FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

llamahead

Thats fantastic FB - well done - a great achievement!

Rummer

What fabulous news I am so happy for you!

tootallulah

Excellent news, I have been reading your thread from the beginning, what an achievement to get into the 30s.

greent

Yeay, a HUGE well done, fb!!

setmefree2

:T:T:T:T a great milestone :T:T:T:T:T

financialbliss

Thanks for the support everyone - I do read every post in this thread.

OK - I'm way off form with this diary, so a quick update from me this evening.

The MSE weekly email popped into my in-box today and I quickly noticed that Barclaycard Goldfish are upping the points needed to get rewards from 1st August.

Currently 2,500 points will get a £10 voucher of some description. From 1st August, this goes up to 3,500 points. I've had the original Goldfish card for about 14 years and can remember when you just needed 1,000 points for a £10 voucher.

So, just cashed in 2,500 points to get two Cineworld cinema vouchers. Voucher described as £10, yet the Cineworld price is £7 per adult, so we're getting £14 for free. :T

I'm now seriously considering looking for a new cash back card, and had a quick look at the MSE cash back article, but there doesn't seem to be lots to choose from. I've had a quick look at the Capital One World mastercard. 1% cash back on everything, but an £18 annual fee :eek: - offset by a £10 cash back bonus in January.

Not going to jump in just yet - needs more research, but the capital one card is on the short list.

FB.

golfiematt

congrats on getting sub 40K it feels great!

pr9fer

The American Express Platinum cashback is pretty good, introductory offer of 5% cashback for the first 3 months up to £100 and then 1.25% after that, no annual fee.

financialbliss

pr9fer wrote: »

The American Express Platinum cashback is pretty good, introductory offer of 5% cashback for the first 3 months up to £100 and then 1.25% after that, no annual fee.

Hi pr9fer,
Yeah - I've spotted that. I've been looking at this article:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/cashback-credit-cards

But put off by this part in the Amex card:

"Already got it? The mammoth intro cashback makes it a winner for the first year; after that it only wins for those spending approx £10,000+ otherwise the cards below beat it."

Our average spend over the last 10 years of use for our existing card is £872.61 per month or about £10,470 per year.

I suspected I'd be better off with another card - in the past we've put kitchens and a few one-off spends on the card but our annual spend is dropping. In 2009 we spent £9,800.10 on the card.

Still - haven't ruled that one out either - thanks for the tip.

FB.

financialbliss

financialbliss wrote: »

"Already got it? The mammoth intro cashback makes it a winner for the first year; after that it only wins for those spending approx £10,000+ otherwise the cards below beat it."

Having quoted the above from the cash back credit card page earlier, I'm not 100% sure I get it. Surely any amount that has 1.25% cash back applied to it beats 1% cash back.

pr9fer may have a point. Perhaps I'm confused over which "cards below" beat the AmEx 5% (for 3 months), then 1.25% card.

FB.