From Blobby to Gobby

Well, work done, shopping done and a job application is in. Exciting times!

My Four monthly check in and I am feeling a little less blobby and a bit fitter. Managing to get out and about a bit more rather than sitting at my desk all day and on the sofa/desk all night.

Things are uncertain with work, but I'm trying to maintain a sense of calm as things always seem to work out okay. I've got some things in reserve and am in a much better place.

Recently resorted to take aways and ill thought out shopping, but I am trying to get back on track again. We've had lovely healthy home cooked food for the past two weeks - and its so much cheaper (I don't need to tell you all that).

Trying to keep positive thinking and take things in my stride. Enjoying the moment and enjoying life, not worrying about change but making the most of life. Fitting things in is always a problem - I really enjoy relaxing when i'm home from work, so its a problem to get motivated for homework. My next challenge is to build some homework slots into my calendar - an hour or so here and there - rather than putting it all off until the last minute.

Thank you so much for popping in Beanie Lou and Greying. I've neglected MSE for a bit longer than I should have and had a LBM the other day when the Sainsbugs credit card I got to use for nect@r points (and intended to pay the balance off of each month), has a balance of £2493.15 :eek:

I've tried so hard to restrict spends but the grip I had on finances has been really elusive. We are in a much better place, with Mr SS managing his money now (rather than spending willy nilly). So I'm really disappointed that I got myself into this predicament. Just took my eye off the ball, a wake up call though.

Mr SS has a small loan for his business - I'm not going to include that as he manages that really well all by himself and it will be paid off by next year. He did have a small business dry spell and wanted to extend the loan/borrow a bit more to get through it. He was really proud that he had organised it all by himself, until I pointed out that the Haliblax would also triple his interest rate for the whole loan (compared to the 3.8% I found for him when he started it) and with extending it he would have ended up paying back almost £1000 extra in interest. Luckily he talked to me before he signed anything (another good step) and listened. In the end we 'loaned' the business £1000 from our personal buffer savings and it got him over the work dry spell. A bit of a LBM for Mr SS – there’s still a bit of work to be done on him but he’s getting there).

I’ve taken on what I call the car loan, its made up of the balloon payment for the car and a bit from the ccs we had (£6149.66) but as Mr SS looks after his work vehicle, we've said the car is mine, which feels good. The loan is in my name and now so is the car - had to because when DD passed her test we needed it in my name to put her on the insurance we chose. She paid the extra to add her on the insurance and I've been walking and cycling more as I live so close to work (good free exercise too). I've trained DD well, we are both horrified at the cost to run a third car when its not needed and she is saving to buy a property in the future and its a way I can support her in that. I'm not going to think about paying this loan off early at the moment as its pretty good interest (4.2%) and feels more like a justified expense as much as anything - and the loan is around the cars bottom value so I could sell it and pay the loan off if we needed to.

So the figure we have left on the joint credit card is £5718. Not great that we haven’t managed to pay it off yet, but at its worst it was £24,750!!! We’ve come a very long way. Yay to us (gives self small pat on back).

Sainsbugs: £2493.15 on 0% to April 2019
Barcscard: £5718.38 on 0% to November 2018

My plan was to pay off Sainsbugs first, but looking at it written down, it makes more sense to pay that amount off the Barcscard by November. Taking off the monthly payments we make and that could leave a balance of around £2000 on the Barcscard. We could probably afford to pay that off with our savings by then. That would leave us another 5 months from December to April to pay off the Sainsbugs account – it would avoid another balance transfer (and fee) and leave us debt-free by April 2019. That would be amazing. Right, off to add these targets to my spreadsheet plan - it will be a stretch, but feels so good to have a target. I've missed you MSE.