We had a lovely day with my mum in law yesterday – she enjoyed the cake (9 candles one for each 10 years of her life) and a drop of bubbly and she had some beautiful cards. It was a long day though and as a result we woke up late this morning and haven’t really been on the ball all day. I have been flicking the duster around and doing a bit of hoovering ready to start the week tomorrow.
Did I mention life at the office will never be the same from tomorrow one colleague leaves and a new member joins us in our little department of 2 (plus a few hours assistance from a junior administrator). However the new person has a new role quite different from what we have known before rather than being an equal he will be ranked above us – the role has yet to be defined and until we have been told more we are completely in the dark.
If you have been following my financial focus for January you may be wondering how I am getting along with some of my tasks.
Well I have been busy!
The Gas deal
I have been on most of the big comparison sites and there is no doubt for our gas alone Daligas are the cheapest followed by Npower our current provider. After much research into Daligas and trawling through their terms and conditions we have decided this is not a switch we will make at the moment for the following reasons –
- Firstly this is a new company who only offer the one Tariff so there is no set standard rate to revert to when the 12 month fixed deal ends. I expect they will let you know what the new Tariff will be nearer the end of the deal. Now I might be cynical but what is to stop them producing a new deal that is much dearer or completely different to the one available now. For instance the advantage of Daligas at present is that they are offering a very low monthly standing charge and it is this that makes them cheaper than Npower as their kWh rate is slightly more so if this standing charge drastically changed and went onto the more usual daily rate you could find their gas to be dearer and you would be stuck with this until you found a new deal.
- Secondly – they are so new there is no ‘past performance’ available or any guide as to previous Tariff rates.
- Thirdly – they say it can be up to 6 weeks to switch and although the 12 months fixed rate will run from the transfer date it does mean we would be stuck on Npowers standard rate for a few weeks until the transfer and thereby lose any advantage we would gain from the switch.
We have decided it is too risky for us and we will monitor this company closely and see what further Tariffs they come up with in the future and maybe we will switch when we have more confidence in them.
I also looked at prepaid energy but again this is still dearer as is duel fuel even with the same provider discounts.
We will be applying for the Npower price Fix May 2015 tomorrow to replace our Online January 2014 fixed which ends on Friday.
We spent £1,053 on gas in 2013 but we are almost £500 in credit so that means it cost us £553 for the year.
The Electricity
This deal is fixed until September so we will look again at this nearer the time – what we need to do before then is get the consumption down further.
We spent £600.96 on electricity for the year 2013.
The Water Rates
We are with good old Yorkshire water and our bill for the year 2013 was£598.93 approx £49.91 month.
There is only the two of us rattling around in here now so I thought it was a good time to perhaps look at applying to be metered. We completed the water energy calculator online and found our usage to be somewhere around £300 for an average use so we have filled in an application form for this and will wait for a response.
The Council Tax
This is an extortionate amount of £1451.04 a year for a band D property and no matter what cannot be reduced unless the house could go down a band or two and no chance of that!
ISA Savings
Today we took the plunge and stopped dithering over transferring an old mature ISA each into the Post Office 2 year fixed at 2.25%. We were going to wait and see but then I read on one of the financial sites that generally ISA interest rates are falling. Already the Halifax and one or two other big banks have reduced their top ISA rates. I hadn’t appreciated the reason for this all time low is now due to the high demand for the government Help to Buy scheme which is once again pushing up house prices. We are now thinking a rise in rates just before the end of the tax year may not happen. If it does we still have a couple of ISA’s that will mature in March and we will be able to take advantage if not we won’t lose out by taking this Post Office deal which is the highest for a 2 year fix and may soon be withdrawn.
Maintenance plan
This is in progress and I will do a post soon.
I am aware that there are so few days left in January now so I need to get down to that all important task of setting a budget or spending plan as I prefer to call it for our household bills and food. All this focusing has been worthwhile – our current account is quite buoyant due to the low spending and gathering in.
I have still to sort out the Ebay / Amazon account and look at what I might sell. The magazine book I got on selling on Ebay and other sites will have more than paid for itself – it was a good buy. It talks you through everything you need to know step by step and I can’t wait to get started. I will need a good bright day to take some good photos and this may have to be next Friday. I am not expecting to get this all up and running before the end of January but I will have made a start.
That is pretty much the weekend round-up – I hope you all had a good one.
where the journey takes me 