Adrian Garside

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.

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: RambergMediaImages

After noticing last week’s downward trend in fixed rates Accord Mortgages are releasing lower fixed rate mortgages tomorrow.

Accord are a ‘mortgage broker only’ lender, and I believe they also restrict the mortgage brokers who use them. Accord are owned by Yorkshire Building Society and have a very good reputation. However, as they don’t have a High Street presence,  if you are interested in getting a  full comparison of fixed rate mortgages, make sure your mortgage broker or IFA has access to them.

I am one of the ones that can use them!

photo credit: Pepe Martin

I went to see Craig and Debbie this week and they were waxing lyrical about Lagos, in the Algarve – their favourite holiday destination. They are massive fans of the town, they absolutely love it! I visited years ago when I holidayed in Carvoiero and it is lovely.

They have acquired an apartment there – which looks great and the guest reviews suggest that it great when you arrive – here’s Craig’s website – Lagos apartment and I think booking is through Owners Direct.

Book early, Craig and Debbie have done this properly and the apartment gets booked up by repeat bookings, even through the winter – I know alot of people with flats abroad,  this is the only one I know that was rented out 49 weeks out of 52 last year… To me, that says it all.

photo credit: nikcnameIt’s been an interesting week regarding fixed rate mortgages.

I’ve had an e-mail today telling me that Nationwide are cutting the rates on some of their fixed rate mortgages  – a quick glance at the products suggests that they are still some way off being cheapest, but they hav etheir niches and individual research for clients will determine if they are good enough. However, it is a good trend.

I see Abbey have released a 4 year fixed rate – this is unusual, there is a distinct trend for consumers to like 3 and 5 year fixed rates, with 4 being overlooked.

However, the rate is good – actually cheaper than some of the Nationwide’s shorter fixed rates. I’m guessing I can read into this that they expect year 5 to be the more expensive for interest rates.

And finally, on the grapevine I gather that Woolwich will be coming up with some fantastic fixed rates for existing borrowers who are on lifetime tracker rates. Now, some of my customers on lifetime trackers are on quite ridiculously low rates, so these fixed rates are going to have to be pretty eyebrow raising to get attention, but if you are a Woolwich tracker mortgage customer who would be interested in a super low fixed rate, send me an e-mail and when they are released I’ll contact you.

As part of her White Rose Craft Studio Di has been working on a Birthday Party idea based around crafts.

The idea is to provide a Birthday Party kit – all the stuff you need to have an activity based birthday party, delivered in a box – the 1st kit will be a T-shirt painting party.

Anyway, in sourcing T-shirts Di has made arrangements with a local supplier, who later called her up to ask if she could make up a fancy dress punk T-shirt.

To get into the spirit of things, I have been playing my punk playlist on itunes…here’s a highlight…

photo credit: suetry

Anglian Windows from East Street in Southampton call me quite regularly to see if I want new windows, doors or a conservatory.

I don’t.

Never have. Never will. Not from them, anyway. Not only because people I know who have used them have paid what seem to me to be high prices. But, also, on the one occasion that I did think it worthwhile they refused to see me if my then wife wasn’t present. I may be wrong, but I think this is because of the pressure sales tactic of having both parties present so that on the spot decisions can be made although that’s not how they explain it.

Anyway, since I moved to my new house about a year ago I have had many many calls from Anglian Windows. Numerous calls a day sometimes. Today is 2 calls. I’m going to log further calls here.

The opening gambit of the 1st was that he was the Anglian Windows Sales Manager…nice title to use, but I suspect the real sales manager doesn’t actually make cold calls. The second called me as a follow up to my meeting last year when I got quotes for Anglian Windows double glazing and doors.

I did get a 3rd call from them, assuring me that I would not get any more calls from them and assuring me my number was removed from their records.

You may say – why not use the telephone preference service?

Well, actually in my business it is quite handy to get some cold calls – new mortgage lenders, insurance companies, marketing companies etc so I don’t want to.

What I do want is Anglian Windows to stop phoning me.

Any advice on tactics I could adopt…comments please

Just reading Derren Brown’s blog about a chap who drove across the USA, tracking his journey with a GPS.

The route he drove shows up on Google Maps…in fact, it’s so large, it can only be read with Google Maps.  Arn Rand apparently is an author – he’s a big fan. Good job he’s not a fan of Robert Louis Stevenson or he’d still be at it!

photo credit: Tim in SydneyPeople who pay for prescriptions pay £7.20 for each script these days.

Sometimes you will be prescribed a drug that costs less than £7.20 to buy at the counter. My chemist alerts me when this happens, but I don’t suppose all of them do, so it’s worth checking.

If you get more than 4 prescriptions in 3 months, or 14 in 12 months you can buy a ‘Prescription Prepayment Certificate’ (PPC) and these allow unlimited prescriptions to be collected during the life of the certificate.

A 3 month PPC costs £28.25.

A 12 month PPC costs £104.00