The Road to Financial Security

BookWorm

Hi Pushkin

How did the visit from Sharps go? I'm interested as at some stage I will need the fitted wardrobes in my bedroom replaced/redone and it would be useful to know what you thought about them.

Hope you are having a good weekend

Pushkin

Hello Bookworm - well the Sharps visit didn't happen :mad: Raced back from the hairdressers to get home for 10, had a phone call from a very dopey woman at 10.15 to say the guy was stuck in traffic and running late. She said he wouldn't get there until after 11- tbh I kind of saw red and given we had to go out shopping for DS's ski stuff told her that was too late and not good. Tried to book another appointment but couldn't find a mutually convenient one.

I know its hard to time these things but 10 am must have been the first appointment on a Saturday so I struggle to excuse being that late - the woman said 'it's very bad traffic' - whole thing sounded like an excuse to me.

To be honest I was a little reluctant to use them as we had a very bad experience with D0lph1n bathrooms a few years ago and I believe they are owned by the same company. We may be cutting our nose off to spite our faces as there don't seem to be that many of these sort of companies around. Not sure what we'll do next - so if you make any progress or have any tips to pass on let me know!

Sorry to provide such a long winded response. :rotfl:

Pushkin

I have to share the excellent news regarding our ongoing battle with $ky who wanted to charge us to replace a faulty box despite us being long term (16 yrs) customers who pay them £55 a month.

To catch you all up and save anyone trawling back through my posts DH cancelled them as he was so angry with this charge. He rang them again last week and yesterday and they were insistent we would have to pay for a new box.

Anyway this afternoon they rang again and we are now getting a free new box and a reduction of £12 per month for the next year :T I am so so chuffed - score one to the little people. :j

BookWorm

Sorry to hear that the $harps thing didn't turn out as you hoped. I would have been annoyed too!

Well done on getting a good result from $ky :T

Pushkin

The $ky thing seems to have further hiccups - DH tried to order new box on line but couldn't, rang them up and their computer system is showing a different cost to what was agreed. They are looking into it and are due to contact us again. Ho hum.

Garden office build starts tomorrow - I am both excited and nervous.

Transferred money to DH to buy the US$ for DS's ski trip which is only 2 weeks away. Think that is finally the last spend for this trip - not sure I want to add it all up

Am also back on the pension mission - DH never did get all the paperwork for his 4 (yes 4!) pensions so doesn't know the full value. I've been nagging him again. As I get older it seems more and more important to me and I sure don't want to be working until I'm 70. My father has also offered to sit down and go through with me/us and he's pretty hot on the old financial wheeling and dealing.

gallygirl

Pushkin wrote: »

My father has also offered to sit down and go through with me/us and he's pretty hot on the old financial wheeling and dealing.

Can I sit in the corner and listen please

Good luck with Sky!

Pushkin

gallygirl wrote: »

Can I sit in the corner and listen please

Good luck with Sky!

Gallygirl - sadly my father might be pretty financially savvy but he isn't the best teacher or the most patient person - if we get through the first 10 minutes without an argument will be a miracle :cool:

gallygirl

Pushkin wrote: »

Gallygirl - sadly my father might be pretty financially savvy but he isn't the best teacher or the most patient person - if we get through the first 10 minutes without an argument will be a miracle :cool:

"Pulls up a chair and waits expectantly with bowl of popcorn"

Pushkin

Lots going on last couple of days. Garden office is up and looks lovely, few niggles (did we expect anything less!?) the blinds don't fit quite properly, one of the outside lights is cracked and worst of all the electricity doesn't work.

We think the issue is with what our electrician did and fortunately DH is working at home both today and tomorrow and the electrician is coming tomorrow. Hope its fairly straight forward to fix - really annoying to have a beautiful new building that is pretty unusable! :mad:

DH has had a letter from HMRC which is never good news - we owe them £350 and upon ringing them today if we don't pay by end March will start to accrue interest. Lovely!

Pushkin

The garden office company rang and have arranged for someone to come next Wed to sort out the cracked light & the issues with the blinds.

They also reduced our bill by £280 something to do with not needing a IP cable they thought we did - so that was result.

I have paid them the money out but held back £1k until the blinds/lights are sorted. They tried to get £500 more out of me but for once I negotiated well and pointed out that the blinds alone cost £780 so I thought withholding £1k was reasonable.

Electrician came and fixed electrics to new garden office - it was due to 2 cables being mixed up and he admitted his error. Can't wait for it to get dark so we can check out the outside lights :j

Paid the tax man yesterday:( so am now pretty tight on funds until I get paid on Wed and we are off to C0stco tomorrow - yikes!