FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

JonnyBravo

financialbliss wrote: »

So, any hot tips for car insurance that perhaps I should be doing that I'm not?

FB.

No hot tips. Sorry.
Used a comparison site and Direct Line (as not in most comparison sites) and then used their price to talk to our current supplier (Tesco). They matched the best offer in price and giftcards which was fine by us. Saves a lot of hassle and the vouchers will just be spent on the weekly shop so we won't be losing out.
Only saved £50 but better than a poke with a stick.

Have fun.

SparkleBlack

So, any hot tips for car insurance that perhaps I should be doing that I'm not?

I renewed at the weekend and did similar to Jonny. In previous years I spent ages ringing round loads of companies, comparing prices and excesses etc, but I think it's like gas and electricity - after you've done it once, I don't think it really brings the premium down much the second time.

So this year I used gocompare and comparethemarket to check that the renewal premium was in the right ball park. I also did Direct Line and the companies that we have other ties to e.g. the ones who do our breakdown cover and contents insurance. I took the best price from that lot and rang our current insurers, who beat it as we'd been with them a while. It saved about £30 but that's not too bad for an hour's work. Just remember to check the boxes saying you don't want marketing info otherwise you'll get a _lot_ of emails over the next few days :rolleyes:

HTH!
SB

financialbliss

Bad news and good…

A bit tired this evening, so instead of plodding on with car insurance, I’ve spent a little while getting my “house” in order with respect to paperwork and bills.

Barclaycard credit card. This is still continuing to be a pain in the behind. Had 4 fraudulent transactions totalling £655. Had 3 transactions refunded, but still awaiting a result from Barclaycard for the remaining transaction of £337. I’ve recently e-mailed them and should be getting a reply "within 5 business days". Yeah right!

Am going to wait until the end of the week then get on the phone to them, as this is really starting to annoy me now. It's dragged on since early April.

A further complication is that while the barclaycard bill (March/April transactions) is also due at the end of the week, we’ve switched our spending to our Asda credit card and that is also due towards the end of this month (April/May transactions). So, almost two months worth of card spending due in the next week, but looking on the bright side, we won’t have to pay a further card bill until the very end of June.

Finally – the icing on the cake – Asda card services phoned up last week regarding unusual activity on our Asda credit card: "Did you make these transactions sir?" :rotfl:

Funny, but also top marks to Asda card services for querying transactions. We're not prepared to use the barclaycard card again until the fraudulent transactions are cleared.

New member to the family. Recently bought a shower turtle from ebay. This is basically a waterproof timer and we’ve been trying to limit our showers to 3 or 4 minutes. Hey, even the kids are on board and they often use the shower now.

Tracked purchase via quidco and got 27p cash back. This has been tracked and received by quidco, but not yet paid. What’s the least amount of cash back you’ve received in a single transaction?

Final bit of news on the water front. Our water direct debit has been revised and reduced from a monthly amount of £42.71 to £25.90. Don’t know if that is due to better water saving techniques, but the sceptic in me still thinks it’s incorrect.

Pay. Got the back pay for the 0.3% pay adjustment for the 2008/09 financial year this month at £110 before tax. The 2009/10 award of 0.5% has been rejected.

Savings. Got £6,500 plus interest coming from the Halfax (10% regular saver) that ends towards the end of June. Until then, we’re going to be struggling with cash flow as quite a lot of our savings tied up with Halifax.

Mortgage free in three take 2 (MFiT-T2). The 48th questee – hoobydoobydoo has just signed up. Just two more to get to 50. Reasonably pleased at the take up for this challenge as it’s still early days.

Diaries. See there's been a rush of new mortgage free diaries - great stuff for making a start. I've been quietly keeping an eye on them, but must make an effort to say hello.

Phew. That’s me for this evening. Hopefully I can report some car insurance news tomorrow – throwing in the towel now…

FB.

taka

Wow just reading that makes me tired... Good luck with Barclaycard!

financialbliss wrote: »

Tracked purchase via quidco and got 27p cash back. This has been tracked and received by quidco, but not yet paid. What’s the least amount of cash back you’ve received in a single transaction?

The princely sum of 8p from Quidco :rotfl:

setmefree2

financialbliss wrote: »

Barclaycard credit card. This is still continuing to be a pain in the behind. Had 4 fraudulent transactions totalling £655. Had 3 transactions refunded, but still awaiting a result from Barclaycard for the remaining transaction of £337. I’ve recently e-mailed them and should be getting a reply "within 5 business days". Yeah right!

Am going to wait until the end of the week then get on the phone to them, as this is really starting to annoy me now. It's dragged on since early April.

A big fat to Barclaycard. Hope it gets sorted soon.

Trying_to_be_good

taka wrote: »

The princely sum of 8p from Quidco :rotfl:

I've had 2 lots of 2p from Quidco!

Off to join the MFIT-T2 challenge as I should have a shiny new HUGE mortgage to be paying off by the end of the year (and a lovely new family house to show for it!).

financialbliss

Been working on car insurance so far this evening. Quote to beat:

Esure @ £261.08

Done what seems like endless screen scrapers, plus some stand alone sites. Esure offer £45 cash back via QuidCo, but this is stressed as for “new customers” only.

Technically, I’d be a new customer, as I’ve prompted them to not auto-renew, but via the various screen scraper sites, they’re coming out at around the £294 mark. Mark-up for cash back? Suspect I’d not get the cash back, so I’ll probably discount this.

Next best is Admiral insurance. I’ve had prices ranging from 238.55, 250.10, 255.35 and 262.70. Suspect this is the nature of the screen scraper and what is passed through to each insurer and what is defaulted / assumed.

So, if I can get the insurance for £238.55, that’s a saving of £22.53 over the renewal price. However, I need to make sure I’m comparing like with like first, plus perhas try a quote via the Admiral site.

We've a 2.2 ltr diesel - fully comp and NCD protected, the renewal price from Esure doesn't actually look bad at all...:D

Won’t be purchasing anything this evening, but the work done so far has helped sort out the wood from the trees!

May be back later – off to watch CSI and get away from computer for a while – been using one since 07.30 this morning…!

FB.

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

JonnyBravo wrote: »

No hot tips. Sorry.
Used a comparison site and Direct Line (as not in most comparison sites) and then used their price to talk to our current supplier (Tesco). They matched the best offer in price and giftcards which was fine by us. Saves a lot of hassle and the vouchers will just be spent on the weekly shop so we won't be losing out.
Only saved £50 but better than a poke with a stick.

Have fun.

Tesco did this for me too. £30 in vouchers which arrived about a month after the new policy started. Made me wonder if stretching the truth about the best deal I could get would have enhanced the vouchers or if they'd find me out!

pavlovs_dog

financialbliss wrote: »

Finally – the icing on the cake – Asda card services phoned up last week regarding unusual activity on our Asda credit card: "Did you make these transactions sir?" :rotfl:

Funny, but also top marks to Asda card services for querying transactions. We're not prepared to use the barclaycard card again until the fraudulent transactions are cleared.

I've found hsbc (on our bog standard current account) and tesco (credit card) to be very good at monitoring unusual activity. customer service from tesco personal finance has been particularly good

uzubairu

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

I've found hsbc (on our bog standard current account) and tesco (credit card) to be very good at monitoring unusual activity. customer service from tesco personal finance has been particularly good

Me too (HSBC my personal current account) and Tesco Personal Finance (credit).
I too find Tesco to be excellent.