Too much month left at the end of our money...

beanielou

The split of the £££'s sound good to be

StressedSteph

Thats a tough decision, but I think if you are currently managing to service your debts ok, then maybe a split is best.

Pay off the loan if thats the highest interest and leave monies to do some house repairs.
Think thats the best solution, otherwise after a few months in a cold and miserable house, you will be applying for another loan to get it so rted out. Don't want that!.

All looking good though xx

mfmaybe

Hi Debtfreeoneday,

I am following your diary as I like your "no messing" style!

Re the repairs to the house, what needs done? We are in the process of redoing our bathroom and our budget is £2k all in. Our new boiler 2 years ago was about £2.5k (LPG, so more expensive than most). Is there much more you need to do? Just thinking you might not need to spend £10k.

Best of luck with it all.

debtfreeoneday

Hi mfmaybe.. I just reread my original post and thought gawd that sounds a lot for what we need to do..but there are a few more bits needing doing - the house has storage heaters which I can't stand.. there is no gas, so we are looking at heating either supplied by oil or electric. We put electric radiators in our current house and it cost us £3k from memory, with electricians on top of that so I was using that as a base estimate. We will also need to do some work / potentially replace the water tank, won't know until we get in there. The bathroom won't cost much, new suite, some form of heating dependant on above and d!cor. We also need to get the loft insulated as it's not done at all. Initial searches by DH look like we wouldn't get any help with that, but lots of people are saying we should so I need to do some investigation on that.


We have some serious clearing work to be done in terms of dismantling a leaking conservatory and a garden full of junk so a few skips will be needed. We also want to some space into a fourth bedroom, whilst not essential, it is really needed for regular family / friends who stay, but again that shouldn't be too much. No carpet currently in the main bedroom which I can live with, but at some point needs to be done.


I can guarantee I'll be doing all of this for the best price available, I want to use every unexpected penny we get from this house move to fling at the debt. Once the debt is gone, it's onto mortgage clearance which I want gone in 8 years so I'm not taking my eye off the ball.


Thanks for the follow, will find your diary and return the favour x

mfmaybe

Why (or how??) does everyone post so early!! :eek:

Ah yes there is a lot more to the heating than just a new boiler then, I can imagine it will be fairly expensive . Luckily ours already had the heating, although I think we may need to increase the size of some of the radiators.

Do you mean no mains gas? You can still use LPG which is what we have but it's not a very competitive industry and can be expensive. Oil is easier to get a good deal on. Other alternatives these days are biomass, air source heat pumps etc. Lots to think about! Exciting too though.

There isn't much in my diary yet, I just decided to start it last night to keep motivation levels up. Hopefully I remember to write in it :rotfl:

debtfreeoneday

I don't sleep much!!


I did look for your diary with no luck, but will look again now!
Nothing much to report here from a debt payoff point of view, but I'm still plodding along

debtfreeoneday

Hi all,


Sold a few more things on ebay, but those pennies are accounted for, for some shoes for the little people. Listing a few more things today when I get 5 mins.


I had a response from my bank £150 worth of bank charges in the last 2 years. Gawd, didn't realise it was that much. Will write to them today and request repayment as those were when I went overdrawn, but had money in other accounts with them, so overall I was in credit. I know a few times they waived charges when I rang up, not expecting success, but if I don't try, I definitely won't get anything back. If I do get them back, that money is going straight off the loan.


Nothing to report on house move, solicitors doing their stuff. Hoping for some progress this week.

debtfreeoneday

DH's salary payment in, so I've moved some pennies around. We saved £13.71 on the food budget this month and 1p on the fuel! (Every penny counts)


I also had our house insurance renewal for £332! Over double the current year. Using topcashback, I got a renewal for £168 with free AA cover for us both and £38 cashback, so £130 for the year, saving £200 on the renewal quote!

debtfreeoneday

Been quiet in here for a few days, work and house stuff taken over.


Still waiting to hear from the bank about whether they will refund any of my charges. House sale / purchase all going through ok it seems.


Car no 2 failed the MOT and that cost £254 to fix, but I've been putting money aside for that, so no massive hit there.


Our water bill came through and it's over double since we had the dishwasher fitted, I knew it would increase, but wow. When we move, we have a water tank to collect our waste water which we have to pay to empty, so I guess we may have to rethink how much we use the dishwasher. After waiting nearly 40 years to get one and my life being transformed by the reduction in washing up, it may be shortlived!


Not much else happening in money saving land here. Waiting for today till my salary goes in and I can distribute the pennies out everywhere and make the loan payment.

debtfreeoneday

Salaries in, money out, loan payment made. £11.29 left after everything is paid for. It's a tight month after paying for MOT, car tax and house insurance!


Cheered up by finding out on stressedsteph's diary that child benefit and tax credits get paid 13 times a year, so roll on March and December when I get double payments!


Still waiting to hear from the bank about the overdraft charges, really hoping we get something, no matter how small.


Bunged up with a cold today, we had OFSTED arrive at work this week, so stress was not the word for it and the long hours and hectic days have probably not helped.


A lovely job has come up close to where we are moving which would be ideal if only it paid £200 more a month. Quick calcs show we just couldn't afford to take the drop, even though my petrol costs would be minimal. Shame :-( Why does that always happen!


Food shopping ordered for tomorrow night. I need to start seriously whittling down our freezer prior to the move as we are leaving our freezer and fridge at the old house and need to buy an upright combined fridge and freezer. Started to collect boxes, but can't face starting the packing quite yet. Someone I 'kinda' know let slip they had spent over £200 on cardboard boxes for their house move - I was shocked - why would you pay? Or am I missing something? I couldn't bear to pay that kind of money for something that wouldn't be used again!


Have a good Saturday all. At the rate I'm going through tissues, I might have to go over the food budget this week and buy more toilet roll! :-)