The Future's Feeling Fresh 'n' Fruity!

f0nz

Hello lovely tinternet people :hello:

After a roller coaster 8 years it seems, touch wood, that we may finally be on the home stretch :dance: Brief outline of what's gone on:

2 kiddos, awful debt, job issues, rejected for a trust deed so ...

Husband and I declared BR early 2010
Automatic discharge 2011, kiddo #3 arrived
Awful car problems, housing issues, poorly-ness, general crappiness ensued.

Roll on to now and hubby's job is now very secure and he's working his way up the ladder. I am now able to work and we have 3 happy, healthy, cheeky little sprats

Took out a 3 year Amigo loan to buy a reliable car and have £2440 outstanding (2years left) Paying £135 a month.

Have an overpayment from Child tax credits of around £760 remaining to be paid (I queried payments for months and was guaranted they were right ... How stupid of me to believe them) paying at a rate of £100 per month.

Due to me now having a job the Amigo loan is going down!! Hoping we can get rid of this within 6-7 months by overpaying as much as we can thus saving a poo-load in interest.
Tax credits will be repaid by end of August leaving us entirely debt free!! :eek::eek::j

Have also opening up an easy savings account with my bank and will put £100 a month away for emergencies. (I'm actually excited about this!)

Planning a little holiday for the end of September to visit family down south as a celebration. Have crunched the numbers and it seems doable.

So that's the plan in a nutshell. Hoping this diary will keep me motivated and who knows, we might even get things paid off sooner?

f0nz

Evening!

So today has been a spendy day I've been putting off buying things for the house as I felt guilty but today that went out of the window! I suffer from anxiety and depression and one of the things that sets off the anxiety is having an unorganised house, which with 3 kids is pretty inevitable. Out I went and bought a fair amount of things that will make the house far easier and more pleasant to live in, and will also ease my anxiety so much! Yes, I should have maybe used it as an overpayment but you know what I rarely spend money on myself and it will make me a much nicer person to deal with so it was worth it! My dads coming round tomorrow to help me decorate and I'm very excited! Hubby will come home from work to a nice, clean, organised house :j

I haven't dipped into any savings or pots or anything so it's still all good in the hood as they say. Planning on not spending any more money now until payday on anything other than food, oh and maybe a tin of paint for the bathroom... Let's see how that goes :eek:

f0nz

Just because I feel I have to justify my spends I did do it MSE style I got:

Wallpaper reduced from £22 a roll to £7 a roll
Cushions reduced from £18 each to £5
Storage chests reduced from £75 to £30 for a set of 3
Big collage Photo frames reduced from £12 to £3 each (we have SO many photos and so many bare walls!)
A couple of motivation wall plaques for £1

Because of the storage chests I can now switch around some other furniture to provide more storage upstairs and in the lounge. I've also had a rake and found wallpaper I bought about a year ago on offer for £3 a roll so that will do for tarting upstairs up and maybe even the downstairs loo which has had a bit of a leak and looks very sad and dirty.

MrCrimeFiction

Hello and welcome.

Fantastic news about hubby's job now being secure. Sounds like you have the perfect family. It's great your overpaying on the loan.

You should post a statement of affairs ( monthly budget) so people can tell you where to save money.

Have you joined any challenges on here. There is several that will suit your savings. Emergency fund saving. Xmas saving you name it.

Stick around and keep updating, I will follow closely with interest.

MrCF

f0nz

Thanks Mr.C.F!

I'm pretty happy with my SOA. We've cut down on pretty much everything and have a healthy amount left over hence being able to over pay by at least £300 a month and set aside £100 to an emergency fund. There are a couple of things on there that I know people would say are too much (£70 a month for husbands supplements, £80 a month present fund and a £30 per month phone contract) but before we committed to them we made sue we had enough to cover them. We don't drink, smoke or go out very often so a little bit of what you fancy keeps the momentum up and doesn't make life too miserable. To be fair the present fund won't be every month and I will more than likely use a couple of months to overpay but we both have massive families and don't go overboard on prezzys. £20 per person normally (except our own kiddos) and I bargain hunt as much as possible.

So yesterday my dad came and helped me decorate and it looks fab! Plan for today is to declutter the living room and try and get the coat cupboard (aka Narnia) into some kind of order. Going to finish my cup of tea and then make some chilli in the slow cooker for tea tonight with some whoopsied chilli veg packs from asda (25p BARGAIN!) and some yellow stickered mince. Should make enough for 2 nights worth of tea for everyone and maybe the odd portion left over Teeny has nursery this afternoon so with any luck I'll get a bit of peace to crack on.

