the richest man in atherstone

Last month, I posted that I was going to apply for two new credit cards:

• The Morgan Stanley Cashback Credit Card
• The Amazon Credit Card

As planned, I got the Amazon Credit Card and made a single purchase on it (a couple of crates of beer from the supermarket) before redeeming my £15 Amazon voucher and cancelling the card. That's a free £15 voucher to use on Amazon in exchange for £20 worth of beer, which I would have bought using cash anyway. Nice!

I've been using the Morgan Stanley Card Cashback Credit Card for just about every purchase I would have otherwise made in cash. My wife uses it for the supermarket shopping and I use it for petrol, video rentals, xmas presents etc.

The upshot is that after just one month, I've built up a cashback of £9.96 on purchases that I would have made whether I had the card or not. I'm still in the introductory bonus period which pays 2% on purchases. In the new year, this will drop to 0.5% but I forecast that come next October I'll recieve a cheque from Morgan Stanley for around £50. I can't grumble at that as using the card takes absolutely no extra effort than if I paid in cash or used my Debit Card. I'll let you know how much I've made in 12 months time.

Not long ago I wrote that I'd save about £90 per annum by changing my Gas and Electricity provider from Powergen to NPower.

Not long after I subscribed to NPower, I got a call from Powergen informing me that I would be financially better off by sticking with them. When I asked why, all they said was that NPower were hiking up their prices by 14% in a month or so.

Armed with my pages of notes and figures I did a few quick calculations and worked out that NPower would have to increase their prices by a wapping 35% to be the same as Powergen's. I told this to Powergen's customer service representative and he got very cagey and told me again that I was making a mistake. I hung up!

I think its terrible that Powergen can do this. If I were more vulnerable or more trusting I may have continued to pay their high prices based on that call. The awful thing is that I don't believe Powergen are alone in this.

My personal opinion is that there needs to be much more regulation by OFGEM for gas and electricity companies. Their pricing strictures are so difficult to understand that it is very difficult to compare companies tariffs and know whether company representatives are telling the truth or not. Why not just have a basic price per KWH for either day or night or use something like an AER as is used in the financial services industry?

Anyway that's my rant over with. I'm very busy with work at the moment but maybe I'll pursue this further at a later date. Onward to Downing Street...

My mortgage currently costs me more than it should. My wife and I borrowed £46'000 for our first house around 5 years ago and have never changed from the original mortgage with the Alliance + Leicester. The first couple of years gave us a discounted rate but now the interest rate is their Standard Variable Rate (SVR), which is the Bank of England Base Rate plus 0.95 (5.8%). Today, mortgages are available at less than 5%.

Another reason for wanting to change the mortgage is becuase we would like to change to a standard repayment mortgage (interest plus some of the capital is paid off each month). Our current mortgage is interest-only, which means we only pay the interest and have a seperate fund set up with Legal & General to (hopefully!) pay the mortgage off at the end of the 25 year term.

Unfortunately, for various reasons, we are planning to move house at the beginning of next year so now is not really a good time to be changing our mortgage. We may be stuck with a mortgage that is good for our present circumstances but will not be suitable for our post-move situation. After talking it through, we decided to get a new mortgage when we get a new house at the beginning of next year.

I recieved a flyer through my door this morning from the Alliance + Leicester offering me £100 if I opened a current account (Premier Direct) with them. They often send me details of their new offers (mainly personal loans) because I have my mortgage with them.

I thought to myself that there had to be some sort of catch, so I read through the small print but was unable to find anything controversial. I went to their website in search of more details but again I couldn't find any 'catch'. The only requirement was that I had to deposit £500 per month into the account. The money doesn't have to stay there. I can deposit and withdraw on the same day if I want to.

In addition to the £100, I also noticed that they were offering a cash incentive for referrals. If someone were to refer me, both the referrer and myself would get £50.

On top of all this, the account isn't bad at all. It has a 5% interest rate (on credit up to £2'500) and a free 0% overdraft for 12 months.

I knew that my mum banked with A+L, so I gave her a call and asked her what account she had. She said that she had the basic current. I informed her of the advantages of the Premier Direct plus the fact that we could both get £50 if she referred me. She told me she'd look at the details herself and if it looked OK then she'd upgrade her account and refer me. I should note that I could not have referred her as she was already an A+L customer and the offer did not extend to existing customers.

So, I'm just waiting for her to get back to me, then I'll open the account.