Part 258: Hitting a million steps…

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.  This week I look back on a successful end to my walking challenge for Diabetes UK.  Also, the fallout from selling my BTL, and other random musings.

Weekly Update

This week saw me finish up my walking challenge to raise money for Diabetes UK.  It was a three-month effort to hit one million steps, and on the last day, I hit the goal.  Although it became a bit of a chore towards the end I’m glad I took part, and that I succeeded.  The window for accepting donations is still open, so if you’d like to contribute you can do so here.

I’m thinking about incorporating a new step challenge into my daily life.  I’ve felt better with all the walking, and it’s helped with my weight loss.  I’m not going to do anything too extreme, and I think that a target of 100,000 steps each week is doable.  My week would start on a Saturday and end the following Friday, as that’s the day I normally collate all the data for the blog that week.  

Cost of Dental Care

I had a small win on the Premium Bonds and my dentist quickly took that cash.  Private dental care is so expensive.  I had a check-up and some x-rays, and I’m having a filling repaired next week, and it’s £310.  It’s crazy.  

Dental care is really important and yet it’s treated almost like a luxury.  Poor dental hygiene can lead to all sorts of health problems down the road and it just feels wrong that quality care and treatment is not accessible to many people.  

Funding healthcare in the UK is an emotive subject, with the NHS being both a source of pride and frustration.  Pride, because free healthcare at the point of use is a great benefit for society.  Frustration, because the service is badly managed by the government and is creaking under the weight of high demand.  I would gladly pay a little more in tax to help improve the NHS, but the real question is how much extra is needed if you want to bring dental care into the fold.

In 2022 just over £3B was spent on dental services in the UK.  Assuming that the figure has increased to, let’s say £4B, then how much extra tax would need to be paid by the average taxpayer?

Some rough calculations suggest an extra £10 per month for the average taxpayer.  This is based on there being approximately 37.5 million taxpayers in the UK.  Now, if this tax burden was spread out in line with the income tax bandings we have, then the lower earners would pay less and the higher earners would pay more.  It doesn’t seem like that much of an increase to grant free dental care to all who need it.

Annoying Phrases

ATM machine.  PIN number.  Seeing as though ATM stands for automated teller machine, calling it an ATM machine is just bizarre.  It’s the same principle for PIN number; personal identification number number.  Yeah, that just rolls off the tongue.  

Anyway, there’s the guy who was recently fired for his browsing history.  In an interview with the venerable publication, Ladbible, he said; 

“The consequence of me doing this is that I’ve had to do a complete 360 turn in terms of my own career and I’m now doing something that I never in a million years thought I’d be doing.”

Ah, yes, the 360-degree turn that ends with you facing **checks notes** the same fucking direction as before.

His browsing history included searches like “Simon Cowell botched botox” and “Does Turkey teeth hurt”.  

I don’t think I need to say anything else about this one.

Customer Service

It’s been a little while since I vented my frustration at poor customer service.  Oana and I had a few items to return to retailers this week.  Our printer is out of ink, so we couldn’t print anything.  Normally, we go to the library to print as it’s only a few pence per sheet.  However, the library printer is out of order.  

We asked the retailers if there was another option and they all stated the Post Office could print them for us.  No mention was made of any cost for this.  When we asked at the Post Office they confirmed they could print them off for us.  Again, no mention was made of any charge for this service.  Once the labels were printed and attached to the boxes, we were then told there was a charge for this.  

How the Post Office had replied to us made it seem like they were just doing us a favour by printing these labels.  I said after that if they’d told us there was a charge, we wouldn’t have bothered, and that it was pretty poor to not inform us of the charge before completing the printing.  It was £1 per label; not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but the library charges 20p per sheet, and a new ink cartridge would bring the cost per sheet down much further.  

When I made these points to the owner of the PO, he just shrugged his shoulders and smirked.

Not just any bank, this is M&S Bank…

On the same day, I had another frustrating interaction with M&S Bank.  I opened a credit card with them a few months ago but hardly used it because the app is awful, and the website doesn’t accept my login information.  So, I tried closing it down through live chat but they told me I had to complete a form, which didn’t work.  I was told I could complete a form via the desktop site, but I couldn’t log in even after resetting my info.  The only option left to me was to call them.

So many companies have the same two bullshit messages on their phone system; first, they’re experiencing a higher volume of calls than normal.  Second, it will be quicker and easier to deal with my query online.  

So, if you’re always experiencing a higher volume of calls than normal, then you don’t understand what your actual normal rate of calls is.  It’s 2024; no one wants to have to deal with someone over the phone anymore.  If someone is calling a business, it generally is because they’ve not been able to sort their issue out online and calling is their last resort.  

Can’t do anything until you complain…

The call went pretty much as expected.  Ten minutes on hold listening to those messages on repeat.  The agent answered, listened to my query, and then ignored all that I’d said and told me I could deal with this online.  I again explained why I couldn’t.  He again ignored me and said he couldn’t close the card over the phone.  I asked to register a complaint.  I’m put on hold for another five minutes before the agent comes back and says he can close the card after all.  

Incredibly, someone at that level of the organisation was able to effect a major policy and process change in just a few minutes.  Absolutely incredible.  No sarcasm whatsoever.  

Good service is the exception, not the rule…

I seriously despair at dealing with most businesses now because I just expect to be given crap service.  However, we did have a positive experience the other night.  We called a restaurant we’ve not tried before to ask a question about the menu.  We’ve booked for our anniversary and wanted to check a couple of details.  There was no answer. 

