Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

1 week to DH payday and it can't come soon enough this month, just enough in the account to cover the last 3 DDs and enough in my purse to cover a small top and some beer for DH at the weekend DH fuel has cost a lot more than expected this month although some is claimable so next weeks fuel will have to go on the CC.

New carpets are lovely but the bedroom carpet, now it is down, is a lot more grey than beige/cream so we will change our intended colour scheme but stick with the same kind of style although we wont be buying anything for the bedroom for some time. DH put our bed back in our room last night and it feels much more comfortable now that the frame has been taken apart and rebuilt!

DS passed his stage 6 swimming last night which is amazing progress since we changed his class right at the end of July and has been definitely worth the extra cost. When I put his name down I said he had just passed stage 4 and needed a class to work towards his stage 5. Somewhere along the line there has been some confusion and he has skipped 5 and gone straight on to 6! Once he has passed stage 7 his swimming lessons will finish and we will have £70/6 weeks back in the pot although DS will probably want to do another activity at some point.

I made 4 portions of Irish stew in the SC for DH last night and will make some SW pasties for tonight's dinner with SW chips and mushy peas and stick Jamaican chicken in the SC for tomorrow with rice and roasted veg. Or I might do them the other way around as I really fancy a pastie for my lunch :rotfl:

When we have both been paid we will have £1000 to pay towards the parental loan if DH gets the monthly bonus they originally offered him. If they put him on the 2018 bonus structure we will have less but will still be able to pay the painter and decorator and pay a chunk towards the loan. We intend to BT the rest to one of my CC at 4.9% for 3 years although it will be cleared with the potential re-mortgage in June. This will reduce our debt repayments and help us stick to our budget better. We also want to repay the debt as we always said the loan would be short term and we have had it 18 months.

ETA: We will also be clearing the £250 balance on the BNPL in December from our salaries

If I am honest I don't think we will cut out everything to clear our debt but if we can live on our new improved income and OP to my V1rg1n card every month we should be able to reduce our debt by £1000/month excluding any extra payments from bonuses.

6 days until DH pay day!

This Weeks To Do List

[STRIKE]Up to date with washing[/STRIKE] Done
Some more ironing
Put away the underwear and pile of non-ironing
Batch cooking - veggie chilli, courgette and feta fritters, [STRIKE]SW pasties[/STRIKE], Jamaican chicken, sweet and sour chicken
[STRIKE]Make pear and mincemeat cake for visitors on Saturday morning [/STRIKE]- will make banana and pecan bread to use up bananas instead and ginger cake
Glue broken dresser door
Hoover and dust downstairs
Hoover and dust upstairs
Mop kitchen and conservatory floor
Clean kitchen sides more than usual daily swipe over
Clean main bathroom and floor
[STRIKE]Clean downstairs loo[/STRIKE] Done, hasn't improved the room but at least it's clean
Tidy utility room
[STRIKE]Bag up all coins to pay in after school run[/STRIKE] Done but need money bags
[STRIKE]Help DH create PowerPoint for work meeting[/STRIKE]No longer needed
2 outfits back to Asda will do Friday with top up shop
Buy book for DS to complete presents as above
Tip run
[STRIKE]Put everything back into our room that's going back[/STRIKE] Done
[STRIKE]Change our bedding[/STRIKE] Done
Sort out front spare bedroom
Buy big plastic storage boxes
Move home office to back spare bedroom
Hang DS curtains Need more sliders
Very small top up shop
Put up landing light if arrives this week It's arrived
Put stuff in loft and get down Christmas stuff
Check wrapping paper and cards and add to next week's shopping list


Still trying to use up the bananas so will make banana and pecan bread and slice and freeze it ready for DB and partner visiting on Saturday morning. DB will eat some but partner never eats a thing! I will make a ginger loaf too as DH can't eat nuts and this also freezes well so both will be sliced and frozen and can keep us supplied for lunches and if its in the freezer we can't keep stuffing it in our faces.

I have plain yogurt and some salad bits that need to be eaten soon.

My batch cooking this weekend will focus on creating home made ready meals for DH as I have about 7 nights when I am either away or out socially in December and DH will need to be fed. He is also taking these to work and it is much cheaper, and better for him, than the shop bought ones.

Totted up our debt and it has now gone over the absolute-maximum-I-ever-want-to-be-in-debt-again level. We will be back under this by the end of December but we really need to stop spending, stop all work on the house, start living within our means and start shifting this debt once and for all. Which is exactly what I said in May :mad:

You are doing really well EE not to add to your debts. We could do much better than we do too, we earn enough money not to be in such a pickle, don't have to buy cars, don't have foreign holidays every year and buy clothes about twice a year:o

I seem to have lost a lot of my frugal ways and having access to lots of credit again after our IVA has been a bad thing Debt management plans and IVAs do not ruin your credit rating, after the IVA dropped off we had the top score you could get which was a very dangerous thing although it took us sometime to start applying for credit. I cried my eyes out when our mortgage application was approved :j.:eek:

We did well with our budgets when we had no option but to live on what we had, no access to credit and a tiny IO mortgage. However we were only in the IVA for 12 months as I was made redundant and our creditors accepted F&F. Even as our wages increased we did well and overpaid the mortgage. It's shocking to think I only had £1500 on a CC and £6000 on an old secured loan 18 months ago.

I told myself I would never get it to this position again and here we are :mad:

I could write a book on the best way to repay debt and save money with all the great tips I have picked up on MSE but it is doing it consistently that is the problem.

We have also had quite a tough 18 months. We bought a big house that needed a lot of work and quite a few repairs, DH took a new role and lost about £8k take home pay in the last 12 months.

The positives are that DH changed jobs last month and has had a large salary increase and has good bonus potential plus he is less stressed and much happier. We love this house, the area, the community and DS is doing brilliantly at his new school.

We have both agreed that we are not taking on any more work in the house next year unless DH bonuses can fund it. Mine, much smaller, will go towards the debt.

I am worried we won't be able to re-mortgage in June and our payment will go up £250/month if we go on SVR. We are planning to clear all but one of the CCs when we re-mortgage, not ideal but needs must. This is based on the valuation been the same as what we paid when we bought it. We are on quite a high rate and I hope we should be able get a much better one when we remortgage.

I want to clear £15,000 of our debt by the end of 2018 on top of the amount we will re-mortgage to clear. We will still have the same amount to clear in 2019.

I am busily creating an action plan and budget for 2018 that DH and I need to agree to if we are going to make any head way next year.