Mortgage free by 2021?!

hiddenshadow

:mad: Grr, banks.

Applied via MSE for 2 N@tionwide accounts to get the 5% interest. Switched our Ll0yds account (who confirmed that was happening), and our DDs are now with N@tionwide.

No sign of the switching bonus, so I phone up today - apparention N@tionwide have deemed it "pending" or possibly even "invalid" even though they've done the switch?! They're going to chase it up, but I don't hold out much hope (because banks...). Not that the £100 was the reason to switch to them, but it was why we switched to that specific account (as there were several to choose from). At least we only plan to stay with them for a year...slim chance we'll change our minds on that front now.

On the plus side, we should get £100 to switch DH's account to H@lifax (if/when he ever completes that paperwork), and £150 to switch our joint account Clyde$dale, even though we haven't yet completed that paperwork - hoping to get that sorted this month so that we can say goodbye/good riddance to S@ntander and avoid their fee hikes!

Not much else to report - shuffled some budget lines around to free up a bit more money for the home improvements.

Home improvements: £627.68 / £690.25 (£62.57 left to find)

hiddenshadow

No word back yet on the switch money.

Carpenter came yesterday and hung all* the doors and they look great. He's coming back today to put handles/catches on them.

*All except one because we measured a couple of doorways and then bought doors for that size, not realising that our kitchen doorway is the biggest in the house. Ordered another door which should be delivered today (£5 extra for next-day-morning delivery), hoping we can flog the original door on gumtree or something.

Got some survey gift cards yesterday, so that brings the home improvements fund (not including the new expense for the door) to £653.67 / £690.25 with £36.58 left to find.

smallholdingsister

Lots of great progress over here.

cazmanian_minx

Did you buy the original door online and is it still within the Distance Selling Regs cooling off period? If so, can you send it back for a refund or would the postage be more than it's worth?

hiddenshadow

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Did you buy the original door online and is it still within the Distance Selling Regs cooling off period? If so, can you send it back for a refund or would the postage be more than it's worth?

Yes, and decidedly no - we bought the doors (on offer) in November 2014. We've just been slacking severely in actually getting them installed.

hiddenshadow

So, good news: new door arrived bright and early, carpenter's almost done with the rest of the doors

Bad news: the courier broke bits off our front door threshold not carrying the door into the house (he lowered it so that it was horizontal rather than vertical, then dropped it down onto the threshold which broke one bit off, then pushed it along the ground to move it into the hall, breaking off another bit). Supposedly the courier company will be notified about this and handle it, but I don't hold out much hope (highly doubt they'll replace the entire threshold!). So now our threshold looks really dumb (and possibly lets in a draft as a bonus!). Courier suggested we glue the bits back in place, but that'll look even more stupid (and not help with any potential draft), so I think we'll ignore that suggestion.

Also we're one door handle short. I think we ordered 8 as one door was out of stock at the time, and then when we ordered the 9th door we forgot to order a 9th handle to go with. (This was all a year ago, though, so who knows.) Have ordered a final handle which should arrive on Friday, and the carpenter has already drilled everything in the door so it should be quick to screw in.

This project's been a bit costlier than I expected, given that I was thinking everything (bar the carpenter) was already pre-paid! Ah well, at least it's finally getting done, and an extra £90.95 for new door + handle isn't bad, especially if we can recoup some of that cost (through selling the extra door and/or complaining about the delivery man!).

smallholdingsister

Social media could be a useful tool in making sure the company put you right.

hiddenshadow

smallholdingsister wrote: »

Social media could be a useful tool in making sure the company put you right.

Thanks for that, good point! Will wait to hear back from the courier company and see what they have to say. They might surprise me...?

edinburgher

The courier has admitted liability and his firm should be insured - that's completely unacceptable. Our removal firm scratched a few bits of our furniture (baby stuff) and the only reasons we didn't take things further were because a) it will only be used by us for a few years and b) they were very hard working on the day and were otherwise excellent.

hiddenshadow

edinburgher wrote: »

The courier has admitted liability and his firm should be insured - that's completely unacceptable. Our removal firm scratched a few bits of our furniture (baby stuff) and the only reasons we didn't take things further were because a) it will only be used by us for a few years and b) they were very hard working on the day and were otherwise excellent.

Yeah, this guy was neither hard working nor excellent. He did apologise, but it was more like "oh yeah, my bad, oh well", and not "oh no I just f***ed up your house".

So..we'll see.