Working towards being debt free and a new house.

dipdap

Hello diary.
Long time, no speak
Well we've been on holiday, now back to reality. Think we may have spent a little bit too much while we were away stayed in a caravan in a holiday park.
Big local supermarket was a 6 mile drive away so we saved money by driving there every other day for food (loaf of bread was £1.50 and 2 pints of milk was £1.10 on site :eek:) rather than eating in the bistro each night (we worked out just 1 meal would have cost £100 :eek: )
Laundrette charged a fiver a wash and a couple of quid to dry so I did hand washing all week.
Luckily the weather was good so we took the kids to the beach each day and did swimming and the evening entertainment (both of which were included)
So, now it's back to trying hard not to spend money.
Overtime at work is pretty hard to come by so OH is doing his fair share when he can.
Came home to find a letter from HMRC to say we owe £200 in overpaid tax credits from last year. Also had a letter from our last mortgage company to say we overpaid interest so that had a cheque for £250.
3 more months of council tax payments and 3 more months of holiday (DLP) payments to go.
Keeping the kids entertained at home so saving money there, shame school uniform all has to be replaced again!
Better get on, need to do dinner. Will see how the debt totals are looking later on

abba1772

Glad you had a fab time but ouch to the price of a meal at the bistro that's eye watering prices xx

dipdap

Hey Abba.
I know, it was restaurant prices! Captive audience though I suppose. Fish and chips or burger and chips was £12-£13 a person, add on drinks and dessert and it soon sky rockets.
We did grab some sweet potato chips from the takeaway one evening and had them with microwave burgers, but 3 portions of chips was a tenner :eek: and on the last day we did breakfast, that came to around £25 so we did pretty well.
Money saved went towards the kids doing some pottery painting (that was seriously expensive, a plate was about £15) on the day when it rained. They also spent about a tenner in the arcade over the week and about £20 on various activities that cost extra.
Right, need to grab pen and paper and see what we owe now.
Back in a bit!

dipdap

Well I have some figures for our debts

Car - £4,840
CC1 - £3,400
CC2 - £8,100

Total amount owed - £16,340

We can get this down positive thinking.
We do have a 3rd credit card which I don't factor into calculations because the bill is paid off in full every month (it's currently at £800, mostly caused by holiday spending :eek: )
Hopefully that figure will be £16,000 or below by the start of next month :j
We can do this :j

dipdap

Wow. 2 years and 4 days since my last post!
So how is life treating us now...

Debts didnt really move much for the end of 2018 and the whole of 2019, but savings started to increase as I now participate in a savings scheme that come straight from my wages.
Debts are all at 0% so it made sense to us to pay off what we could afford with what wages I had left after all deductions.
It has now become a way of life and we rely on my wages after tax etc.. have come off. Our savings currently sit at about £25k!
So down to the debt figures
Car = £2,200 - still running at 0%
CC1 = £2,300 - 0% till March 21
CC2 = £1,100 - 0% till December 21
Total debt = £5,600

Our savings far outweigh our debts!
That's not even 10% of what it was 11 years ago, we will win the battle!

abba1772

That's an amazing amount of savings well done .......Oh and welcome back xx

dipdap

Hello diary,
Well I haven't been back on for a while again, life takes over!!
So where are we with debts....

I won't say we are debt free because we still have some kicking around, they're just not horrible debts any more.

We currently have a car which is paid on direct debit every month (so I don't count this as a nasty debt) and that probably has a year or so to run and then it's paid off
I have a credit card we use every month and pay the balance off, that never accrues any interest.
Finally the argos card has taken a hit recently as we bought loads of new furniture but that is all on 0% and will be paid off in 3-6 months (so that doesn't count as nasty debt to me either)

Life has changed so much, I never thought I'd see the day when we don't worry about money so much any more. I logged on to see how much we have in savings today and it's over £35,000! We over pay our mortgage every month by £400. We enjoy the odd takeaway and can spoil the kids if we want to. We have come so far and I'm so proud that we have done it.
I found out I was pregnant last year so we are expecting an unplanned lockdown baby boy in a few weeks. We finished having children many, many years ago so this little surprise is going to be much loved by his older siblings! It's so nice to be on maternity leave without money worries for the first time ever!!

So this will be me signing off, our journey is complete. Thank you to everyone who read along and commented over the last few years.
Hopefully I won't be back!

abba1772

Congratulations on your lockdown baby that’s lovely news xx