My Debt-Free-Wannabe Diary

DontDoDebtKids

Doing very well on making myself sandwiches every day of this week so quite pleased with that.

Just about to go into my overdraft, unfortunately, as my mortgage payment goes out on Monday and my rent won't go in until probably the 15th March, which is the same day my salary will go in! No extra debt payments for DDDK this month :mad:

Still haven't heard back from two of the three estate agents so might give them a ring.

Have the balance of my credit card safely stuffed in a savings account, so quite pleased that I have been doing that for the past two payments successfully. I've been quite good at not spending money from my current account that I don't have but it seems that lots of my spending is front loaded towards the beginning of the year, which is a pain, but at least it is all now clear in my budget.

Budget is coming along nicely - I've budgeted for all possible things that I could think of, including replacing my car in August 2008! I'll post it on here, probably when I update my spending diary next.

Bit annoyed as am going to have to fix the boiler in the flat but hopefully that will improve the chances of it selling quickly - though it will use up pretty much all of my bonus in next months paycheque :mad: !!! This will mean my Debt Free Date will shift except that I probably won't have any much longer.

Yes, that's right, I've decided that I probably will just pay off my debts with the proceeds of selling the flat as, having had one estimate back which was £15,000 over what I thought the top whack for the flat was, I will have more money than I thought from the sale.

Also, having gone through my records and my credit card statements, most of the money left is actually money that I used to do the place up! The rest is money that I normally would have spent on my debit card but didn't so that I had cash to pay workmen. So actually, the debt I have is due to this flat so selling now and paying off the debt puts me back in the position I would have been without it but at a slight profit.

The surplus will be invested carefully and in staged lumps, but it needs to sell first! Hopefully someone will want to buy it - fingers crossed!

DontDoDebtKids

I was just going through another old credit card, my NSPCC Bank of Scotland credit card, and found that I think I was charged £25 for going over my limit. The only problem is that it doesn't show up on any statements neither does it seem to show up anywhere but on the covering page...

Should I write to them and claim it back anyway? Do they hide their charges cleverly in some way I can't spot? Or should I leave it as I don't appear to have been charged - but then I might be being thick!

DontDoDebtKids

Righto,

Off to send the follow up letter on my joint account charges by registered post. :money:

Have a good weekend all!

DDDK

DontDoDebtKids

OK, here it is:

Spending Diary 19/2-25/2

2.00 recorded letters for bank charges x2
3.84 book of stamps
38.17 petrol
10.50 haircut

Total: £54.51

DontDoDebtKids

FD wrote saying "here's your money back, sign here" over the weekend so will return it saying thank you and will expect cheque soon!

:j

DontDoDebtKids

Hi all,

Here's a good question: is it cheaper to lease a car or buy a car?

Having seen Ling Valentine on Dragons Den, I checked out her website: http://www.lingscars.com/ and had a quick flick through the prices for her cars.

I also had a quick look at my budget...

Currently I am running a 1999 Skoda Octavia, budgeting to replace it in August 2008

Now, I've budgeted (for 2007):

£900 for servicing (may be more than this as car is playing up)
£175 for tax
£350 for insurance
£90 for MOT
£1200 saving £100 a month up for replacement car - but only started saving up from January

That's £2715 a year.

Advantages are that you don't need to worry about paying money every month for the car. Also, I don't need to replace the car after a certain time period - I can keep it for as long as it goes. Also, when I do change cars, it is in theory worth something so will go towards buying a new car.

I do go to an authorised dealer but I suppose I don't need to for servicing costs, so I could decrease these and might start to...

What if I leased a car...?

If you lease a shiny new car (I picked a Skoda Fabia VRS at £187.99/m for an example) for two years doing 10k miles a year:

£2255.88 for leasing car
£200 for basic servicing
£330 for insurance (checked online)
nothing for MOT, car fund or tax

That's £2785.88 a year, assuming the servicing is that cheap (which you'd hope it was on a new car).

Advantages of leasing are that (a) you don't need to sell on the old car; (b) less running costs; (c) it's a new car.

The Moneysaving Thing To Do (?)

So is leasing a moneysaving thing to do?

1) You get a new car - Verdict: this is not a moneysaving thing to do!

2) New cars do save on maintenence costs as, early in a cars life, there shouldn't be much to fix. Verdict: money saving.

3) You don't have to worry about selling the car afterwards, or about depreciation. Verdict: money and time saving.

4) Now here's a thing I don't like (but I don't like credit cards and still use them!) which is that you have a Fixed Monthly Commitment - reducing your freedom, just like a debt. I suppose you can mitigate this by saving up the money in advance for the two/three years and stashing it in a bank account, then feeding this into the account paying the monthly lease amount. Verdict: not moneysaving, unless you save up the amount first.

So, in light of (4) above, perhaps the answer is to save up for your next car but, instead of buying it, lease it and, while leasing it, save up for your next car. Or maybe it is just to buy second hand cars...

Comments anyone?

DontDoDebtKids

Got back £25 in credit card charges from Halifax. Couldn't be bothered to take it all the way to a court to get interest.

DDDK

gallygirl

Good news on Halifax!

? on car - if you have a 99 reg car and don't do many miles why are you thinking of changing it anyway? I know you said it had a few problems, but are you not in danger of taking a hammer to crack a nut? I'd be inclined to stick with it.

Remember the difference between NEED and WANT

DontDoDebtKids

ali007 wrote: »

Good news on Halifax!

? on car - if you have a 99 reg car and don't do many miles why are you thinking of changing it anyway? I know you said it had a few problems, but are you not in danger of taking a hammer to crack a nut? I'd be inclined to stick with it.

Remember the difference between NEED and WANT

It's done 110000+ miles and I do 40 miles a day just to get to work! The mileage adds up quickly and it needs to be kept in good working order, hence servicing, and it's a petrol so the fuel costs are quite high.

I need it to be reliable and to do goodish mpg. It just seems to have never ending problems and I keep thinking I'm sending good money after bad...

I'm toying with the idea of getting a diesel but I don't want to spend lots of money getting one!

In other news, the clutch went yesterday, as expected, but on the way to the garage to get it fixed (damn it) so had to find a local recovery company to come and get it for £47 (not too bad I suppose) and it should be fixed by Wednesday evening. I'm borrowing a friend's car while he's not using it, luckily, but I could really do with something I trust a bit more...

I'm trying to decide whether to get a second hand diesel or lease a new diesel. Or whether to stick with this one.

Leasing
The advantage of leasing is that I know how much it will be a month, don't have to find a whacking great lump sum to buy a car and it won't need MOT, car tax, or any repairing - and it can be diesel so I will save money on petrol.

The disadvantages are that I have a monthly commitment, which I have to pay for the duration with nothing to "show" for it at the end, and I can't keep it afterwards.

Buying a "new" second hand car
The advantages of buying a second hand car is that I don't have a monthly commitment or owe anyone money, I have something that I can sell when I'm done with it (usually!).

The disadvantages of buying a second hand car is that it will cost a lump sum up front that I, to be honest, don't really have. It also means I would need to pay for MOTs, servicing, repairs, tax, etc.

Mirtos

Gentle Nudge. :wave: