Post wedding debt plan

Pengwern

Just sold 2 items for £22 so nearly there once fees have been taken. Now on to the new challenge, my husband and I have challenged each other to save more per month as a percentage of our monthly salary. This is for the next 3 months, and each month you win or loose so if you loose the first month you could still win the second and third month. The winner gets brought dinner out in December. I really like the sound of this as a little competition really helps motivate me. So once payday is here I need to spend nothing other than the real essentials. I need to plan meals and trips in the car to reduce fuel. It will also mean that anything saved will help reduce the debt pile quicker. We have looked at not. Renting the cottage out and we can afford it but inroads into the debt is severely reduced. If we can double the cc payments we can halve the time to pay off. We have therefore challenged ourselves to make an extra £200 per month from sales of items in our house. I am not sure how long this will be possible as if there is nothing comming into the house then sale opportunities reduce rapidly. The only bonus in all of this is the amount of junk we have got rid of. All husbands uni notes went to the recycling today and he did 2 degrees so there were a lot. I have promised to attack mine tomorrow. We have 3 bin bags of charity shop items so I will be going through those again to see if anything can be sold. I really do not want to use those cash places that pay for clothes, I think I would rather donate to charity. I can then feel less guilty when I refuse to sponsor people at work. Milkman has been cancelled much to my dismay but needs must, if we want to save every penny and it also means one less thing to worry about if we cannot make it back to the cottage.

I will let you know how we get on and who is in the lead.

Pengwern

I have just throw out (well recycled) all my uni notes. I have also sorted through all the items I cleared from my desk at work. A few bits saved but most got thrown. Another person has been round to look at the cottage windows, they need a bit a repairs and painting. Need to head to the post office to send the eBay items. Once that is done I will know what to send to the joint account as profit. Not spent anything since we set our challenge. Think it is going to be a long month!

Pengwern

I have managed to take back some items I purchased for the house move. That is around £80 returned to the cc. Unfortunately I have also mis calculated my ver small bonus, so I will be in negative by £165 this month! Will need to dip into my savings to cover this, but if I stick to my planed spends this month and no extras I should have £300 surplus, so the £165 will be repaid and the remaining will be added to the joint account savings to throw at the debt when the first 0% ends. Also posted the last of the eBay items. Another 2 end tomorrow and both have bids so I am hoping a few more bids come in towards the end. I have 4 further items as listing drafts as I need to wait till the new month for my next lot of free listings. This is all I could cope with doing today. There are more items in what is known as eBay corner in our house, so once I muster some enthusiasm I will take more photos and put them up for sale. Just paid in £160 from our sales to the new joint account. I am worrying my husband a lot as we have 2 joint accounts now, this is to try to make the perks. So we both pay into the Halifax the meet the min requirements with a few dd. then I send cash from there to the new 123 account where I have also moved the joint dd to take advantage of the benefits. I will be using the 123 account to hold any savings we have to try to boost our return. He just worries I will loose track of it all. But with my lovely ss recording every penny there is not a chance.

Also took 4 bags to the charity shop today so again lots of surplus stuff leaving the house. That is the positive in all this, the reduction in crap we were holing on to for no reason. Now the next job is to tackle the flat when I return as I am sure there are items I took over that were not really needed. I just did it because that was the easy option.

Pengwern

So the deficit has been reduced to £130 this month due to some top cash back payout and some more sales. I still have more that end next week so I am hoping this will help close the gap a bit more. I am doing well on spends this month so if all carries on I think the deficit should be covered and I will still have some extra. I also have some bits to take back to the DIY store so that should also help. Paid another £100 to the one cc so need to update my signature.

Pengwern

I have transferred £100 from my savings and with a £35 credit from work expenses that is the deficit in my account covered this month. Phew! Also took back some more items this week, it was a faulty duvet cover I had only had for a few months, with a bit of pushing they finally gave me the refund in cash and not on a gift card. So that should cover any incidental expenses that crop up between now and the end of the month. Also got an email from work saying they had reviewed the pay budget an will be rewarding the excellent performers of last year with a one off £500! That should be me, so I am really pleased. Need to work out how much I will get after tax but any extra is a bonus. Fuel tank is nearly empty but trying to hang on until the end of the month. Will need to fill up as I am unlikely to make it but any extra days I don't use my car will help. Still getting used to the low fuel consumption, I do not want to loose the novelty of it.

