FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

abouttimetoo wrote: »

Hi again FB, I wonder if you could do me a favour please

The OP has now provided some further information so all help gratefully received if you get a mo to help

Hi ATT,
Just spend a fair bit of time doing some number crunching etc and a 10% car loan could well be cheaper than extending the mortgage.

Here's my reply - post 11:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=50953831&postcount=11

Hope the calculations explain things well enough!

FB.

financialbliss

abouttimetoo wrote: »

Well done with your biking lark too Has the recent yakky weather put a spoke in your plans, no pun intended, honest guv :rotfl:

Regards
ATT

Hi ATT,
Hadn't been out in almost 2 weeks - despite having very little snow here - just the smallest dusting, it's been quite cold and has put me off.

This morning, I decided to put that to mends and decided to pop out on a "quick" ride. About 10 miles in, the puncture fairy got me :eek:

Would not normally have bothered me, but I literally had a drink and a mobile with me - no money, no spanners, inflator or anything. Had to call SOS to Mrs Bliss, who wasn't best pleased.

Had a walk a little to get to civilisation, as I was on a cycle route. Dropped the rear seats and threw the bike in the back of the car and headed off home.

Car registered 0 degrees c on the way home, so pretty fresh, but I was really enjoying the cycle before that!

FB.

abouttimetoo

financialbliss wrote: »

Hi ATT,
Just spend a fair bit of time doing some number crunching etc and a 10% car loan could well be cheaper than extending the mortgage.

Here's my reply - post 11:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=50953831&postcount=11

Hope the calculations explain things well enough!

FB.

Hi FB, thanks so much, I saw your post on Saturday morning but I've not been in a postion to reply before now. I thought your post was smashing and made perfect sense but as we've both said each to their own and a balance is needed. I guess I was just trying to highlight that the balances need to be considered too as I see it a lot on the boards where people make decisions on just the interest rates which is not always the right thing to do

Hope you didn't spend too much of your time on the calcs but they look good

Regards
ATT

abouttimetoo

Oops but lol to the puncture fairy FB, a good thing you had your phone with you though. It's scarey how dependant we become on them isn't it. On Friday night I realised I'd left my charger somewhere and couldn't get it until Saturday afternoon so I had no phone until Saturday tea-time and although I don't consider myself someone who is permanently stuck to a mobile I did miss it

Well done on the 10 miles even if Mrs FB did have to do the return journey, I was laughing at your idea that 10 miles is quick, I''m soooo unfit these days. It reminds me of my friend (super fit) who decided to do a 'quick' 35 mile bike ride on a recommended route in Europe last year (for fun :eek:) and then get the bus back, when she got to the end point she said she felt fine and didn't need the bus so just hopped back on and did the 35 mile back to the hotel :eek::eek::eek::eek:

Regards
ATT

financialbliss

abouttimetoo wrote: »

Well done on the 10 miles even if Mrs FB did have to do the return journey, I was laughing at your idea that 10 miles is quick...

Ha,
Probably more likely that is was the the decision that was quick. Was about minus one at the time, although dry and sunny. You know who's law - would not have got a puncture had I had all my my gear - I've spare inner tubes, etc which means you can do a fix later.

Fixed the tube yesterday - went out for a small ride with #1 and went to put the bike back on the wall bracket last night and it was flat again. Needs some attention this evening. Either I had more that one puncture or I didn't patch it very well !

FB.

financialbliss

financialbliss wrote: »

Fixed the tube yesterday - went out for a small ride with #1 and went to put the bike back on the wall bracket last night and it was flat again. Needs some attention this evening. Either I had more that one puncture or I didn't patch it very well !

Genuinely expecting that my initial patch wasn't up to the job. On closer inspection this evening - proper submersing in water this time I discover I had a second slower puncture. Suspect I got both at the same time. Patched. Left an hour. Still looking good. That's three patches on the rear tyre now!

FB.

financialbliss

financialbliss wrote: »

• [STRIKE]4.06 : Commute with an average speed of 12mph or more on commute from work[/STRIKE] Achieved: 15Feb - 14.4mph

Without wanting to turn this into a cycle thread, I cycled into work today. Lots of fun was had. Not.

Got a flat rear tube at around 7.15am. No worries, got tools and a spare tube, so I replaced. Out of curiosity, I decided to check rear tyre at lunch and it was flat. Brand new tube only put on a few hours ago.

So, I did a very close inspection of the tyre - inside and out and I discovered what looked like a stanley knife tip embedded in the tyre. Must have picked that up last Saturday and was then responsible for the subsequent flats on Sunday and today.

Put my only other spare tube on at lunch and haven't had any further problems since. About to patch the new tube and inspect (before throwing away) the old tube, but am going to get a further 2 tubes at the weekend.

Was able to cross off a cycle objective today - got 14.4mph on the way home, plus I got the ride under 30 minutes.

Still need to up my game on they way there, as I seem very slow, but I guess I can only improve.

Intending to cycle in again tomorrow, but going to alter my 'in' route slightly to be almost exclusively on cycle paths. A little longer, but may be able to sustain a steady pace.

