2015 is our year

DD265

Neighbour is paying for the car in full and up front. I will go to the bodyshop tomorrow to book it in. I noticed a couple of down-to-primer scratches on the other side (looks like from people brushing past in car parks etc) so will ask them to look at those at the same time and have a couple of hundred aside for it.

Mortgage Advisor appointment... Well we can get a mortgage but it's not really enough to be viable.

As it stands - £84000 which would be roughly £550 a month.
When my CC is paid off - £112000 which would also be roughly £550 a month
If my CC was gone, I didn't have the car or horse - £189000 which would be roughly £1000 a month. I told YO that he had best take extra special care with my £60k horse

So we're going to rent. To be honest I think we would've done that anyway, but now some pressure is off. We have requested viewings on two apartments to see whether we actually like what we think we like. I'm hoping we don't completely fall for one and want to take it on right away.

For the time being my plan is to get a month ahead on my budget. I am partway there, covered the car, horse insurance and prescription charges for March thus far. Feels good when I haven't even paid them for February yet. :rotfl:

DD265

Body shop will look at scratches FOC as thinks they will polish out. If not, it would be a whole respray of the two panels (pearlescent paint) to the tune of £400-500 so that will not be happening.

On the house front one had gone, the other we are seeing this weekend. I do not want to rush, but I want to know what I like so that when we are ready to move, when the right apartment comes up we can move quickly.

Went shopping yesterday for Mum's birthday. She had a personal shopper and got some great clothing. I bought some work trousers (budgeted) and some undies (not budgeted) and paid for breakfast (not budgeted).

On the budget front, allowing for the un-budgeted spends yesterday I am ahead on:

Prescription fee
Car insurance
Horse's physio
Horse's insurance
Car payment

I may be able to add a few more to the list depending on extra income, but I don't think it's a bad start given this is the first month I decided to do this.

DD265

So we went to look at Property 1 yesterday and it was a bit of a let down. We have 3 more booked in for next weekend - one of which I will cancel as we investigated public transport to/from the location and it won't work for OH - and I inquired to book viewings for 3 more.

I have had a couple of sales go through but not enough to make up the next £100 and transfer to my bank account.

Apart from that I'm just about to ring up Barclaycard and complain because I still haven't had the forms through to dispute those fraudulent transactions. :mad:

DD265

The Barclaycard saga continues - I finally got the forms through last week (after quite a bit of kicking off) and returned them. Waiting for the next update.

We've now seen 6 apartments and not found "the one". However we know which building want to live in ideally and exactly what we want in there. So we're further forward in that respect. We could probably have lived in 3 of the ones we've seen but decided given we have all year, we would hold out. If it comes to August/September and we haven't sorted anything then we'll re-think.

It's pay day on Friday, and I have about £130 in the bank right now. Haven't been in this position for a very long time

DD265

Barclaycard was eventually sorted and now has a 0.00 balance which feels great.

Not so great - Student Loans Company decided that they wanted the outstanding balance on a grant over payment (that I've been paying by direct debit) NOW please. Lots of bullying tactics and chasing from their internal debt collection agency. Thankfully I said no. I emailed them with an offer (lump sum then higher direct debits) and of course never had a response. I went ahead with it anyway but it still sucks!

In other news nothing new has appeared on the rental front which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I don't like the uncertainty either.

DD265

I haven't been quite as well behaved as I ought to have been this month money wise. Yes I can pull the money from elsewhere in my budget but it means I'm not as ahead as I was. I think it shows that I may not have put enough money into some pots but also that I need to be more strict with myself and find that balance.

OH and I looked at two flats this week. I fell for the first one and had numerous head vs heart debates but ultimately head won and we turned it down - financially we don't have the money saved up that we need to pay the fees and buy the bare essentials, and that flat needed more bare essentials (freezer, microwave etc) than others we've seen which have all white goods.

The one we saw yesterday surprised us as we really thought we wouldn't like it, but it was nice. We still want to save up more and hold out for one of the bigger apartments but this made me feel better about passing up the other one!

I made some money on eBay yesterday which is nice but used up my free listings for this month so will have to wait to add more.

DD265

It has been a while since I posted:

We saw a flat which "would do fine" but decided as it was so early in the year we wouldn't rush into it. Then nothing for ages so we booked a holiday. Within 7 days, we had found and agreed on a flat, how typical! :rotfl:

Thankfully April's pay day was a good one with overtime, my individual bonus and a quarterly team bonus so holiday is paid for any my half of the flat deposit too.

We are gathering bits and pieces from family and friends. We've purchased cutlery/place mats in the sale, used Nectar points against our plates from Sainsbury etc. We've bought a sofa and that wasn't in the sale but we were happy with the price.

Unfortunately my wardrobes don't fit so that's a pain. We're going to buy new smaller frames and doors (they're Ikea Pax so still made) and take the fittings out of my existing wardrobes because that's where the cost comes in.

On the finance side of course I am not where I wanted to be but things are looking OK. Still got work to do and once the focus is off setting up our new home I will go back to significant overpayments on debt. I did eventually hear back from the SLC and I am paying them £250 a month so that is due to be cleared in November.