Should be a NSD today which is always welcome

Hope everyone has a great day! :beer:

f0nz

So, I just did some number crunching and we had £200 left after everything else so I've just whacked another £50 on the loan. If there's anything else left by next pay day I'll pop that over too. Still 3 weeks until pay day so we need some £ for taking the kids out and any random school trips etc that seem to pop up out of nowhere. Pretty chuffed as normally I would have left it in the bank "just in case" and then hubby or I would have spent it

f0nz

Morning!

Had a bit of a rotten evening/night last night. My tummy decided to become mount Vesuvius so I spent most of my time in the bathroom _pale_:embarasse Feeling much better this morning though thank goodness. Had a Long hot shower and conditioned my hair so feel ready to face the world again!

About to have a rake in the cupboards and fridge/freezers to see what we have and then put together a meal plan for the next week or two and then go to the shops. Back to work tomorrow so will need to try and get organised.

Meant to be having homemade chilli for tea tonight but I'm a bit scared after last night so I may just stick to something plain and drool while the rest scoff it up.

Apart from the trip to the shops which is already budgeted for it should be a NSD :j

f0nz

Pretty productive day. Did the meal plan and shop, only £40 and that is pretty much all we'll need until payday with the exception of fresh fruit, veg and milk. Still have £100 grocery budget left so it's looking pretty good

Had an amazing tea of homemade chilli, tortilla chips, jalapeños and sour cream followed by homemade rice pudding. Not healthy in The slightest but it was delicious and very comforting! Loads of chilli and rice pud left so another yummy meal to be had later :drool:

Instead of sitting on my butt after tea I made a load of little egg and veg muffins and a bacon and veg crustless quiche. Hopefully make it easier to have something healthy to grab instead of shoving loads of naughties in my face :EasterBun

Hubby and I are finally both off on the same night so when the kiddos go to bed it's time to cuddle up together in front of a movie ... And no doubt fall asleep half way through it

3wisemonks

I love you chocolate eating emoticon!

You sound in a fairly similar position to us, we were very close to bankruptcy but by the skin of our teeth didn't have to although a FA I spoke with at the time said dh credit rating was equivalent to bankruptcy at the time.

Anyway you done brilliantly so far so keep up the good work

I'm with you on the house front. I'm putting by savings to get the house done up as I can't bare the mess that no amount of cleaning and tidy can improve :mad: Try not to feel bad about your spends you still need to live life with pleasures and doing the house will give you long lasting enjoyment and you made some great savings with your purchases :money:

f0nz

Thought I'd post an SOA as some people may find it useful or even have some hints and tips on how to reduce things




Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 3 plus teenage stepchild at least once a week
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details[/b]
Monthly income after tax................ 720 may actually be more, have just changed hours so will find out end of this month
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1863 this doesn't include any overtime or bonuses which happen fairly often
Benefits................................ 190 child benefit
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2773

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 650
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 144 includes water up here
Electricity............................. 70
Gas..................................... 40
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 35 includes Internet
Mobile phone............................ 52.75 3 mobiles: 1 contract and 2 PAYG
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 400
Clothing................................ 25
Petrol/diesel........................... 120
Road tax................................ 34
Car Insurance........................... 70 this will hopefully reduce on hubby's renewal. Not long had 2 cars so he's building his no claims back up as his were over 3 years old
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 60 we get free tyres so don't have to factor those in
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 10 nursery snack/toy money
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0 prescriptions free here and dentist is paid with overtime/bonuses as it's never a lot
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 19.03 includes a vet package for discounted treatments, all worming etc and yearly check up
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0 gets paid in full at renewal, it's under £50 so we can jig around and find it easily
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 80
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 100
Hubby supplements....................... 70 non negotiable and the only thing the poor man asks for
Netflix................................. 5.99
Total monthly expenses.................. 1997.89


Assets[/b]
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 5500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 5500
No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Amigo..........................2360......134.......49.2
Tax credits ovepay.............742.......100.......0
Total unsecured debts..........3102......234.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,773
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,997.89
Available for debt repayments........... 775.11
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 234
Amount left after debt repayments....... 541.11

f0nz

Will be overpaying the amigo loan by £400 per month leaving the £141 as our family spending money.