Statement of intent

StuartGMC

Easy come - easy go....

OH just had her revised tax code sent through; whilst it accounts for her professional membership subscription (good), they determined she has taxable benefits from mileage claims (bad) so her tax code has gone down... I'm not sure what will be the situation with the current "correction" for the 10p tax rate, so it may all roll out as a neutral position and not a gain in net income which is not good at the moment :mad:

StuartGMC

Having trawled through information, I'm left with my preferences of Zurich (present insurer) and DirectLine (who we use for cars anyway) but latter is £235 less per year.

Whilst as noted Zurich has been very good in dealing with problems, they have not incremented our contents insurance etc to account for inflation... which the policy says they do. Help line unable to address on a Sunday....

DirectLine policy looked good, one question we had was the cover for bicycles when away from home; it seems to cover accidental loss and damage under personal possessions, not theft. Rang up and their staff said it does cover theft.... Zurich's definitely covers theft but not the travel insurance element.

So now I am none the clearer
I think I will have to e-mail DirectLine to seek clarification, as the saving is significant, and would go a long way to counter the increased gas and electric prices.

Any comments?

Update: used the FAQ/Contact info on DirectLine site and there it states bicycle theft away from home is covered. Have saved electronically (print-screen and paste to OpenOffice file) but will call tomorrow to confirm when taking the insurance as I want to be sure all is in place. Have also run through the contents calculation and think that we may have been low on cover before, perhaps as Zurich hasn't incremented for inflation in the past... this reduced the saving to £207, but of course Zurich quote would need to increase anyway.

StuartGMC

Well to top off the revised tax code for OH, just today received notification that we have to pay back Tax Credits overpayment from 2007-8. Original notification said this would be taken back via reduction in payments, but as we don't get any they have just dropped us the letter demanding repayment "out of the blue"...

I guess it could be worse but it is annoying all the same.

Looking back I think I should post something positive now
So I'll start by ignoring the stock markets and impact on our S&S ISAs... :rotfl:

Total grocery bill is hovering around £87/wk inc food, drink, toiletries, cleaning stuff and alcohol. So thanks to OH's care in selecting suitable offers, cooking mainly from raw ingredients (something daughter is also very good at!) etc, this looks to be "reasonable" for three of us. OH is also now capturing all receipts inc the odd loaf of bread from local shop etc, so this figure is fairly accurate and I think good :j

Removing alcohol would reduce this some £10/wk and in theory reduce my waistline a bit
Odd this is one area I choose not to monitor closely (the beer costs that is, the waistline must not exceed 34".... or I'm in trouble!) :rolleyes:

I've already taken the new gas and electric costs into the spreadsheet and reviewed, which means with the "live" data from the various spend sheets, I've had to trim back our savings aspirations (but not the mortgage OP of 61.52% of monthly repayment or ISA contributions) which indicates savings aspirations have dropped 4% vs net income to only 29%. Not happy with this, but without a pay rise it is inevitable although continuing to strive to save where we can, and I've not been to the pub for several weeks now

The impact of two weeks away on holiday and a week away on business, hence not using my car has led to the present monthly petrol costs of £239.49 (OH only fills up once per month at about £45). Other costs are about £1500 per year for both cars as service is not cheap on the Jag, and tyres, brake discs etc are within the averaging period too. Of course, road tax hikes in FY 2009-10 and again 2010-11 will hit us.

Clothing & Shoes still show as £247/month, whilst this is a slight reduction, it is obvious that this metric is going to one which needs many months over which to gain a true average, probably best looked at on an annual spend period.

That's it for now.

StuartGMC

A call to Zurich and they could offer a loyalty discount of £25 against the £511 quoted "recognizing" our custom since 1994 and that we had a claim this year.... When looking to compare against the competition the only major point they could highlight where they were better than DirectLine was in the alternative accommodation limit being higher.

Was going to call Natwest (lender) after dinner to check my understanding that there are no fees for moving buildings insurer under our mortgage terms, but missed their closure time!

I will then complete the online application....
I will not look at how much time this has taken to save £207 though!:rolleyes:

StuartGMC

Ok, insurance update:
1) Natwest don't apply a charge for changing your buildings insurer (on our offset mortgage anyway)
2) Have completed online application with DirectLine, but a point worth noting, the commencement time on the start date is that of when you are submitting the form... i.e. 2000hrs in my case tonight. Wondered about starting a day early, but, I recall that this can lead to problems with "over-insurance" and trying to resolve responsibility between the two insurers...

