The "Grand Plan" - Phase One well underway!

EssexHebridean

gallygirl wrote: »

Well done on progress :j . I'm thinking of getting a 0% card to buy a car, need to see what's on offer. Just a bit concerned as will have had a credit check done 2 months ago when transferred bank account. Nice to see someone already taking advantage of it.

Well that Tesco card seems like a good deal - 14 months 0% on balance transfers from account opening - my PIN no arrived today so they're obviously getting a move on getting it all processed too. I was wondering if I might have problems as I've had a few credit checks done in the last six months or so but it sailed through with no problems.

I will be writing to NR in the next week for my final settlement figure for paying off the loan - exciting stuff!

The quote came in for the electrical bits we need doing here - it will come to a bit over £500 but we're going to bite the bullet and get it done just as soon as Mr EH can arrange to get an afternoon off to let the sparky in. It'll be lovely to have a "normal" immersion heater again and also to have a warm front room! We have got to go out and buy a new light fitting for the kitchen before the work is done but that should only be around the £40 mark hopefully. That money all comes from other savings so thankfully won't affect the loan being paid off on time. :j

The camera finally sold for £285 and all looks good this time - that money will be paid off directly against the credit card - I know I technically should save it to gain the benefit of the interest but I'm not organised enough for that - I'd end up spending it!

EssexHebridean

Letter now sent to NR for final figure.

Letter also sent to NR for PPI reclaim....waiting for a few days after sending the other one to reduce the chances of them mucking me about over the settlement figure!

Light fitting bought for the kitchen - it's a really nice one and it was - unbelievably - only £15! I could hardly believe that, we both agreed it was the nicest we've seen too! Mr EH will hopefully be able to get Friday afternoon off for the sparky to come and do the work.

Balance transfer from the Tesco card has gone across to the Egg card to clear the money from buying the camera. The balance will sit in there (earning 4% interest while it does) until I see a suitably good laptop offer. I've rethought the eBay money from the camera - that will get transferred into savings and I'll be setting up a DD for the Tesco card making sure the balance gets cleared off inside the 14 months.

I'm disheartened on the power use front - I expected our night use to increase a fair amount with the storage heaters but with the change in the clocks our day use has gone up too! It's really annoying as we're being reallyu good about using appliances etc at night, but the combined effect of having to use the immersion during the day rate at the moment and also running the dehumidifier pretty much 24 hours a day at the moment is really knocking up the usage. I can't see there is much I can do about it - it's mighty annoying though!

frazzmunch

EssexHebridean wrote: »

Light fitting bought for the kitchen - it's a really nice one and it was - unbelievably - only £15! I could hardly believe that, we both agreed it was the nicest we've seen too! Mr EH will hopefully be able to get Friday afternoon off for the sparky to come and do the work.

well done on getting the light fitting:j have the electrics been done now?

EssexHebridean

Yep - the work was done on friday so we now have a snazzy kitchen light, and cabinet doors that actually open (Mr EH said when we looked at them he was half expecting that after all these years of them not having been fully opened, they'd seize up when they go to the half way point - thankfully they didn't though!), and a working immersion heater which should mean we can make some savings on the hot water as that can now go on overnight at cheap rate. Unfortunately the new storage heater seems to have a problem - they are coming back to look at that tomorrow so fingers crossed that will sort it out.

StuartGMC

Good progress EH, well done

EssexHebridean

Well - final settlement letter now written to Northern Rock - although their figures were hopeless and I had to calculate for myself after no fewer than THREE different figures from them over the past two months! Letter and Cheque will be posted to NR on Friday - giving time for the transfer from the ISA to go through to my current account.

I've made the best use I could have done of the ISA so far as Egg have just dropped the interest rate from 6.05% to 4.55% - with the possibility of another interest rate drop coming up I seem to have got the best of it.

On the negative side the car has just had it's service - although I price checked our local main dealer against another nearer to work and managed to get them to equal the price - it was the 2nd (24k) service, so classified as a major, and came in at £272.00. Paid on the cashback credit card too so another 1% back there. I'm shortly going to be £160 worse off though as we were side-swiped by a Bulgarian Lorry on Monday evening on the way back from Christmas shopping, the insurance excess has to be paid by us first off but should then be payable back from his insurers. The side of the car is totally caved in just behind the passenger side door - thankfully though no airbags went off and there doesn't appear to be any chassis damage so it will be repairable according to the man at the garage. Annoying, but we were both uninjured so that's the main thing.

Christmas shopping is going fairly well - we've agreed with my parents (with whom we spend the day itself) that we are going to cut back a bit this year generally - presents AND food - and we're planning to mcome up with some alternative present ideas instead - we've agreed to give Christmas Crackers a miss in favour of a small gift at each place setting instead, and Mum and I plan to make as much of the food as we can from scratch.

The new laptop has now been purchased - I settled in the end on a Fujitsu Siemens machine - 4gb RAM, core 2 duo processor, and 250gb hard-drive, which I have paid £415 for. Pretty much spot on budget so I'm happy with that. I should have it tomorrow, with luck. Also bought on the Cashback CC!

Once I have confirmation from NR that the loan account is cleared and closed I will be able to move on to "phase 2" of the plan! :j

setmefree2

Well done with all that EH:T:T

SmlSave

Once I have confirmation from NR that the loan account is cleared and closed I will be able to move on to "phase 2" of the plan! :j

That's wonderful EssexH :T Could you remind me what phase 2 is again? I've forgotton

Glad you're ok from being 'swiped', sounds like you've no luck with the car at the moment, fingers crossed it means a hassle car free year next year!

ShelleyC_2

Woohoo for completing phase 1 and good luck for 2 :j

gallygirl

I love it when a plan comes together, well done