Husband and I are still on our challenge, the end of September will be the first month. I am very intrigued to see how much we will save. I think it will scare us as although we are careful I think we can do better and this should show us by how much. We had someone view our cottage yesterday, will find out if they are interested on Monday. The we have to make the decision on if we go through with the rental. Our aim is to save an extra £100 per month. This will double the cc monthly payments and halve the time it takes to pay back. So even without renting the cottage we will have paid it back by July 2015. It is still hard to keep from spending. However I am just staying away from shops and that is helping a lot! Strange really that something so obvious takes a while to figure out!

Pengwern

Husband and I did our savings challenge and between us we saved a massive £1,000!! Well that shocked us both, mine was helped by my bonus but husbands was all him being more careful than normal. Started the 2nd of our 3 month challenge, this is not going to be as great as last month but even if we save half the amount it will be amazing. So £500 was sent to the joint account savings and we both stashed the other half in our savings. It is going to be an expensive month as we have new tenants for our cottage. But getting it let has cost us £120 for inventory work and £400 for a hard wire check and a new fuse board. It was not compulsory to get the electrics sorted but they needed doing and now we are covered should anything happen while the tenants are in. They say they want long term which would suit us as husband has just got another 3yr contract. So 2 more weeks to use our lovely cottage. One of those will be advanced camping as the middle weekend we are moving our stuff that will not fit into the flat to my parents garage. I am so grateful for them offering to store our stuff. It was going to cost us £1,000 in storage so that can now go straight to the savings to help pay off the debt.

I have calculated that by the time cc1 0% ends we should be able to clear it! that is June 2015. Like wise for cc2 which ends August 2015. Then there will just be the family loan, so we can then double our repayments and halve the time to pay it off.

The next dilemma is do we then pay the rental income straight off the mortgage? We have always been able to afford both places (it has been tight though). Should we take the opportunity to pay down the mortgage or keep the income in case repairs are needed. I am probably thinking too far ahead so I will just carry on with the long list of house move jobs. Today I am packing the shed! We have cleared it out 3 times in the last month, each time becoming more ruthless. So I hope that when I pack it up it will be only essential items!

Pengwern

Cottage is let and tenants have moved in. Received the first rental payment today £650 which is lovely. It is lower than normal due to the set up fees but I will look forward to receiving that every month. Just sent £300 to the family loan so that is reducing nicely. The cc are remaining at £100 per month each and the rest is in the 123 account earning interest. After 2 months I have already covered the accounts annual fee in cash back and interest. The rest is all ours. Husband won this months challenge, he saved £400 which is amazing. If we keep going like this it should really help us out.

Now need to register for self assessment, not looking forward to that but I am hoping my accountant sis can help. I have updated my signature with current debt, seem to be doing ok. Will be much happier when it is below £10k.

Started buying Xmas presents, also looked at the clubcard vouchers I have in an attempt to boost them and get a few that way. Jams and chutneys are off the list this yr as I have no kit or space to make them.

ellesbellesxxx

Hi Pengwern, we have just got married so your thread caught my eye! We are in a similar position in that we are renting out my DH's flat whilst we took a family loan to make up rest of our deposit for our house.
We do self assessment too and it's quite straight forward - just takes a bit of navigating around the site
Will follow your journey with interest!

Pengwern

Since living in one place with no commute I have spent the grand total of £56 this month on fuel! Also on track to save £200 this month which is really good. Downside is that the tenants have reported the cottage heating as broken. We will see what the verdict and financial damage in a few days.... All our extra savings may be fixing the cottage heating.

Pengwern

A slight reprieve in Nov the cottage heating appears to have fixed itself so not costs yet. Husband won the challenge in Nov but we still managed to send £300 to the joint account savings. Fuel consumption is still rock bottom which is helping a lot however Christmas shopping and husbands birthday in dec is a killer. I have a budget and will stick to it but I do not plan on having anything left over.

Shower also started leaking in the flat. So new grout and sealant was needed to be purchased. I just hope we sorted it out. Savings going well and by Feb we should have enough saved to pay off the big cc. Debating wether just to pay if off or wait until the end of the interest free period. I guess I should wait until we have the money and then make a decision. May need to keep some back for cottage boiler repairs!