FB.

financialbliss

Well, it’s been exactly a week since I’ve posted anything here – just a quick post this evening to keep the diary ticking over…

Cycling.
Start where I finished off last time. Haven’t done any since the two commutes last week. We have a corporate travel scheme at work and I have until Friday 18th March to decide if I’m pushing ahead with the cycle commute or not. Personally, I suspect I will, but I had a little discussion with Mrs Bliss the other evening.

After getting the punctures, she suspected that would put me off, but as I had the tools this time, it wasn’t a bother. I think she can now see that I could go ahead with this but doesn’t actually want me to – her main concern is my safety. I know I can do almost all the route on cycle lanes with a small amount of road cycling, but she is still not convinced. Personally, I’ve two mini-concerns:

• Bed to bike – motivation to get up and out on a morning, but once I am up and out I don’t mind.
• Commuting in the rain – having commuted a few times in 2011 and 2012 to date, none of them have been in the rain. Suspect it’s a mental rather than physical problem, but I’ll need to get over that and accept I’ll get wet to a degree when commuting in the rain.

I also need to decide if I’m cashing in my annual travel pass early. There is an admin charge of £20 to do so, but I would get about £50 back – don’t have the exact value to hand. Again, I would need to decide by mid March, but I’m off work around the Easter time and it seems silly to pay for the annual pass to run until April when I’m off for some of April.

Home insurance.
The renewal came last Friday and weighed in at 278.78 (Direct Line). Annoyingly, it’s an auto renewal – I always untick the auto-renewal box if I can, but this seems to get ignored anyway. I aim to have this resolved by Sunday 4th March - either with Direct Line or another insurer to give me a little time to cancel and some time to look at the MFiT-T2 challenge before the next chart on 12th March.

QuidCo.
Got paid a small sum of £3.43 from recent on-line purchases. Have cut the spending back a bit, but still try to use QuidCo and check to see if there is a QuidCo option before committing to an online purchase.

Tesco Clubcard.
Tesco credit card also doubles up as a clubcard and got a clubcard statement last week that had a number of cash vouchers £7.50) and discount vouchers to use. While a Tesco is not our nearest supermarket, still looking to cash in on the freebies and will be using these if we can.

Passports.
I’ve mentioned Florida a few times in the past, but is a step closer to reality now. Have got two passport application forms for the blisslings just to see what’s involved in filling them out. Not 100% sure when we will apply for them as we may or may not try to squeeze a foreign holiday in this year.

Nationwide credit card.
Still keeping an eye on this 18 month 0% card, although I've not applied just yet.

Nothing else on the radar at present. Looking forwards to next week as 1st March is almost upon us - another mortgage payment and another step closer to mortgage freedom

FB.

financialbliss

Just taking stock of February, now that it's almost over and decided I could afford an extra £90 overpayment, so I've just transferred some funds into our ISAs.

Also reported on the 2012 OP thread:

#29 - Overpay by £10,400.00.

Month: Ideal Pay / Ideal Total / Ideal % / Actual Pay / Actual Total (Diff) / Actual %

January: 866.67 / 866.67 / 8.33% / 862.59 / 862.59 (-4.08) / 8.29%
February: 866.67 / 1,733.33 / 16.67% / 1,202.59 / 2,065.18 (+331.85) / 19.86%

Total overpaid: £2,065.18

No council tax in March, so I'm hoping to make a reasonably big OP in March too. Haven't 100% decided on the amount, but hoping to be similar in size to February.

FB.

financialbliss

Quick post to prove I'm still alive. More about that in a mo...

Forgot to mention that the £90 overpayment took us under the £17k mark - £16,957 or there abouts.

Decided to bike it today (and tomorrow) since we're having a mini-heat wave - it's still February you know. Just put the car back in the garage and it reported 10c and that's 10pm at night.

Anyway, back to cycle commuting. Got a personal best both on the way in and the way home today - was in shorts, but no idea if that helped:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnhcWfGMRVgddGNmWGhidkNhWFZBLUZkeUNKeE5qM2c#gid=0

35m 57s for the to leg and 26m 31s for the return. I make that 1hr 2m and 28s, so I guess it's theoretically possible to get a sub 1 hour commute both ways.

BUT, nearly had a major incident on the way in. Been loitering on a cycle site and it's know as a SMIDSY - Sorry Mate, I Didn't See You !!!

There's a substantial roundabout towards the end of my journey - having just checked via google maps, the roundabout has no less than 10 entry and exit points, is 3 lanes wide and [STRIKE]some[/STRIKE] (correction) all of the entry / exits are two lanes.

In clock terms, I need to enter the roundabout at 2pm and exit at 9pm passing 4 entry / exit points in the process.

A guy in a small van thought he could accelerate / cut in front of me to get to his exit point. I had checked behind me before and there was nothing behind, but it's such a fast roundabout that I only noticed him when he did an emergency stop pretty close to me :eek:

If he didn't spot me at all, the first I would have known would have been being knocked off as he travelled right to left as he attempted to get to the exit.

I perhaps could have been a bit better in my observations, but in my defence, I did have a high vis jacket on, hi vis backpack cover and lights in flashing mode despite it being daylight.

Haven't told Mrs Bliss as she would probably have kittens.

Considering an alternative route for tomorrow.

FB.