transaction into the Santander account, which worked fine. I'm holding fire before putting too much money in there, as I need to get some direct debits sorted out. Once I have two DD's I can start putting more money in, and it will earn interest. Also need to do a funding cycle for this account too


We opened our TSB current accounts today, just awaiting the internet activation code to be posted, then I'll do the funding on that account.


That'll do us for current accounts - I can't cope with any more! It's the amount of post that it generates that's a bit mind boggling - at least TSB should be paper free.




As for eBay. 6 auctions ended today, with 5 sales, all very small amounts. Still no free listing weekend, so I'm just starting 5 new auctions this afternoon, hopefully things that will sell readily. My spare room is still looking like a stock cupboard - I need to reclaim it as a room

Watty1

Great news re driving licence :T

edinburgher

You're in an admin frenzy at the moment Goldie, very impressive :T

It's a great idea to make your money work hard for you, particularly as you're thinking about retiring soon. We have a few ancient relatives who no longer have the focus that they once managed on such topics, but they are still living comfortably and without financial worry. Which goes to show, there's no time like the present to do something sensible for the future!

Have a lovely evening