Suidreams asked for any comments as I waded through policies; I can't go through them all but a few key ones include:
a) The exclusion period before certain elements are covered after the start of insurance. For example, Legal & General have a 180day exclusion before covering you as owner or occupier under their Legal Protection.... that's 1/2 of a year:eek:

b) Cycle values covered - some only £250 each, others higher in their package
c) Legal Protection I would recommend you have this, it can also help if you do voluntary activities which may expose you to risk of a legal case being raised against you e.g. injury at a fund raising day
d) Damage when carrying audio or visual equipment designed to be portable is excluded under AXA's policy
e) Whether they offer a support service for emergency repairs etc
f) Unoccupancy period can be 40 to 60 days depending upon company
g) Voluntary and compulsory excess as you may expect vary a lot
h) Additional cover above Buildings and Contents, such as travel, identity theft etc
i) Limits on values covered etc

Those are just a few, but it has been a real headache to wade through the documents to seek out the "good" and "bad" because the comparison sites etc can't do this level of detail :sad:

Wouldn't it be great if such services were all issued on identical templates so you can see the features on a common basis?

Was it worth £200.... I guess I should say yes, because if you add on the £100 we are saving each year for choosing alternative groceries (just 5 items) means that the vast amount of the most recent increase in gas & electricity costs are covered.

Sui
Have you resolved your insurance?

SuiDreams

Thanks for the info, still looking at the moment but so far it looks like most of the cheaper policies are out so far, hoping for something around £250 - £300 mark its a very small house. Unfortunately haven't done much over the last couple of days have been busy at work and have been too tired by the time I got home, hoping for a short list by next friday.

StuartGMC

Sui
Good luck - our cover under DirectLine for a 4 bed was £304 for their Home Insurance Plus product.
Have you checked the rebuilding costs?

In many cases now insurers have no limit or a massive upper limit, but, you may just want to check. This site has one such calculator: http://calculator.bcis.co.uk/

The one I used however was;
http://www.abi.org.uk/public/consumer/householdpersonal/old_file_not_required_now_13feb2006-newbuildingcalculator.asp

StuartGMC

Just had our water bill and we moved from a £44 arrear to £36 credit position over the last 7 months. Direct debit had been £46 per month, which applied from Feb, but had been a large jump. However water company were now suggesting only £30 per month...

As above, we in effect paid £10 more than needed per month so called them and asked to have direct debit set to £36 per month so it is "on target". They agreed that the reduction their system indicated seemed too much and that the suggested payment should pretty much track our usage.

So, that frees up some £120 per year and probably reflects a number of things this year:
1) We have now had the water butt for 12 months so this has reduced mains water for the garden.
2) It was a wet summer so little need to water things anyway!
3) Daughter is using a little less water
4) Water "hippo" in the downstairs toilet cistern (which is an older 9litre flush unit) again for about a year.

Based on the last bill we are using about 11.1m^3 per month. This is an area I haven't monitored so far, but perhaps I should in consideration of the price rises that applied from 1 April.

StuartGMC

Just realised that, with the saving on the insurance (£205) and the apparent saving on water (£120) this week has seen annual savings of £325 :j:j:j:j

Just called British Gas to confirm the direct debit they'll be taking from October, and am a little confused. Presently we have been paying £71 per month to ScottishPower, which with the new prices was going to increase to about £88. Fixing to Sept 2011 incurs a 13.8% premium so I had expected to be paying £100 per month...

British Gas advised that the direct debit they will be taking is only £38.50 per month gas, and £27.00 per month electricity, i.e. £65.50 per month. I think this will lead to an arrears position quite quickly. So if I put this value in our spreadsheet, I may get a false impression of our finances and thus think there's another £35 per month available.

So, do I use the correct figures and for now overpay into mortgage or, keep the "expected" £100 despite BG taking less and thus have a conservative value?

For now, I'll show the new figures, which mean £325/12 (£27.08 per month) from the savings above plus £35 per month totalling £62.08 per month.

EssexHebridean

I've always found British Gas to be flexible with the DD's Stuart - so it's well worth speaking with them about adjusting their figures on the money they intend to take. I appreciate your concerns about getting into arrears - it's not a nice situation to know you're getting into, especially with the higher drain months coming up. They wanted to reduce ours a lot when we sorted out our meter "issues" a while back - I asked them to make a smaller reduction and they were happy to do so.