the richest man in atherstone

I've been putting away 10% of my gross income (£200) into my Savings Account for a few months now and I must say that having a little bit of cash to fall back on gives me a sense of both satisfaction and security.

Also, by beginning to control my expenditures, I hardly notice that I'm living on less money month-by-month.

Today, I have put together a financial plan for the remainder of the year. Almost all financial books and articles recommend holding at least 3 months of living expenses in readily avilable cash in case of redundancy and I agree with this idea. I spend between £1000 and £1500 per month, so I am aiming to save £4'500 by the end of the year to use as my Emergency Fund.

I currently have nearly £3000 saved, which should increase to around £4000 by the end of the year. Additionally, I am expecting to get a £500 Xmas bonus from my workplace, which I will also add to the Emergency Fund.

With this solid foundation I will be able to use my 2006 savings in other investment vehicles which may tie up my cash for longer periods of time. That's the plan. I've just got to stick to it now...

Well, for the last week or so I've been having an email-argument with Pipex. As I mentioned in a previous post I called up Pipex so that I could get my MAC number and they kindly offered me a free month while I reconsidered.

At the beginning of the month, I decided that I would migrate my broadband to a company called Plusnet. They were recommended to me by a number of friends and charge just £14.99 for unmetered/unlimited Internet access.

I called up Pipex again to request my MAC number, which I recieved. A couple of days later I thought that they might be sneaky and try to charge me for my final month, even though they had told me it was free. Just to confirm, I sent them an email. The following is a transcript of the email conversation I had with their finance department:

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From: Arkad
Date: 10 August 2005
To: Pipex Customer Services

Hi,

Please confirm that since I have migrated my broadband to another provider, you will no longer be billing me and that my final invoice from you is dated 19/07/2005.

Please respond quickly as time is of the essence.

Regards,

Arkad

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From: Pipex Customer Services
Date: 10 August 2005
To: Arkad

Dear Arkad,

Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that your account is due to be closed on 20/08/05.

There is a payment due out on 19/08/05, this will be taken in full but we can do a pro rata refund once the account is closed.

You can either call us on the 20th on the number listed below or you can email our billing department and they will be happy to arrange the refund.

Please let us know if you have any further queries.

Warm Regards,

Pipex Customer Services

It seems they want to charge me for the next month and then refund me the difference.

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From: Arkad
Date: 11 August 2005
To: Pipex Billing

Hello,

I have been informed that my account is due to be closed on 20/08/2005, one day after the bill is due.

I respectfully request that you do not invoice me the £23.44 and instead charge me the amount owed (less than a pound). If it would be easier, you could waive the charge completly as I'm sure you'll agree it is neglegible.

Please respond ASAP as time is of the essence.

Regards,

Arkad

I'd prefer to hang on to the money and instead, simply give them what I owe.

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From: Pipex Billing
Date: 13 August 2005
To: Arkad

Dear Sir,

Please note that you have been offered a free month and a regrade fee refund of £15 when you have originally requested a MAC key and you accepted our offer not to migrate.

Unfortunately, you have since requested migration to take place and thus we are obliged to recharge a free month raised as our offer.

Thus, please note the total of £23.44 still applies.

Should you have any further queries regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us accordingly.

Kind Regards,

Pipex Billing


Now they want to charge me for the 'free' month they offered me plus one day of the following month. As i'd been told this was free, I wasn't very happy with this.

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From: Arkad
Date: 15 August 2005
To: Pipex Billing

Hi,

Unfortunately, I was not made aware that the free month had terms and conditions associated with it. I was of the belief that I was given a free month whilst I reassessed my options.

Therefore, I do not think it is fair for Pipex to reclaim the cost for something that the company originally proclaimed to be free!

Please confirm that I will recieve no further invoices/charges from Pipex.

