The Call of Cornwall

Danny5

Also, I need to alter my signature to show my goals and where I am with them (as much as I do love the quote!)

Danny5

1. Make a financial plan for 2014 and commit it to here so I have a benchmark I can measure my success, or lack there of! (Doing this tonight and it will be posted soon)
2. Put the box of stuff I have on eb*y (Not done but it will be a job for the weekend)
3. Sign up to, and send off stuff to music m*gpie (As above)
4. Speak to my brother and attempt to get back £500 he owes me. (Seeing him Saturday night so will talk to him then)
5. Speak to sister and attempt to find a 'long term' payment plan by standing order for paying me back £600 owed to me. (She's staying with me at the weekend so will defo get a chance to speak to her then)
6. Cash Cheque for nearly £800 from old company share scheme (First chance I get will be Saturday morning due to working during bank opening times!)
7. Try out Freeview box (arrived yesterday) and if all works ok, Contact Sky and cancel the TV. (No excuse, just laziness. Need to sort this ASAP because my next Sky payment comes out in the next couple of weeks) :mad:
8. Disconnect old Washing machine Monday night. Fit new one when it arrives on Tuesday. (Old machine taken away and new one delivered Tuesday, fitted as soon as I got back from work = brownie points for me!) :rotfl:
9. Contact mortgage advisor and explain plan for upcoming months for his advice on best plan of attack. (Decided to leave this one as he will most probably be in touch with me in the next few weeks anyway)

Danny5

So we had a chat about money etc, went through OHs bank statement and her income and outgoings etc...
The long and short of it is that she has quite a bit of debt that she is paying off monthly, and is in her overdraft, although that is coming down every month.


Shes going to give me 250 a month, carry on paying her loan off, we are going to look at a 0% credit card to transfer her overdraft to so she avoids the 60 odd quid a month charge on that.


250 isn't a massive amount towards the monthly bills but it definitely helps, after he bills etc shes got 200 to play with for herself so it isn't exactly leaving her short either.


I personally think this is a fair compromise for both of us so I'm pretty happy with it. Wish she didn't have the big loan though as that would have been another 400 odd quid a month.!:eek:

Danny5

My financial goals for 2014 as it stands are as follows

• Get ISA to £10,000 , if possible before end of 13/14 financial year (Currently £7,528.72/ 2471.28 To Go)
• Get Mortgage to under £55000 before May (Currently £59,465/ £4465 To Go)
• Attempt to get mortgage payments as close to £1500 per month as possible regularly. (This will all come down to how much work there is for me and how much I can earn)

Once I get the mortgage sorted and move into the new house I'll update these with a more precise OP goal for the year... until then, these will keep me focussed.
:beer:

littlegreenpeas

Well done for having the chat.:j at least you know where you both are.
Is there anyway she can put her debt onto the zero % card.

Lgp

Danny5

Maybe a small amount of the debt but with her wage being what it is she will probably only just about get enough to cover the overdraft. Plus the loan is now in her dads name so when it comes to going for a mortgage later this year it wont be on her credit score.


But yes I feel much better for having the chat, and at least we are 'on the same page' as they say!

norfolkdream

Hi Danny,
At last 'the chat'

That doesnt seem to be a lot towards the bills really. IMHO.
How long does she have left on her debt? Is she always in her overdraft then. My ex used to constantly be in his, the wages paid it and then he had to use it again.
I think £200 for herself is a lot but then I only give myself £100 and dont really have a social life haha.

Just read that back and it seems quite blunt. Its a shame that people get themselves stuck in a money rut. At least you can help her get out of it and then onwards and upwards for the both of you.

Danny5

Well I haven't been doing that great at keeping this diary updated! Or with the plan of action I did a couple of weeks ago for that matter.. . but here goes.

1. Make a financial plan for 2014 and commit it to here so I have a benchmark I can measure my success, or lack there of! DONE
2. Put the box of stuff I have on eb*y DONE Made £30 But going to relist the rest as auctions rather than buy it now
3. Sign up to, and send off stuff to music m*gpie (Not Done Still..)
4. Speak to my brother and attempt to get back £500 he owes me. DONE & £500 was transferred last night :-)
5. Speak to sister and attempt to find a 'long term' payment plan by standing order for paying me back £600 owed to me. (Didn't do it last weekend when I should but her fella was always around and not totally sure if he know about it! )
6. Cash Cheque for nearly £800 from old company share scheme DONE
7. Try out Freeview box (arrived yesterday) and if all works ok, Contact Sky and cancel the TV. (STILL not done this) :mad:
8. Disconnect old Washing machine Monday night. Fit new one when it arrives on Tuesday. (Old machine taken away and new one delivered Tuesday, fitted as soon as I got back from work = brownie points for me!) :rotfl:

So 6 out of 8 isn't bad I guess. Although it was meant to be completed over a week ago


In other news I overpaid another £1000 the night before last which take me to around £58,500 and with my regular payment due out early next week I'll be well on my way to sub £58,000. If I get paid properly next Friday I may even have enough to get me there by next weekend .


