Statement of intent

StuartGMC

As noted before, we took a fixed price tariff in Sept 2009 for the first time; runs to Sept 2011 and had about a 13% premium over prevailing prices then. However, with the cuts in Spring this year and now looking at the gas futures prices, it seems the wholesale prices are likely to remain flat for next 18months or so (which hopefully means the retail prices do the same).

The tariff with British Gas carries a £100 fee to get out of the contract, but via TopCashBack I should receive £60 and the savings are anticipated to be between £235 and £261 per year. The alternative BG offering was only going to save £205 and they could still choose to apply the £100 fee.

So I've bitten the bullet and am switching back to ScottishPower some 12months after leaving them.... I have also entered correspondence to BG via my account page to state we are changing suppliers in accordance with section 8 of their T&C, although dates will be set by ScottishPower, so that that should mean the 28days notice period has been complied with too.

It will take 4-6wks to switch but we'll hopefully only just be putting heating on then. We should save approximately £200-220 in the first year based on the above :j

I will continue to watch pricing data, especially once the global economy is ramping up again, as it may be prudent to fix in a year's time if global demand puts pressure on supply for 2011 onwards. As you can see, I'm not against fixing but the markets moved down making it too expensive to remain on it.

I've also woken up to the fact that as our 1st Reserve a/c (offsets with current a/c) was more than the mortgage owing it was sensible to switch the surplus to e-Savings which pays a little more interest (1.0% vs 0.1% for the 1st reserve once in credit). So moved over extra cash, all of which can be switched easily online anyway. I'll need to speak to pay people at work as I'm expecting to just drift into higher tax bracket in the present tax year, and I think I then need to look carefully at what this means for the tax we need to pay on joint accounts as OH is basic rate tax payer.

StuartGMC

DD wanted music on her phone the other day before going to the GirlGuiding "Big Gig" in Wembley (OH went too as a Guider to "help" - odd she too has a sore throat today, must have got carried away!). Phone only has 42MB built in (10x more than the memory I had in my first PC :rotfl:) so need to get a memory card, microSD.

Checked via TopCashBack and memorybits give 15% cashback, under the promos listed on TBC you can enter code for 20% and p&p is free. Add to this the fact that the 8GB cards are already cheap at £15 then it adds up to a bargain present for DD for her birthday. :j

Queen-Bee_2

StuartGMC wrote: »

D
Checked via TopCashBack and memorybits give 15% cashback, under the promos listed on TBC you can enter code for 20% and p&p is free.

Hi Stuart, well done on the saving! I was about to start looking for an external hard drive via Topcashback, but I have never had much luck with finding promo codes. Can I ask where you found the 20% code? Cheers, QB

StuartGMC

Queen-Bee wrote: »

Hi Stuart, well done on the saving! I was about to start looking for an external hard drive via Topcashback, but I have never had much luck with finding promo codes. Can I ask where you found the 20% code? Cheers, QB

QB the codes are specific for the retailer. Find the retailer entry on TBC like this one
http://www.topcashback.co.uk/retailerdetailMemoryBits.htm

You can see three tabs and the middle one lists the discounts if any exist.

This is the first one I've found listed on TBC too!

Remember, you can always check my My Voucher Codes (MSE removed url) and check if there are any for the retailer. Just use those on the checkout as you would normally (and if you went to the retailer via TBC you'll get cashback too).

HTH?

StuartGMC

As you'll know reading this "mortgage" thread, our plans to be MF are balanced with needs to gain investments now while markets are good and recognising they need long term holding to iron out volatility and to give greater returns than cash alone.

I've waxed on about Interactive Investor which I like as an online execution only service because it is cheap and let's you invest as little as £20 per fund per month (or stock in their equities ISA on the monthly scheme), the use of Trustnet to monitor the overall portfolio and Money Observer magazine as a learning tool.

I've only just found Morning Star via the Savings & Investments board and dialed in our holdings into a portfolio there (again free) and it gives a range of different data to Trustnet but both are complementary. Also Morning Star do some very good reviews and by way of example:

I think SMF2 and GG will be interested in this report on First Asia Pacific Leaders
http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?id=F0GBR04H7Y&isreport=true

It just shows how much information we can now gain from the net to help us as the environment we're in seems to push us more and more to having to make our own investment and savings decisions for our long term benefit.

setmefree2

Thanks for that Stuart. I am actually in the First State Global Emerging Market Leaders fund (Large & Mid caps in emerging - Manager Jonathan Asante). I believe it to be a good fund, well fingers crossed :cool: It's one for the long term I think....

Gosh the weekends nearly over already :eek: Looking forward to tomorrow - our mortgage should be down to £102K! How sad is that....

StuartGMC

SMF2
From http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?tab=0&id=F0GBR04FGB it looks a pretty good fund too (see the menu on left of page for details).

Not long then before you are below £100k :T

setmefree2

StuartGMC wrote: »

SMF2
From http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?tab=0&id=F0GBR04FGB it looks a pretty good fund too (see the menu on left of page for details).

Not long then before you are below £100k :T

That's good to know. I will have to have a play with that site when I have a minute. it looks really interesting.

I'm really really excited at the thought of going sub £100k - I will be totally, utterly made up:D:D:D

StuartGMC

SMF2 - do allow yourselves a small celebration won't you once you dip under £100k :beer:

I've decided I like the Morning Star portfolio tool as it does allow you to easily add purchases of funds (which if like us on a monthly basis is important) and it gives you the % gain/loss since purchase for each fund. Do try out the portfolio tool if like us you invest monthly. It does also produce some very deep analysis in the "X-ray" tool

That said, I also like Trustnet's version too with the pie-charts etc which I think I will also stick with.

Now need to run these updates with the additional units purchased on Friday. I'll try to get the data uploaded here later, and see what comments I get from it.

StuartGMC

Well this is now the balance of portfolio using Trustnet's tool:



Remember, this is focused upon growth and this is reflected in the present funds and the distribution globally. I may look to add a FTSE tracker or very likely a Bond tracker (nice low cost one) to give some low risk long term steady growth, in the review to be undertaken at year end for the planning for 2010. Hoping that both the Trustnet and MorningStar information can augment the information I have on where I think I need to be placing investments once we have more cash in hand to do so. We will of course be increasing our cash holdings too in terms of Cash ISAs.

Any comments?