Bufgers Diary (Slow start, explosive finish?!)

Bufger

So the car sale hasnt gone quite to plan.

The plan was to sell the car for £8k (This is the price Trade sellers are selling them for on Autotrader). Then pay off the remaining £2.5k finance, buy a replacement for £1.5k and pocket the rest.

The car has been on the market now for weeks and it looks like i'll only get £6k for it. To make it more saleable I put it through the service it was due for £250 and bought some original manufacturers carpet mats for it at £50. Its replacement has already been bought and I overspent getting a car i've always wanted. It cost me £2800 and a further £500 in parts and labour getting it up to scratch.

So when I do sell the car for £6k i'll break even. The good bit is that the car finance will be paid off outright so i'll save £200 per month. The bad news is that I had got into my head that i'd get some money for the savings pot.

Not a great month for me to be honest. I wish I would have just stayed in the same position I was in and kept the previous car.

On a good note though i'm going from absolutely terrible customer service from Kia to AMAZING customer service from Seat.

Bufger

Well I havent updated this in ages!

I've really financially struggled these past few months because of this car situation. Basically I just couldnt shift the car so I ended up owing £2k to my parents, being overdrawn £2.5k and had £500 on a credit card. On top of that had to pay some fairly large bills and pay out for things like new safer car seats for the kids, breakdowns in the SEAT...

The good news is I finally sold the car last week. Paid off my parents, the finance and the overdraft and now only have £400 on credit. We now have £200 per month free'd up so im paying off the card and adding money to the savings pot. back to 0!!

Its nice to really hammer down the outgoing bills. I managed to free up an extra £10 per month by changing home insurance and also got some overtime in so christmas was paid for by that.

Now onwards and upwards - mortgage renewal in November so im saving for a possible product fee and re-evaluation.

Bufger

We've had a good month in this house... My wife was underpaid without realising so she's getting it back paid from September and it looks like she will get around 1.5k!

The big news is my promotion - an extra £12k on to my base salary and perks like a company vehicle, private healthcare etc! We've struggled for a couple of years and I feel like we've suddenly turned a corner. So happy!

Bufger

Morning All,

Its been a couple of months since my last update. Plenty has happened.

I got my promotion with 15% pay increase in April. I also got a company car, private healthcare and a few other nice perks. In June I got a £3k bonus and a 3.5% payrise so we're building up our savings a little more, we've saved our product fee ready for mortgage renewal and we're trying to look ahead. I can tell we're going to be ok now as the washing machine died last week and we didnt have to worry about buying a new one, we just chose one and paid - its the first time ever we've been able to do that.

Student loan now under £1k and due to finish November. LTV is around 75% on our property based on indicative house prices at the moment so we're expecting to free up another £200 per month - we will actually just overpay the mortgage with this but its nice to know the cashflow is there.

My geeky spreadsheet calculates Net Worth as well as cashflow. I'm really happy with the results from good investment - some in items, antiques and things I wanted. The results are:

Dec 2011: £13,700
Dec 2012: 26,700
Dec 2013: 43,500
So far in 2014: 49,000

Most importantly - we managed to give my 2 younguns 2 holidays this year and they're over the moon

Bufger

It really has been a long time since I updated this!

Things in my new job are really ramping up. I got a good appraisal this year and a significant bonus plus base pay rise. Its allowing me to pay a few thousand overpayment as a one off payment every year.

The mortgage renewal was up in November and we went from 5.99% to 4.05%. Also paid off the student loan so another £160 per month saved.

My two little ones are growing up. the eldest starts school (free childcare!) in September and the youngest starts nursery.

We've had a holiday this year to Devon and may also get another holiday if we find a bargain.

Need to work out the mortgage free date again, may be able to revise it!

Sorry i'm so rubbish at updating this. Check back in a year for another update :rotfl:

Bufger

All is well.

We managed to survive the 6 weeks of summer with only one income and overpay the mortgage £100 each month since April.

Only £120 of the sofa left to pay. I'll put the standard overpayment up by another £50 then! That'll leave the mortgage as the only debt we have for the first time in 10 years.

£1,500 saved up for the little ones in premium bonds and they won £25 last month.

Some times it gets a bit tight but we still get a life, the kids dont notice our scrimping and my spreadsheets keep going the right way.

Good to read everyone elses on here. Appreciate mine is only update every 6 months or 1 year so apologies!

Bufger

Bi annual update time.

Now £106k left on the mortgage and no other debt. Overpaying £150 every month and a £2k lump sum every year without noticing that money missing now, the advantage of running down debt but keeping lifestyle the same! We've been on one holiday this year and are looking at another later in the summer.

Managed to get my kids bonds up to £2K and our savings up to £6k now. Will continue to get that higher (10k) and then overpay more. Haven't worked out a mortgage free date now, I'm 32 this week and I'd like to be mortgage free by 40, it is definitely possible but I hope I can do it while maintaining a good lifestyle as I am at the moment!

See you all in another 6 months

Bufger

Afternoon all. Quick update from me.

Mortgage at £105,000 on the nose now - managed to overpay £1k this last month from a work bonus.

Extra £1k now added into savings and i'm keeping some money back as we're going to get a dog within the next month! We're off on holiday (static caravan) for 7 days in July and after that we have 7 weeks with the wife at home full time to settle a fur friend in before she goes back to work for a couple of hours each day. our lifestyle now suits a dog as the kids are that bit older, we have someone at home most of the day etc. I grew up with dogs (Beagle and Lab) and we're looking at cockapoos - or thats what the wife wants, i'd prefer a Weimeraner but i'm not sure our house is big enough.

Anyway, the adventure continues, I cant wait to get under that £100k milestone, i estimate we're 9 months away from that now.

xx