Arkad

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From: Pipex Billing
Date: 15 August 2005
To: Arkad

Dear Arkad,

In reply to your email, please note that you should have been advised by our customer services representative when a free month was offered to you that if the account would be still cancelled after a free period is applied within 12 months, such free period would be rechargable.

In view of the above, unfortunately, total of £23.44 still remains outstanding on your account.

Sorry for any inconveniences this could have caused and should you still have any queries, please contact us accordingly.

Kind Regards,

Pipex Billing

They still want to charge me for a 'free' month. I'm not willing to pay it and with the payment date drawing ever closer, it's time to tell them exactly how it is and get a little cheeky at the same time.

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From: Arkad
Date: 15 August 2005
To: Pipex Billing

Pipex Billing,

Thank you for your speedy response.

I'm afraid your colleague did not inform me that this was the case when I was offered the "free" month. I have checked my records and can confirm that neither was it conveyed to me in writing. Therefore, unfortunately, I am unable to accept this charge.

However, I am willing to pay the full amount that I believe I owe, which is one full day (the 20th August). I calculate this amount to be £0.76 (based on £23.44 divided by a 31 day month). If my calculations are incorrect, please let me know how much you believe it to be and how it has been calculated.

Also, please let me know how you wish me to proceed with the payment of £0.76.

Please accept my most sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Arkad

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From: Pipex Billing
Date: 18 August 2005
To: Arkad

Dear Arkad,

Please let me confirm that on this occasion, we have agreed not to process with the recharging of a free period originally given to you.

No further charges are due with regards this account.

Hope the above is to your full satisfaction and should you have any queries, please contact us accordingly.

Kind Regards,

Pipex Billing


Result. My persistence paid off.

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So, I've now migrated from Pipex to Plusnet. My monthly broadband bill has dropped from £23.44 to £14.99.

That's a saving of £8.45 per month and £101.40 a year. I'm starting to enjoy reducing my expenses and best of all, it feels like earning extra money on top of my salary.

Call me dumb, but I thought you could change your water supplier as simply as you can your gas/electricity/telephone provider. After a bit of investigation, I discovered that this is not the case.

Whichever water supplier you have, you're stuck with. There are, however, other ways to cut your water bill. Apparantly getting a water meter fitted can reduce costs as I found out in this article by Martin Lewis - Money Saving Expert.

For the time being, I'm not going to spend any time trying to reduce my bill. I currently pay about £200 a year and I think this is a fair price for a family of 4.

My daughter, being born after 1 September 2002 has recieved a Child Trust fund voucher from the government to the value of £268. This has to be invested in a special CTF account until she is 18 and then she can withdraw the amount plus interest. I feel this is a little unfair on my son as he doesn't get this investment due to his birthdate. But I figure by the time they get to 18, I'll make sure that he gets a similar amount. I should be rich by then

The original amount was £250 but they've bumped it to £268 up for lazy sods like myself who haven't put it away in a savings or investment account yet!

Following a bit of investigation, I have decided to put it into a CTF account provided by Ipswitch Building Society which pays a whopping 6% interest (which is also tax-free). I have enquired this evening about setting it up via email. This amount, invested for 16 years at 6% will produce around £680 at the end of the term.

It is tempting to continue adding to the account, but I am not going to do so for 2 reasons:

1. When my daughter is 18, she may blow the money away on junk and I would have no say in the matter.
2. My son does not have a CTF as he was born 1 year too early and I would like them to recieve the same amount.

I intend to save for them for the future separately from the CTF in normal children's tax-free savings accounts. I should note that while investigating this I discovered children's savings accounts are not actually tax-free. They are bound by the same tax law as adults, the exception being that children don't have a salary. Therefore, they get the first £5000 or so of income (from savings) tax-free. I will withdraw all the money as their guardian before they have chance to touch it (evil laughter) and then split it down the middle subtracting the value of the CTF from my daughter's share and moving it to my son's share. This way, they will both recieve a similar amount on their 18th birthdays.

Is this ethically wrong? It seems like the best bet to me!