Learning to Live on Less!

White_Iris

DH has just got off the phone with Santander and we have re-financed our big horrible loan for another which will allow us to pay off the credit cards, the money we borrowed from the children's savings accounts when we moved and have a bit left over for savings. After a lot of number crunching this was the best option for us - we save money now (not a lot but we will be about £200 better off each month) and when DH marks exam scripts in July, anything he earns is extra, fun money . More importantly, we can close our nasty credit card accounts and have the stability of one fixed monthly repayment. Just have to wait for all the paperwork to come through and we should have the money sometime next week.

White_Iris

Finally got the car back from the garage yesterday and are now £500 poorer but fortunately the clutch is fine, just needed the fluid topping up :-)

Going to concentrate on saving now we don't have the credits to worry about. I'm going to put all my eBay profits in a savings pot and try not to spend it until the end of the year and also try to build up our emergency savings pot.

debtfreewannabe321

great news with the loan! I'm with you on the emergency funds........I have been trying and failing to get it up to £500 for months !

White_Iris

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

great news with the loan! I'm with you on the emergency funds........I have been trying and failing to get it up to £500 for months !

It's frustrating isn't it, I always find that just as I'm at the point of getting to my target something comes along and wipes it all out and I'm back to square one :mad:

Love your signature btw! That's just how we feel at the moment - finally able to live a little!

White_Iris

The loan paperwork has arrived and it's now signed and sealed, waiting to be posted in the morning. With any luck we'll have the money in the bank by the end of the week!

debtfreewannabe321

yay to the paperwork being posted off it's all coming together xx

White_Iris

I've just done the maths and worked out how much is left over once we pay off the credit cards. It's not quite as much as we hoped but the Barclaycard balance was a bit higher than I thought. It means we have about £2600 left over - what to do with it?

We do owe the children £1200, which we borrowed from their savings accounts in January, to cover our moving costs, so that can be repaid leaving £1400. I'm thinking £1000 in the "saving for a new house" pot (which also gets topped up with the tiny profit we make from renting our old house), £200 to kick-start the emergency savings and £100 each for DH and myself to start off our own savings.

Speaking of savings, DH got a statement from his credit union a little while ago and he was surprisingly pleased to find out how much he has saved. It took a little bit of nagging to get him to apply for an account but once it was set up he pretty much forgot about it until the statement arrived and since the money comes straight out of his wages, he doesn't even notice it's missing. At the moment it's not exactly a life changing amount (would probably cover the cost of a day out at the seaside!) but as long as he continues to forget about it, it should grow in to a nice little nest egg.

White_Iris

Forgot to say that we got a quote for our breakdown cover yesterday for £190! DH and I went through it last night and decided what services we needed and then I gave them a call this morning. Just by removing the "relay" element it went down to £155 but I then managed to haggle it down further to £125. Happy, happy!

White_Iris

The money arrived on Wednesday and after the credit cards were paid off, DH and I had to decide what to do with the leftovers. We stuck mostly to the plan I mapped out in an earlier post but instead of paying back everything we owe the children's savings, we decided to only pay back half and use the deposit we put down on our rental house to pay back the remainder when we move out in a few years. They might lose a bit of interest but not a huge amount and we thought the money would be better used in an emergency pot. I'll update my signature in a minute but basically, we've now got a few hundred each in savings, £500 in the emergency pot and £1000 went to the new house deposit as planned. I now need to look in to opening an ISA for the new house savings, as since Barclays have taken over ING I can't open any more savings accounts with them, to spread out our money in to different 'pots'.

White_Iris

ISA opened. I went with our bank, as although I won't get the best interest rate, it is convenient as I can see the balance each time I log on to check my day to day banking. It was also an online application and I can instantly transfer money in and out whenever I need to too.

eBay is going very slowly at the moment, won't be making much money until the weather warms up and I can sell the childrens summer clothes from last year. I have a few more expensive items to price up and list, including our old double buggy but I need to get it from MILs garage and give it a good clean and wash all the covers first.

The clutter in the house is starting to get to me, so I've started to advertise things on Freecycle rather than wait for them to sell. I thought we'd done a good job of de-cluttering before we moved but one small shed is no substitute for two large sheds and a garage/utility room. the house is bursting with sports equipment and tools, not to mention the mountain of coats and shoes and a huge bag of dog food currently being stashed in our downstairs toilet.

We've had a bit of a move around and fitted the dining table in to the kitchen (much better place to eat with toddlers!) which has freed up space for the children to play in the living room. It has meant we can move the sofa and chairs around a bit so we're not sitting three feet away from the TV! Unfortunately it's meant the kitchen is now a bit cramped, so finding some decent dog food storage and an under-sink bin are top priorities and maybe look for a slightly smaller dining table from Freecycle or for a few pennies on eBay.