The 300k debt-free diary!!!

hypno06 wrote: »

Good luck with the parents

Thanks! I'll need it.

Although maybe they'll be the ones needing the good luck more than us!

Haven't been on here in ages!

Survived the parental visit (why do I always feel so guilty when they leave for not being nicer to them?!), and been on holiday for the past 10 days, so been totally without internet - and how fabulously free I felt not to be tied to the computer!

The down side is that by escaping from the computer I also escaped from MSE and spent an absolute fortune in nearly-but-not-quite pre-LBM style. Holiday was paid for a while ago and was only £180 (static caravan job - DS loves them!), and we spent about £800 while we were away. We'd probably have spent about £400 if we'd have been at home by the time food, petrol etc included, so an overspend of about £400. But it was sort-of worth it, and I've said from early on that I know I'm not the sort of person who can live on a tight budget. We'll just have to be more careful for the rest of the month and for next month.

Off to update the signature now, as it currently shows me at 12.5 weeks pregnant - I'll be 16 on Tues so that shows how long I've been away for!

Hope everyone has been ok over the past few weeks, will catch up on a few other diaries for the rest of my awful nightshift (awful because I want to go to bed and have to be at work, and because I need to pee every 15 inutes but the toilet is 3 floors down stairs!).

I absolutely agree! My debt paying-off is taken care of in the long-term with the payments that are made every month and other 'schemes' that we come up with as we go along! If I can pay more then fantastic, but if not I'm not overly worried about it - I'll be debt free in 2012, and we'll be comfortably off in the meantime. I think I'd rather do that and succeed than try and go cold-turkey on all spending and fall off the wagon in 6 months. But I do want to clear that Mint card by Xmas...!

We had someone come to look at our house today who seemed interested, but from what he said fairly bluntly, only if they can get it for the right price. Big decisions to be made as to whether to accept (if they do offer, they might not). If we sell for 250k, all costs are covered, but we're left with absolutely nothing at all after mortgage, fees, deposit on new house etc. But we get to move to where we want to be, which will in turn reduce our monthly outgoings by about £500 (smaller mortgage & C.Tax, no fuel for work), plus we'd stop wasting hours travelling every day. When the baby is born I'll be able to go straight back to work after the 6wks maternity leave (I generally work hour-on-hour-off, and we work at same place, so hubby and I don't usually have to work at same time: living on the doorstep means I'll be able to pop home every hour to feed etc). Family life will be much better as hubby and I will both see loads more of both kiddies and each other (...and I was saying this was a good thing?!)

Or should we hold out for a higher offer? If we could get £280k (maybe in our dreams!) or somewhere close to it then that's £30k that we could throw straight at our debt, which would bring our DFD forward by about 2 years. But there's no guarantee that we'll sell at all, and if we haven't sold by the time baby is born I'll have to take extra time off work as it would just be too complicated to have tiny baby at home if I'm not just on the doorstep at work, which is however many months multiplied by £2k that we'd lose and we wouldn't be earning enough to cover our outgoings while I wasn't working, therefore ramping up CC debt, which is how it all started when I gave up work for maternity the first time.

I think I've quite clearly answered my own question when I've put it all down like that, but a 30k price drop is still a bitter pill to swallow. Damn the chancellor and his 3% stamp duty threshold - it really messes things up for those of us with houses right on the border. Let's just hope that we get an offer. All DFW fingers crossed please!