Adrian Garside

photo credit: aithom2

Dentists always tell you to floss, but flossing has to be the least enjoyable experience on earth. I’d rather rub my eyes shortly after chopping a chili (which I did yesterday).

However, my dentist suggested I try tepe sticks instead of the fishing wire flossing stuff – these are like tiny pixie bottle brushes that you use between your teeth and they are excellent. For me, it’s a huge relief that they exist, given my antipathy towards floss.

I recommend them, in my expert capacity as a daily tooth user.

They are available from most chemists – but I suggest ebay…if you want to save some cash…

Sorry, couldn’t find a photo of a tepe stick that was royalty free, so I thought a stuffed moose would be a good substitute.

photo credit: smemon87

I’ve just heard on Radio 5live that EDF are putting their electricity prices up by 2.6%

This seems a bit out of the blue, I wonder if they are the 1st in a trend?

2.6% isn’t a very big increase – although I guess that may depend on which of their tariffs you are on. You choose, out of this lot:

Annual fix version 1

Annual fix version 2

Annual fix version 2 (original)

Annual fix version 3

Annual fix version 3 (up until Jul 2010)

Annual fix version 4

Climate Balance

Eco 20:20

Eco Manager

Energy Assist

Energy Discount Plan

Energy Discount Plan Version 2

Energy Discount Plan version 3

Energy Saver

Fixed Price 2015

Fixed Price until 31/7/2010

Green

Online s@ver version 1

Online s@ver version 2

Online s@ver version 3

Online s@ver version 4

Online s@ver version 5

Online s@ver version 6

Online s@ver version 7

Online Version 1

Online Version 2

Online Version 3

Online Version 4

Online Version 5

Online Version 6

Price Guarantee 2010

Price Protection 2010

Standard

That’s just their electricity tariffs…

If you are with EDF and have been for more than 6 months, what are the chances that you are on their cheapest rate? And if you are on their cheapest rate, how long do you think that will remain the case? And, don’t think I’m picking on EDF, they are not the worst.

Wouldn’t you prefer to be with a provider who’s old customers are on the same tariff as the ones that join this week?

Contact me, I may be able to save you 2 things – money (obviously), and the headache of swapping provider every 6 months.

photo credit: Artis.Rozentāls

No? Nor me.

But, it seems people do – according to this article in the Telegraph . Mmmm – I’ve just visited the website of the bakery – Hobbs and I can see why they are tempted!

The funny thing is though – £21 for a loaf of bread seems extraordinary enough to talk about and I bet, like me, you are tempted, but in a ‘nose pressed against the sweetshop window’ fashion – you want one, but you know you can’t because it’s silly.

I have two main types of customer, those that want me to do something – arrange a pension or a mortgage or something like that. And the other types are those that know they have a load of direct debits to insurance companies, but don’t really know what they are for.

For the second group (and often the 1st) when I look at what people spend on their insurances, ISA’s, pensions, utilities and mortgages; saving £20pm is often easy and sometimes I can save people a great deal more than that. I’ll use me as an example – my business phone used to cost me over £100pm, now it costs about £20 – £25 most months. I could have 3 of those loaves every month just on my phone bill saving.

This may be because it is what I do – for me, all the information is available and I know how to assess the best products, I know the ones where cheapest really is best, or where spending a couple of £ extra is good value. No call centres will baffle me, or try to ‘upsell’ and so the process is easy.

I can do this for you. I will visit you at home, look through your stuff, tell you what can be done and if you want me to, sort it out.

For blog readers, I will cover any expenses that I have for this. If I can save you £20pm you can invite me round afterwards for a sandwich made with £21 bread…

photo credit: bterrycompton

At last, after a few weeks rain, the soil has become workable, so we (Di on this occassion) dug a section. Before you imagine I was supervising, I was pulling up the bank of nettles that had grown…Although I had gloves (90% effective) a T shirt was probably not the best protective gear for the job and my arms were tingling for the rest of the day.

I had some strawberry polants in a big pot at home and it had started firing off babies on runners – so, each baby was given a pot to grow in, and I had 19 baby strawberry plants to stick in the allotment – a job done and hopefully a good crop next year.

There was a consequence to this – I look like I’ve got miniature crop circles in my lawn – where the pots have sat in the grass all summer – the central pot, with lots (well, 19) little circles.

AC/DC did the theme tune for Ironman – you knew that, right?

Here’s a promo video shot at Rochester Castle – I’ve never seen anything like it.

One of the partners called 118118 twice last month – both calls cost £4.50.

That’s a lesson learnt then! It turns out they charge £2pm.

One of the cheapest, if not the cheapest is 118888 – it does the same service at less than half the price – 95p per minute. Hang on – are you with me on this – that is still ridiculously expensive. In fact, as far as I can tell, all the directory enquiry services cost this kind of money

There is a free service – 0800 118 3733 – you have to put up with some adverts, and it’s a robot you talk to, not an human, but I can put up with that compared with the knowledge that it costs about 50p to say ‘No, I can phone them myself thanks’.

photo credit: Ben Husmann

You see that photo?

I’m allowed to use it. Someone else – Ben – took the photo, but has agreed that people can use it as long as they give him due credit…and you see, I have.

I have been learning about this recently – a website that I know has had a bill through for £8000 from Getty Images for using photo’s that apparently don’t have permission – fortunately, it’s the website builder’s problem, not theirs, but the story did cause my buttocks to clench.

