Feb 12 2009

25 things.

I’ve been tagged by so many people that I feel obliged to respond. The instructions are as follows:

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged, you have to tag the person who tagged you.

1. I love baking, and the reports I’ve received indicate I’m fairly good too.

2. I am very picky with food. It’s primarily the texture of items I struggle with, rather than the taste.

3. When I was 3, I opened a case containing one of my mum’s dead, but real, butterflies, and ate it.

4. I want to study medicine.

5. I have worked two jobs for the last 10 years – my regular 9-5 (well, more like 6-3) and I provide consultancy services for a number of other companies outside those hours.

6. I dispise lateness (in myself), and I would prefer to arrive somewhere an hour early than 5 minutes late.

7. I’m a huge fan of Britney Spears, and not afraid to admit it. I’m going to see her in June!

8. I also love the Spice Girls, and went to see them in January 2008. With Reagan.

9. I’m an obsessive saver. I spent my life savings between the ages of 16 and 18, and then went heavily into (credit card) debt. Having cleared the debt just before Zachary was born, I’m now driven to save as much as possible.

10. I have stitched my own wounds, it’s an interesting experience.

11. After a 7 year break, I started reading fiction books again 4 years ago.

12. I was recently asked to be ‘more civil’ in written communications. While accurate, and containing the required information, my emails are frequently terse and people can take that the wrong way.

13. Having disliked being taught English while in the schooling system, I now enjoy learning about language structure.

14. While I don’t regret having them done, I’m miffed that it’ll cost me £2500 to reverse the earlobe ‘damage’ of £20 piercings.

15. My Mum loved the story of Jonathan & David written about in 1 Samuel (old testament). I have two brothers, one is named David.

16. I am an atheist. I detest religion, and have no respect for religious beliefs whatsoever.

17. I can juggle, and used to win talent contests doing so.

18. I am not superstitious. Scorpios never are.

19. I used to have a crush on Anne Diamond. In my defense, I was 7.

20. It’s very difficult for me to sit and do nothing. Even while watching TV I need to be productive – working, tidying etc.

21. I’m told I’m smart, but having left school at 16 and now working with people who have multiple degrees, I rarely feel it.

22. I laugh every time I’m wiping Zachary’s bum and he says, ‘Daddy, don’t get poo on your finger!’. I have no idea where he got that from – it certainly wasn’t from me!

23. I nearly always ask for discounts or free stuff when I’m shopping. I’m often successful, too.

24. I was circumsized when I was 17. And I bursted my stitches with a ‘nocturnal erection’ a few days later. My surgeon laughed and asked if it was a good dream.

25. Two years ago I convinced my then ten year old brothers that homeopathic medicines were taken by all males from the age of 15 to stop them being gay. ‘Homeo’ meaning ‘gay’, and ‘pathic’ meaning ‘anti’. It amused me greatly.


Nov 12 2008

Pile of paperwork? What pile of paper work?

Category: financejkt @ 11:01

Last night, while waiting for my chicken soup to defrost, I attacked the ever growing pile of paper work. It was a bloody battle, but there could only be one winner. Me. HAHAHA!

I did my usual trick of throwing most of it out – if I can get it online if I need it again, or if I don’t get a feeling I should keep it, it goes. It’s amazing quite how much stuff I accumulate in a short space of time, though it was probably exagerated by all the recent remortgage paperwork.

I also spent a while researching why Scottish Widows said I failed their credit check. It appears that having bank accounts with zero balances can negatively impact, and also having lots of accounts can work against you too. I’m guilty of both.

So last night I wrote letters to the high street banks I use requesting they close down some accounts, and phoned the non-high street banks to do the same. Why the high street ones won’t allow you to close accounts by phone I have no idea, really annoying. Once completed, hopefully I won’t have any further credit issues.

On a related note, and further to an earlier post (thanks to all who replied), I’ve decided I’m going to switch my HSBC accounts over to Abbey. Wish me luck, there’s a lot which can go wrong.


