The Road to Financial Security

Pushkin

Pay day tomorrow - this month's surplus in current account was £115 which I've just transferred over to slush fund. Would like to stick a bit of it in the NISA but have another big cc coming in March and this is going to be an expensive month, DS birthday plus haven't yet bought him the stuff he needs for the ski trip - yikes!

New telephones arrived today (now thats how service should be - delivery within 24 hours of ordered :j). They are really good in that if a call comes in from an unrecognised number they have to give their name which then gives us the option to either accept the call or block that number. Hopefully this is the end of all those pesky cold calls we constantly get. :T

Pushkin

The electrician started work yesterday to do the prep work for the garden office connection. Lovely bloke and he worked really hard but oh do I hate having workmen in - tend to feel like I'm in a goldfish bowl - and he is doing 3 days work!

In other astonishing news the chairs were finally delivered yesterday:j - there was an initial mix up when they tried to deliver the wrong colour but I don't go into that. Tomorrow it's 2 months since we placed the order on a promise of delivery in 7 days. I did promise myself I would email their head office to point this out and see if I could get any money back as compensation (cheeky I know!) but I don't have the energy - maybe at the weekend.

Nothing much else to report, work is manic at the moment and its tricky juggling the domestic stuff on the side especially as DH is working in London (yet again!).

Pushkin

Lovely bit of Saturday morning insomnia here :mad:

Today is DH's birthday and we have theatre tickets for a show in London tonight and a meal at a French restaurant before hand. So a rare big night out for us.

I am slowly starting to get the momentum going regarding my 10,000 daily steps target. In order to increase them I have started walking to the woodland where I take the dog out rather than driving. This is what the is known as a win win huh - less petrol and more exercise. :j

Can't believe it's March tomorrow - looking forward to the injection into savings but wow how have 2 months of 2015 passed already? (and I know time passing more quickly is a sign of ageing :eek:)

cookie9

Great news about the chairs finally arriving. Try to find the energy to write how disappointed you have been in their service.

Pushkin

Thanks Cookie - I am aiming to do a letter tomorrow but to be honest don't hold out much hope since they've had all their money and their customer service to date has been non existent - suspect they will just ignore it. Still nothing ventured nothing gained.

amycool

I'm so pleased to hear that the chairs finally arrived. I had a similar situation with Dreams and then a few years later IKEA and you feel so drained from the constant calls that you can't bear the thought of contacting them again.

Also good to see everything else coming together. You must be exhausted!

Pushkin

Thank you Amycool - I don't know if it's reassuring you have had similar experiences or just a sad reflection of big business these days :mad:

Onto happier news - I held out til today with regards to posting my monthly finances - I was worried that doing it yesterday would jinx the direct debits and standing orders :rotfl:

Anyway here goes:

Item MORTGAGE
01-Mar-15 £110,672
Difference -£1,330

Item MONEY MAKING
01-Mar-15 £229
Difference £13

Item DOG FUND
01-Mar-15 £3,114
Difference £150

Item CAR FUND
01-Mar-15 £3,500
Difference £700

Item HALIFAX NISA
01-Mar-15 £6,420
Difference £500

All ticking away and pretty dull really, which is an odd thing to say as it's all about building up savings and security.

Annoying thing happened yesterday in that my debit card was declined (at the start of the month when my balance is at its highest!). Turned out it expired at end of February. Rang the bank and they said they sent a new one to me at end of Jan. Goes without saying I didn't receive it.

So they have cancelled it and are sending a new one which they advised will take up to 7 working days - huh???? I can't believe they don't have a fast track process for when this happens.

The annoying thing is I've had to buy petrol and do a supermarket shop on my credit card which completely throws my anal financial planning into disarray!

Funny I was only saying to my DH last week that in the 10 yrs + I've banked with FD I've never had a problem with them and have always been impressed - then this happens :eek:

Pushkin

Well talk about egg in my face:( DH was worried about the replacement credit card I never received and implications of fraud so we had a good look for it last night and lo and behold found it. So I owe FD a huge apology - yikes!

I rang them last night to try and reverse the sending of the new card and cancelling of the original replacement but alas twas too late.

I do worry about myself sometimes - really not normally that dopey.

Bit of a squabble with DH over the weekend. Turns out he has got a pay rise :T but his first stance was that we split the extra so he got to keep it. Now I know it must come across that I treat him like a child allocating him pocket money but I was really firm with him and said I thought what he had now was enough and that it should all go to me since I manage the general finances.

He did come round to my way of thinking the next night. Part of me feels like I'm being a real !!!!! but I just think if left to him we would have virtually £0 saving. We managed before his pay rise so all the extra should go into a savings account.

The whole thing also reminded me that he was going to get a current balance on his legacy pension by end last September. That hasn't been done - and pensions and their value is something I worry about more as I get older....

So in summary I've cocked up at at the bank and what should have been good news about DH's pay rise turned into an argument.

Such fun huh! :rotfl:

Pushkin

Good day today financially.

Got my bi annual PEP statement through and the balance has increased £215.

I also had a payout of £30 from a cash back site which I have transferred to my money making account.

We did get the water statement through and from next month our water bill increases by £3.50 per month.

DH has also finally lost his temper with $ky and given them 30 days notice. I think I have mentioned before it's a bug bear of mine how much we spend and how little in the way of incentives/discounts they give us (i.e. £0) considering we have been customers for over 15 yrs.

Anyway our sky box is probably on its way out as it keeps freezing and having to be reset. DH rang them and they want to charge £60 for a replacement box as ours is nearly 3 years old. Given our bill is £55 a month that I think was the final straw - that they wouldn't replace it for free.

I have told him that $ky will ring us back and offer us a discount if we don't leave - so the clock is a ticking! I have read (newgirly I think) of other people doing this so lets hope it works.

It may be expensive but we can't get cable where we live and I do think $ky has a lot of good features and is great from a user interface perspective. Plus we do watch an awful lot of telly!

wantabetterlife

Whenever we got rid of sky it wasn't until after it was cut off that they kept offering us discount...then we were bombarded with letters. So you may have to suffer with no sky for a few weeks but they will eventually make contact