A few minutes later the restaurant called back explaining they’d just missed our call, and asked how they could help.  We asked our questions and got a simple answer back clarifying what we wanted to know.  It was a simple interaction, but the fact they called back was a definite positive.  Most businesses would just ignore the missed call and assume that the person would try again.

More Walking

On Saturday Oana and I went for another long walk.  We returned to 84 John St. for a coffee and the guy who served us last time remembered us and asked how I’d got on the previous week with my walking challenge.  We had a bit more of a chat and I left with another great coffee.  If this place was more local to me, it would be dangerous as I’d be there three times a day for a coffee. 

We walked up to Meersbrook Park which offers some fantastic views of the city.  We also stumbled across some more filming locations for the film Four Lions, which is one of our favourite things to watch at Christmas bizarrely.  After walking through the park we set off towards Heeley City Farm and had a little look around, before setting back off in the direction of home. 

In total, we completed a further 20,000 or so steps on this walk.  It’s been great for our mental and physical health being out and about in the fresh air, and we are keen to continue this trend.

Peddler Market

At the start of each month, there’s an event in our area called Peddler Market, where there’s street food, live music, a bar, and some arts and crafts stalls.  This weekend was the tenth anniversary of PM starting.  Oana and I debated whether to go and the conversation went a little like this:

Me: What we thinking about Peddler?

Oana: Not sure, what do you think?

Me: Let me check who will be there.

Oana: Kebab Cartel?

Me: Yup, they’ll be there.

Both: We’re going!

We arrived at the warehouse and ignored everything as we closed in on Kebab Cartel like a laser-missile.  We ordered an Escobar each and it was amazing.  Their food is normally great, but this was just beautiful.  After we ate we had a little chat with one of the guys from KC and he was really happy that we enjoyed their food.  If you ever see them at an event, definitely give them a try.  

After the main, we shared a cookie from Depot Bakery and it was also incredible.  It was a sticky toffee and date cookie and it’s one of the best we’ve had.  All in all, a very good and enjoyable Saturday.

Health

I’ve lost more weight and I’m now down to 115.3kg.  The walking is helping, as is controlling my blood sugar and keeping up with a better diet.  According to my scales, which have all sorts of fancy measurements included, I have the body of a 44-year-old.  So that’s something new I’ve learned.

Letters to Oana

Part 2 of the series Letters to Oana is now live.

Looking Back

Part 15 of the Looking Back series is also live.

What I’m Doing

Listening: The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (audible).

Watching: nothing at the moment…

Website Stuff

It’s getting to that time of year when I need to pay to renew my domain and plan with my site host.  I will probably never make money from this blog but I would like to reduce what it costs me to run.  There are a couple of ways you can help and it will not cost you anything.

Sharing

If you share my blog posts on your social media you are helping me get more traffic.  The more traffic I get, the more ads the site serves, and the more ads served the more revenue I get.  It’s a few seconds of your time, but it will make a big difference for me.

Interactions

Liking and commenting on posts will help boost the site and attract more traffic.  

Subscribe

You can sign up to receive emails when I publish a new post.  

Donations

This is the one that involves paying something.  I’ll never put the site behind a paywall.  However, should you wish to donate to the running costs of the site it would be greatly appreciated.  You can do this via the form below.  You can select one of the suggested amounts or choose your own.

Support Mortgage Advisor on FIRE

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £15,100.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £92,481.09.

Fuck It Fund: £1,796.80.

Pensions: £86,166.38.

Residential Property Value: £234,044.00. 

Total Assets: £429,588.27.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £185,383.74. 

Total Debts: £185,383.74.

Total Wealth: £244,204.53.

I had my pension statement through this week and the projection is that it should be worth almost £600k by the time I hit the declared retirement age of 69.  Although this looks great on paper it’s important to remember the assumptions built into that projection; that I’ll continue working there and continue paying into the pension at the same level.  My pension has increased by almost £2k since last week which is amazing growth in just a week, but it could be a blip due to general market volatility.

More BTL Frustration

Although it’s been over a month since the BTL sold I’m still having to deal with the various utility companies and council tax.  On the day the sale was completed, I contacted the gas, electric, and water companies, and then the council tax people to let them know the property had sold.  The water was dealt with efficiently.  The others were not.  It turns out my email to the council tax office was ignored (their words, not mine).  It has since been sorted but it shouldn’t take multiple emails, calls, and personal visits to their office.  

The one that has really pissed me off is EDF.  Someone at their end has made a mistake and changed their records to show that we were responsible for the utilities for periods we were not, like when the property was tenanted and someone else was paying the bill.  Rather than them correcting their own error they wanted me to send in evidence to show it was let out on dates going back a couple of years.  On Saturday, whilst I was on my walk with Oana, we received an email from EDF stating the electricity account was £700 in debit from the last two years; a time when the property had two different sets of tenants who were paying their electricity bills on their own accounts.  

All this means yet more work to correct errors on behalf of huge businesses that are set up to be sort of right, some of the time.  It’s this sort of bullshit that adds to the argument that BTL just isn’t worth the hassle.  

Final Notes

Before I finish up this post I have two quick bits to update on.  First, the finished Lego Titanic model that I had for my birthday.

It was such a fun, satisfying build and is one of my favourite ever sets.

The second is a little competition.  Below is an image made up of two pictures; one from Four Lions and one from Game of Thrones.  There is a link between the two and it’s quite obscure, but the first person to correctly guess in the comments will receive a little gift from me (if they’re comfortable telling me their address, that is).

That’s all for this week.  Thanks for reading.

Disclaimer

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my employer, nor should they be considered advice.  

If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional.  If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:

StepChange

MoneyHelper

Biolink 

You can now find all my social media pages by checking out my Biolink:

bio.link/davidscothern.