Norfolk Dream, you are right it isn't a lot towards the bills to be honest, and as much as I was hoping for more, I don't want her to end up getting back further into her overdraft. She has about 4 years left on the loan so I think I'm gonna be looking at £250 max until then (unless she gets a pay rise!:rotfl:) She is in her overdraft by quite a long way so she hasn't been out of it for a few years from what I can see, but it is coming down month by month so probably by the time we get to Cornwall she should be about out :cool:! £200 spending money does seem a lot to me too (but then again I am a tight sod), but out of that she does buy quite a bit of food and drink. Still quite a lot though, I agree!
I find its very hard to talk to her about money, shes very good at avoiding the subject and it annoys me when I say 'look we've just overpaid this much and only owe this much now'.. and she just looks at me like 'and your telling me this because?'


On a personal level, going to Cornwall seems a loooong way off at the moment. Works busy but seems to be one disaster after the next, got a crap wage this week due to me having a couple of days off sick a couple of weeks ago, my little boy is being a real pain in the a*se (he's being evaluated for autism, but his behaviour is really becoming hard to deal with sometimes. I'm quite strict but he has no sense of empathy about his behaviour which is really frustrating!), Nothings getting done on the house due to being exhausted after work.


Anyway, that's my feeling sorry for myself out of the way... Onwards and upwards next week! (hopefully )


Have a good weekend!

Danny5

How fast is this year going so far!? Can't believe its another week gone already..
Had a decent week at work again, despite having severe man flu. My wages I got paid from the work I did a couple of weeks ago seem to be lower than I booked but will grab my wage slip tomorrow so I can see for sure if they've docked my money again. They already owe me £50 from a few weeks ago I'm badgering them to put back on. I wouldn't mind so much if they rang me to question something I've booked, but they don't, they just put a red pen through it and expect you to be happy with it. Grr :mad:


Anyway, despite the messing with my wages, I did have another £175 to add to my OP account so I paid another £500 off, and as my regular payment went out last week too, my mortgage currently stands at £57,592. I'm also over half way to my half yearly target for overpayments. I'm feeling quietly confident I'll be able to smash that target if work carries on as it is.


Other things I've done this week with:


* Moved my ISA to one with a slightly better interest rate (still rubbish though!)
* Re-subscribed to Coast magazine using my Cl*bcard vouchers:p
* Re listed the stuff that didn't sell on Ebay the other week (was free to relist) and dropped the buy it now prices
* Gathered all the stuff to sell through Music M*gpie, and downloaded the app ready to stick on hopefully tonight.


On the not so MFW side of things, the last couple of weeks have seen us book a New year getaway for the 2 of us (kids will be with their other parents for New year as we have them for crimbo this year) to Cornwall for 3 nights. Never been there in winter so will be a learning experience but I can't think of a better way to see in the New Year!
We have also committed to a fortnight away in France with OHs family. Its way more expensive than I've ever paid for a holiday before (granted I've only ever gone for a week at a time) and I was really unsure about agreeing to it because its gonna kill me paying that much money, but I really want to take my little boy on a plane and abroad, and the OH said that if we have this holiday, its the last holiday we will have like this for a good few years - which was positive to me as it sounds like shes ready to knuckle down and get the mortgage paid off (or maybe its wishful thinking...)


One thing I am annoyed with myself about is that I never did sort the freeview+ box out and get sky cancelled, so that payment has gone out. I will do it this month and cancel it a few days before the next months payment.


Although I've not posted much the last few weeks, I am still reading other peoples diaries, and the one thing they are showing me is how much extra money you can squeeze out of your income by having patience and determination. Unfortunately I am nowhere near a lot of you just yet as it feels like I have so much going on and still really not completely settled in with the new living arrangements. I know that is a really poor excuse and that if I want to get paid off ASAP I am going to have to sort it out! I think right now I'm just doing the bare minimum. I reckon if I spent a bit more time on it I could save maybe another £100 a month without too much sacrifice. (Another 3 years off if OP'd every month)
That's something to think about another day though, I think I've babbled on way too much for one Sunday night!
Have a good week everyone:beer:

Danny5

Not being very good with posting regularly!


Not a massive amount of progress on the mortgage front unfortunately. I've added some more funds into the account for overpaying which currently stands at £1800, I think I'm going to aim to keep £1000 in there as an easy access emergency fund so in theory I have £800 to overpay. I think I'll wait until this week is out the way as my regular mortgage payment comes out mid week, and then probably transfer the money next weekend.


I've done a few weekends over the last month or so which has earnt me £450 (with another £200 to come from this weekend) so I've stuck that in an internet account until I decide on the best use of it. I'm thinking of just using it as an extra overpayment, but then I'm also wondering about opening this years ISA with it. Its difficult to know what to do about ISAs at the minute as the rates are so rubbish, but long term the rates will rise and the more years of allowance you can fill it with the better... Any opinions are gratefully received!?:money:


Oh and I also received £150 from CPP yesterday which is an unexpected bonus! I will defo be putting that into the overpayment account. My OHs monthly contribution of £250 should be landing in my account this week too so the majority of that can go to overpayments too.


Work generally is not paying much extra the last few weeks, and probably the next couple will be the same (basically on flat rate) so nothing will be coming from that to the OP fund for a month or so , however we do have a long weekend next weekend so its not all bad!


Enjoy the 4 day week people, and if anyone can offer advice on the ISA issue I'd appreciate it as I've been too-ing and fro-ing for a couple of weeks.:beer: