Pay off debts before Baby number 2!!

crunch_time

Hi everyone!! I'm back from holiday!!!! We had a really lovely time. It was lovely to get away and have a change of scenery and the weather was great!!!


But.......did we stay in budget???????


The answer is.........


no


Not a massively awful no......£60 over for fuel. We didn't really estimate how much fuel we would need and ended up doing a lot of miles over Wales.


Am I annoyed?? I was when we had to do it but now I have looked at our accounts and we are ok I am not. lessoned learned.


It means this is sitting on husbands credit card for now and we shall have to pay it off. I have told husband we have no more money left for the rest of the month (which is a slight lie) but all I can do to rein him in.


I have adjusted my signature to allow for this increase - and includes having to pay for new wiper blades for my car just before we went so up £100.


Here is to a month of:


- staying out of trouble by working through my massive to do list.
- sticking to £80 a week food
- Avoiding going anywhere in my car for the next 2 weeks so I can slush away the petrol that is sitting on my credit card.
- finally getting the mortgage sorted.
- finally getting the roof fixed.
- getting the baby stuff out of the loft and sorting through - exciting!!!


Will catch up with everyone's diaries over the next few days. I hope you are all doing well!!


T2rry = Ha ha! It may not last since things keep cropping up but it feels good to know ive paid nearly £1.5k off in 2 pay days!! Thanks for your positive comments!!


Crunchy xx

crunch_time

Dear diary.


Gosh so much has happened over the last few days!! To cut a long story short we have decided to move house!!!


There was a domestic violence situation next door (we live in a terraced house) on Monday night where husband and I got no sleep and ended up having to call the police. Husband was threatened by bloke next door. It was pretty awful. We both 'woke up' on Tuesday morning thinking the same thing - 'shall we just see if we can move?'


Its now Friday and house has been valued, is going on the market today, we are viewing a house today and 5 more tomorrow!!! All very exciting!


My main worry was not being able to afford the costs of moving i.e. solicitors fees, estate agents fees etc so we approached the bank of mum and dad who have said they will be happy to help out!! Although as long as we are sensible and don't overcommit ourselves we may even come away with some money (wishful thinking I know but I am MSE now).


I am so excited! Got to dash as got to go to first house viewing but will update you again soon. also have to think about how this is going to impact paying back debt before baby number 2 comes!!!!


Much love
Crunchy xx

OrangeFairy

Hi Crunchy,

What exciting news! Good luck with selling yours and finding a perfect house!

Not nice about the situation with your neighbour though.

Let us know what you thought of your first viewing!!

OF x

crunch_time

Dear diary


A little update on the house move - we have a second viewing at a lovely new build in our budget in the country tonight!! If all goes well we are going to put an offer in. We have been approved for a new mortgage by our bank and by a mortgage advisor and our house went on the market yesterday hoping for a quick sell. Very excited indeed!


Update on the whole paying back debt before baby number 2 situation:


For the time being I'm going to save any money we were putting towards the overdraft and put it towards the house move instead and just focus on slushing away the credit cards and trying to be frugal and spend as little money as possible.


As I haven't been using my car I have managed to slush away £45 worth of petrol!! This is going towards that petrol line on my credit card. This, along with the min payment that went out this week means a new total of £442 for my credit card - signature review to follow!! :j


I cant get onto husbands account at the moment as toddler has helpfully hidden his online key but should hopefully be able to tonight!!


I get paid on Tuesday and am aiming to have as frugal a rest of the week and weekend as possible before the big day!


£300 of my pay will be going towards a weekend in London for a friends weekend.


£150 - hotel
£50 train tickets


I'm going to suggest to husband that we use our own spending money for drinks and food so the extra £100 can go towards something else - debt or house or something. He is the best man but I'm hoping looking after me will spur him on to only spend what he has to. Of course I wont be drinking....


Now just need to tackle him about the rest of the stuff that is sitting on his card - mainly bar rounds from stag do's grrrrrrr.


Hope everyone is getting on well with their debt pay off! Roll on payday!!


Crunchyxxx

crunch_time

Dear diary,


Husbands pay day today that means signature update! All minimum payments and over payments done meaning a total of £867 paid off this month! Woohoo!!


Positives


- I have put husbands overdraft on a reducer of £100 a month so we definitely pay it down over the next year and we can throw extra money at it when we can. It should be paid off by the end of next year at the latest!!


- The only things sitting on my credit card now are a car service (£217), some work expenses (£60 approx), an emergency meal out (£32) - when we were looking at our potential new house!!, and £30 of Microsoft office - I had to pay for it in the end as it was driving me crazy!!!


- husband credit card is a bit more messy but he has agreed to pay off a little bit every month towards it.


- Sticking within budgets this month has been relatively ok. Every over spend has been accounted for.


Challenges


- its an expensive month with a stag do and a wedding to go to. I already have my MSE hat on with this. For example I refuse to pay nearly £40 for breakfast the next day at the hotel - we shall be eating croissants or something and just go out for a coffee before we catch the train back. Ive told husband he musn't do lots of rounds in the bar and get carried away. Hopefully with me being 34 weeks pregnant at the time this can be an excuse not to get ratted!! Ha we shall see!!


- house has been on the market for a week now and no viewings so far but have an open day tomorrow so hopefully someone will come round and fall in love with it. I'm terrified we will get gazumped but if so then I guess its not meant to be!! I have already found a few back up houses but these are a bit more expensive so not very MSE but we shall see what happens.


Husband an I were reminiscing last night about this time 4 years ago when he earned significantly less than he does now and I was unemployed trying to find my first job after retraining. I worked some rubbish jobs to make ends meet and not get into anymore debt. We worked out we had about 4 credit cards, a loan, 4 overdrafts and 3 store cards then! Now we just have 2 credit cards, 2 loans and 1 overdraft - such progress!!


Its been a real struggle but now we have purpose (children) and direction (debt free life) it seems a lot more simple than when we started. We were younger an still trying to keep up with our friends whereas now we do what we want to do. We are still working on doing 'it' the most frugal way but this is getting much easier.


Doing this diary is definitely helping with the final slog. Its making us more accountable for our finances. I may not have paid of the credit cards and overdraft by the time this baby comes ( 10 weeks till due date) but I didn't account for the possibility of moving during this period. Actually, the desire to pay off all this debt was so we could save up to afford to move but as this is happening at the same time it is taking a lot of the pressure off. I thought this would make me more of a spendy again but its actually making me more frugal and determined to get rid of the debt and live a simpler life - I never thought this would happen!!


So to anybody who is reading this and not sure where to start. Two tips..


1) Make a spreadsheet budget with everything on it and stick to it religiously.
2) start a diary.


Hope everyone is having a good last few weeks of summer! Keep up the hard work!!


Crunchy xxx

t2rry

Wow!!! £867 off in one month!!! Awesome!

I echo your sentiments....although wish I could stick to my budget like I always intend to at the start of each month!!!

crunch_time

Dear diary!


We have sold the house!!!! :j :beer: :t


We didn't get as much for it as we would have liked but we have done a deal with the new house builder that he pays our stamp duty so we only have to borrow £2k from the bank of mum and dad.


Very excited!! wonder what will happen first - baby or house move!


The new house is a new build. Not necessarily bigger than our current house but better laid out with a bigger garden and very importantly in the country. Its got all the mod cons and is more energy efficient than our current 100 year old terrace so there will be lots of MSE things to sort during the process of the move.


I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount we have to do. We have no chain and neither does the person buying ours so its likely to go quickly - maybe 6 weeks??? This is 2 weeks until due date so we have to get some things sorted sooner rather than leaving it all till the last minute!!


Eeeekkkk!!


Crunchy
xx

mum2one

thats brilliant news about the house sale and the new house xxx

t2rry

WoW Congratulations!!!

Fingers crossed it all goes well for you and you are nicely settled in for the arrival of baby crunch! xx

abba1772

Just read your diary your very determined xx

I've subscribed xx

Congrats on the selling of your home hopefully you'll little bundle of joy will stay put til you've moved in lol xx

That's our next step as desperately want our own house sick of renting xx