Nov 11 2008

Remortgage – Done!

Category: financejkt @ 12:24

My last mortgage deal, taken out when we moved to Orpington, comes to an end in December.

About a month ago I started looking around. Following the download of a document from the Money Saving Expert website, I decided to use London & Country, a fee-free mortgage broker; they are full market, and advise on specific mortgages.

I had two requirements for a fixed mortgage: low rate (HA!), and being able to offset my savings against the debt.

The first deal they came up with was with Scottish Widows. On the surface was a great deal, fixed at 1.39% above the Scottish Widows Base Rate (which at the time was the same as the BoE rate) for the term of the mortgage and no arrangement fee; they’d also refund the valuation fee. Despite passing the preliminaries, they said I failed the credit score and the maximum they’d lend was £35k less than I was asking for. Enquiries against my credit score showed they were lying; my score is almost perfect (999/1000). When pressed on that point they changed their story and said I failed for other reasons, which they wouldn’t disclose. I won’t be dealing with them again.

Moving swiftly on, the next best offer was from Intelligent Finance. Fixed at 1.59% above the BoE rate for the life of the mortgage, it looked like a good deal. The biggest downside was the £430 valuation fee and the £1000 arrangement fee., though given the current with deals disappearing by the day, not a deal breaker.

Within a week the valuer had been round, and the news was good. A week later, despite saying I wanted to complete in January, I received a call from the conveyencer saying we could complete yesterday – just two weeks after first contacting them. The fee to terminate my previous agreement early was tiny, I said we should go ahead.

I’ve just spoken to IF and, indeed, it has completed. I’m stunned. It has been, apart from the arrangement and valuation fees, painless.

My timing was excellent: since the rate cut last week, IF have pulled all their trackers off the market. As it’s a rate fixed for the term, I’m likely not to need to remortgage again. I am a very happy bunny.

A+++++ transaction, would do business again.


Oct 16 2008

HSBC have finally fucked me off…

Category: financejkt @ 11:29

…enough that I want to change banks.

Who do you recommend and why?


Sep 15 2008

Fun and games on the markets…

Category: financejkt @ 07:27

Today’s going to be a very interesting day…


May 10 2007

The one where Jonathan did no work.

Category: day to day, finance, geekjkt @ 12:04

Last weekend, for the first time in a long long time, I did no work At all. I spent the whole weekend relaxing with Emma and Zachary and enjoying myself.

Pity about the weather, but you can’t have everything.

I’m off to Austin on Tuesday. There’s lots of new people in the company for me to meet, and I’ll be working on getting systems ready for Euronext trading. It’s looking like it’ll be a very busy week for me, which is good as it’ll make the time pass quicker.

This weekend I went for an eye test. It’s been 4 years since my last one and my glasses (also 4 years old) are slightly worse for wear. My prescription hasn’t changed any, but I got some new frames and now they don’t keep sliding down my nose. Win.

The optometrist also told me that I’m suffering from ‘allergies’. This explains the blisters I keep getting on my eye balls (which are a little uncomfortable). I’ve been recommended Opticrom which I picked up this morning. I’ll be putting that in 2-3 times a day and seeing if it improves things for me.

ION, ‘/home’ filled up on kandy.downagain.com today and made me glad I’d used LVM2 to manage my partitions. One quick unmount, lvextend, e2fsck and resize2fs later, and I’ve got another 30Gb there. I also took the opportunity to set up nightly backups. I really must take up an external drive to copy the data on to.

Finally, I’d like to give my thanks to the Bank of England for the 0.25% increase in interest rates; I thought my mortgage payments were too low, now they’re rectified that. Woo.


Apr 04 2007

A little bit of everything

Category: children, consultancy, finance, geekjkt @ 11:25

The last few weeks have been quite fun. I’ve had some time for geeking, playing with Zachary, taking a deeper look into my finances and also doing some consultancy work.

Continue reading “A little bit of everything”