Because I built and run this website.

For a long while I inserted any old photo into my blog as long as it was pretty – it’s easy to find them, just search google for something and select images.

Now, I learnt about licences a while back and since then have been using licenced photo’s, but I have never worried about the old images. Funnily enough, after hearing the story, I have found the motivation to do that and over the last 2 evenings I have been through all three hundred and something blog entries editting the photo’s.

The blog looks a bit duller now, well the old bit does, but I can sleep easy.

We are going camping in a friend’s field in a couple of weeks, there will be others and fire eating and the such like will go on… On a whim, I mentioned that I could take my unicycle…with hindsight that may have been rash!

I learnt to unicycle when I was 17. I’d just been to stay with my dad in Jordan and while there I joined in running with the ex pat running club called the Hash House Harriers – you may have heard of them, but if not – here’s what wiki has to say about them

While there, I attended the Dead Sea Hash – the lowest hash on earth – it was fun! One of the guys had a unicycle and instead of running, he rode that. At 17 I thought he was pretty cool and on my return I borrowed a car off a teacher at school (6th form gave me that freedom), drove to Bristol and bought a unicycle.

I then learnt to ride it – there isn’t an easy way, you just learn, it took a few hours… I’m using ‘few’ here in a fairly understated way!

Having achieved my aim – just being able to ride it – I had pretty much no further use for the unicycle and it has sat in my garage since. Anyway, I guess 20 minutes practice and I managed to get on a ride it again. Di was hoping for something more comedic, but it was uneventful.  More in hope of a ‘You’ve been Framed’  moment than out of kindness she video’d me…

photo credit: deanoakley

One of the most common searches on google, outside those for ‘adult content’ is for “Mortgage Calculator”.

I often wonder about this. What are people really searching for?

Mortgage Calculator number one will simply work out the cost of a repayment mortgage if you type in the mortgage amount, term and interest rate, which is OK if you know the details you want to investigate, and these are everywhere…actually, everywhere but here, maybe I’ll add one.

Mortgage Calculator number 2 is an Affordability Calculator. These are specific to each lender – so you input your details and it will work out how much they are happy to lend you, assuming credit and survey are both OK. You may think ‘just multiply your salary by 3 (or 4, or 5) but many lenders have a more sophisticated approach, factoring in children, couples and even earnings matter – a family of 4 with a parent earning £30k may get 3.5 x salary, a family of 4 with a parent earning £75k may get 5 time salary. Simply because they have more spare income after family expenses.

Mortgage Calculator number 3 is the one I pay a subscription for. Simple versions are available on many websites – other mortgage broker sites and comparison sites such as Moneysupermarket. To a certain extent they work, but they don’t answer questions, simply because the answers these days are so complicated, but they do give you a starting point to answer questions. Mine takes into account income multiples and other criteria, down to blips on credit records, state benefits etc.

Mine also has a very handy function – lets say we are looking for a 3 year fixed rate. Say 200 products come up to choose from, and some have lower rates with big fees and some have higher rates with low fees. Some have free surveys, some have free solicitors fees and some have little cashbacks. Which is best?

Well, you can get handy with a calculator (a normal calculator, not a mortgage calculator) and add up 36 payments (for your 3 year fixed rate)  and any fees and create a little spreadsheet. Of course, there is a risk -  it may well be out of date tomorrow, I update my software twice a day!

Or, you can find an IFA with the software that does the calculation for every product, at the press of a button. Cheapest may not be best, but the best will be amongst the cheapest and it gives you some solid facts to work from.

“Simples”, as they say…

photo credit: Keith Williamson

One of the trends for mortgage over the last 10 years has been the rise and rise of booking fees.

Northern Rock started it. Throughout the 1990′s the rule of thumb was that variable rate products had no booking fee and fixed rate products did, usually £250 or £300.

Then Northern Rock took their fee up to £495 and everyone gasped, but they still recieved business, so more lenders copied.

Fees have risen since, and I think it was last year that I found myself saying to a customer ‘Look, this one’s OK, the fee is only £999′

Most mortgages have a £1000 fee these days, some have £1500 fees and there are some with amazingly high fees – I’ve never recommended a mortgage with an amazing large fee – £3k plus isn’t uncommon – but presumably someone does, because the lenders keep releasing them. Or, maybe nobody does, but the rates look good on posters in the lender’s window, drawing in new customers.

Most lenders have 3 ranges of products (sometimes more) – High fee, low interest rate, medium fee, medium interest rate and low/zero fee and high interest rate – usually medium/medium works out as best. On smaller mortgages, say those below £100k, the low fee, products usually win, and on really big mortgages the mortgages with high fees become more interesting.

There have been two new twists on these fees over the past year or two.

The first, I think, is unique to Woolwich – they have a ‘not taken up’ fee – if you apply for a mortgage that they approve, but subsequenty decide not to have it, they charge you £150. I can se how this has emerged, as a mortgage broker myself, if I recommend, say a 2 year fixed rate at 3.25% and then a new one is released at 2.99% I’m going to call my client to discuss it. If the client changes over, lender one is left with funds reserved and expenses but no come back.

The second is that some lenders charge £1000 fee, but ask for the 1st £100 or £200 up front (non refundable).

This week, Northern Rock have announced that they are reducing their fees.

That is ironic, but also most welcome!