FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

Breakdown cover.
Had a renewal notice of £83 from Green Flag - recovery plus.

Wasn't particularly happy with that considering I'd taken out the previous 12 months cover for £45 when including the cash back.

Got a quote from Green Flag which came in at £70.15 - confronted them via phone - ie £83 vs £70.15 and their response was your account renewal is £83 and we can't budge on that. Result - I asked for cover to lapse.

This evening I've taken out breakdown cover from Swinton Insurance - UK and home recovery. Their website shows this as £45.

Naturally, purchased via QuidCo which was touting a 20% discount - tracking email has just come through indicating £9 off, so that's £36 for 12 months of breakdown cover which Green Flag were going to charge me £83 for.

Sad really that it doesn't pay to be loyal any more, but I'm happier at £36.

FB.

SmlSave

Hi FB

their response was your account renewal is £83 and we can't budge on that

RAC did this to us too so now we're with the AA, you'd really think that these companies would want to keep our money!

financialbliss

Hi all,
Been really busy with life - a few issues keeping me busy - more about that when I get back...

Where am I going? To Scotland for a few days to fill in the first week of the six weeks. Off in the morning and back on Friday. Just camping, but we have an electric pitch this time and we've invested in an electric cool box to keep the [STRIKE]beers[/STRIKE], ahem, milk and bacon cool.

While I'm here - noticed this today on TiM:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=510130&in_page_id=2&ct=5

No doubt that another report will come out in August which will contradict this one, but if the BoE base rate does hold at 0.5% until the spring of 2014, even if I slip on my 2012 target, I should still manage to clear the mortgage completely while the BoE base rate is at 0.5%

The current prospect of dropping off my Nationwide fix of 4.79% to their guaranteed rate of BoE rate + 2.00% ie their SVR of 2.5% next March is looking increasingly appealing. Will still do some research nearer the time, but a SVR of 2.5% is going to be hard to beat.

FB.

abouttimetoo

financialbliss wrote: »

Well, on the 10th October 2007, I started this diary. Roll forwards 2 years, 8 months and 27 days, or 1,000 days later and we get to today - 6th July 2010.

Seems a fitting day to report that the payments / overpayments for July have cleared (well actually cleared on Sunday 4th, but I'd not found the time to update)... and I've broke through the £40k barrier.

Mortgage stands at £39,592.39

Better still, it will stay in the £39's.

I've just updated my signature, post #1 stats and graphs and the last 100 steps Google spreadsheet. Phew.

FB.

Hi FB

A very belated well done you and many congratulations at getting to the 39's, you should be rightly proud of yourself and your balance will be starting to drop like a stone now with these figures.

I was interested to see your comments about the BOE as I'm keeping a close eye on these myself as my own mortgage is whatever base rate is.

Finally, I was also interested in your comments about Goldfish as I'm in exactly the same boat and like you have had the card for many years and can remember the times when you only needed 1000 points for £10. For many years I used to put all my work expenses through it too and benefitted from substantial vouchers at the year end when I used to cash them in and use them for Christmas presents etc.

You've given me the push I needed to start and research which card I might move to but I'll also be using some of your research too :rotfl:

JonnyBravo

financialbliss wrote: »

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.

I have the AmEx card.
It's not 1.25% from the start, it's a tiered cashback.
It's 0.5% til £3500, then 1% til £7.5k then 1.25% over 7.5k.

financialbliss

Well, I'm back. Considering the weather in Scotland was forecast to be overcast or cloudy, we had good weather. Cloudy with sunny intervals, but it only seemed to rain when we were either in the car or overnight - got more wet emptying the car this evening back at home :eek:

Just ploughing through emails and spotted the MSE newsletter - I've just applied for a free energy efficient fridge, ie this page:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/free-energy-efficient-fridges

Don't suppose we will get picked as part of the trial, but can't be picked unless they have my details. The cynic in me thinks I'll now get marketing details from nPower now.

FB.

financialbliss

Barclaycard goldfish - just spent 10 minutes on hold to them - sourced 0800 number via saynoto0870 rather than their 0844 number.

In a MSE newsletter earlier in July there was a note regarding Barclaycard Goldfish raising the rewards points needed to get a £10 voucher from 2,500 to 3,500 as of the 1st August.

Got our Goldfish statement this morning - points are shown as deducted, but more than 10 working days since I placed order (14th July) and nothing here so far...

Was advised that there's a backlog of vouchers on order and once they have been received by Barclaycard Goldfish, they'll be sent out.

So, if anyone else if waiting for Goldfish vouchers - I guess they'll be coming shortly. Perhaps inundated with requests due to their imminent increase in points required?

FB.

financialbliss

A bit later in the day than normal, but here's the interest stats up to and including 31st July:

Opening Balance: 48,499.96
Opening Nationwide completion date: December 2014

Overpayments in Blue.
Interest in Red.
Balance in Green.

Month: Payment (Std / OP) / Interest (day) / Net reduction / Balance / Nationwide completion

January: 1,398.03 (898.03 / 500.00) / 191.83 (6.19) / 1,206.20 / 47,293.76 / Oct 2014
February: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 168.71 (6.03) / 1,260.62 / 46,033.14 / Sep 2014
March: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 181.65 (5.86) / 1,247.68 / 44,785.46 / Sep 2014
April: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 170.88 (5.70) / 1,258.44 / 43,527.01 / Aug 2014
May: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 171.45 (5.53) / 1,257.88 / 42,125.21 / Aug 2014
June: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 160.98 (5.37) / 1,268.35 / 41,000.78 / Jul 2014
July: 1,429.33 (929.33 / 500.00) / 161.17 (5.20) / 1,268.16 / 39,732.62 / Jul 2014


Totals: Payment / Interest / Net reduction.

Minimum: 1,398.03 / 160.98 / 1,206.20
Maximum: 1,429.33 / 191.83 / 1,268.35
Average: 1,424.11 / 172.38 / 1,252.48
Grand Total: 9,974.01 / 1,206.67 / 8,767.34

Balance outstanding: 39,732.62

It's the first logged sub-£40k balance and the daily interest is edging ever closer to £5 a day - should be around £5.04 in August and drop to less than a fiver in September.

Despite having a cash flow crisis (reported on the MFW 2010 thread, but yet to expand on in this diary), I'm going to overpay by the full £500 allowed in August.

Funds in place to cover mortgage withdrawals tomorrow - balance will edge towards £38k which was our original mortgage value - sounds tiny by today's standards.

The usual stats, graphs and signature updated when they payments clear - probably on Wednesday, but perhaps Tuesday.

FB.

abouttimetoo

Hi FB

Well I applied for the American Express platinum last week - the on-line application was easy and quick and it was accepted straight away. I also did it via Topcash and earned £10 for doing it so I'm really pleased with that too.

An account manager rang me this week so welcome me and talk me through things etc.

If i'm reading things right I'll get £100 cashback in the first three months for a £2000 spend and I'm sure that with some work expenses added to my usual spend I'll manage to make the full 1.5% cashback.

I also managed to cash in £40 of Goldfish vouchers just before the deadine

financialbliss

Hi abouttimetoo,

Ha - guess you've been in the credit card forums - I made an enquiry as to when the 5% cash back rate starts. I just applied last Saturday (31st July) and waiting for pin and card.

Notice that in this weeks MSE email, Amex are now offering 0% deals for the first 6 months on this card. I may have just missed out on this though, although I applied for the cash back, not 0%

Good news while I'm here. BoE kept base rate at 0.5% today, plus my mortgage payments for August cleared (yesterday). I'll get an update in this evening.

FB.