Got here by luck, intending to stay by judgement.

bexster1975

Sorry to see you were up way before the crack of dawn this am. You have switched to the same energy provider as I did in feb! No complaints so far.

I have followed this diary with interest, and you have certainly taken quite a kicking, virtually speaking. Certainly more so than most diaries I have read. It's clear you are doing well, so we'll done to you :T

On your last comment, banks etc only want you to borrow cash from them when you are a sure thing. A relative yesterday came to see me and told me the financial institution they have been with for over 20 years offered to lend them the £400 they needed because of an admin error in calculating holiday pay at 120% APR :eek:

Luckily I was able to do a much better deal.

Good luck to you, it does get very addictive

Bexster

MrBloater

Having done a fair bit of research on both the boiler/plumbing/electrics cover and the travel insurance it does appear that whilst there are savings to be made, it will not be earth-shattering, and (especially with the travel one) it's likely to leave well alone til September.

This leaves my to-do list looking fairly well done, save for plugging in the end dates of all the contracts for my predictive balance sheet. My spreadsheets are in a state of limbo, payments have come out of my current account but haven't been credited onto the mortgage account / credit card bill so I'll have to wait til tomorrow morning before I can see how much spare we have to throw at tidying up the rest of the debt.

Which means I will have to soon turn my attention to the four elephants that sit patiently in the room whilst I type up these diary entries. I might as well introduce them.

Elephant 1 - The Cars
Myself and Mrs B are unapologetic petrolheads. We like our cars. Possibly because we both grew up in families where cars were driven past destruction, we tend to like them shiny and new. A few years back my boss at the time had a very nice car that he used to brag about at staff meetings - one day I saw a niftier version of it for a decent price and put it all on a credit card. And then parked it next to his for the remaining brief time of his tenure. But I didn't go on about it, and that, considering the area I worked in and the people I was dealing with, made it even cooler. Then one day the gearbox started to fall out and I went into the dealership to see what options were available, and found out about the wonderful world of leasing. As I didn't have the requisite two grand for a new auto box, but did have the £400 quid deposit needed for a shiny brand new luxury car, I signed on the line, and have been leasing ever since, chopping in my car every eighteen months or so and getting a shinier one. Mrs B has also gone down a similar road - and whilst we have servicing and assistance included, and never have to worry about MOTs or stuff like that, it's a fair chunk out of our budget every month. At the moment both of our contracts are not in a favourable position for us to negotiate, they're both a year in and so the value of the car has depreciated further than the balance on the loan. In another 12 months time the situation will have reversed, and the 'equity' we have in them can be used as a deposit for the next agreement. But perhaps that is time to walk away from the agreements and get something more modest and paid for outright. But I'm no advocate of Bangernomics and having been brought up with multiple instances of the car being off the road due to lack of money to fix it, I am loath to go back to that situation. But we do spend the princely sum of £780 a month on car leasing. Interestingly, I have just been invited to a 'VIP' event at my local dealership next weekend, and so might find out how desperate they are to prise my current car away from me as they are talking about 'favourable part exchange prices'. I wonder how favourable it would be if I traded it in for a Skoda Octavia - a car I have greatly admired for a long time.

I'll leave Elephants 2, 3 and 4 chilling away in the corner as I imagine the tin hat, flak jacket and riot shield will be now be required for me and Elephant 1.

elantan

every person has a different life to lead, it wouldnt be right for me to tell you how to live yours, if you can afford it then who is to say you shouldnt have it, just think of the REAL and full cost of having them, if it's worth paying then go for it most deff

Goldiegirl

It's up to you how you spend your money.

But if you want to put more of your money towards your mortgage, you may need to consider leasing a more modest car next time, and move towards saving for a car that you can pay cash for, and to keep the car that you own for a longer period of time.

How's that SOA coming on?

As I said before, no need to post it, but a SOA is an essential for you to understand fully your position.

Angry_Bear

Hmm, there are advantages to leasing deals - especially if you're not au fait enough with cars to fix/service your own (and with engine computers, fewer and fewer people are). But £780 a month seems like a huge sum.
Could you agree a compromise and get 1 small car and 1 bigger car between you, with the agreement that the bigger car be used for longer/joint journeys?

For example, a quick google suggests you could get a small car for about £150 a month and an "executive saloon" (but without all the bells and whistles for about £250. That would shrink your bill by £330 without reducing you to bangernomics. (FYI, I used nationwidevehiclecontracts for a Citroen C1 and Vauxhall Insignia to get my example numbers).

True MSE is living the life you want in a budget you can afford rather than cutting everything out. :money:

MrBloater

Another beautiful morning, another early cup of tea and another few hours playing on the spreadsheet which now has pretty much everything on it (aside from Mrs B's mobile phone contract expiry date and the amount of reward points on the Co-Op card and the little Bloaters' Game card). And I have to say, it's all looking good. It's looking very manageable for the overpayments once the safety nets are put in place.

Yet more research into the small print convinces me our current deals for Travel and Boiler insurance are about as good as we can get, and nothing can be done about the leasing scenario for the time being. Which leaves me to deal with the other 3 elephants quietly waiting their turn. And to be fair, these are boring elephants who aren't going to provide any indignation or judgement. But they're still my elephants and I have to consider them.

Elephant 2 - Ebay
This used to be a giant elephant but the introduction of the new fees structure and the postal charges meant the elephant just kinda merged into the background. Ebay's been my best friend and worst enemy over the years, I'm sure that listing, dealing with buyers and posting out items is not top of anyone's list of fun things to do, but I really really hate it. And there's now 9 large rectangular sealed tubs of stuff (mainly kids clothes, 70s toys, modern day toys, vinyl, books, etc) just waiting for me to hit the list button. At least a third of it has been listed before and hasn't gone, but it's the other two thirds that really bugs me - there might be some treasure in there, but it's already turning me to thoughts of Gin just thinking about it. I know what I should do, I should get all the tubs out on a sunny day, photograph everything, relist, and then once something has unsold for two or three times - carboot or donate it. And I got the estate car, the paste table and the banter - so carbooting should be a cinch, and we've got the worthy cause of where Mrs B works - so donation should be even cinchier (I'm pretty impressed at myself for inventing a word before 5.30am - how much better can today get?) But the elephant just sits there blocking my joy and reminding me of desperately cutting out cardboard packaging on the kitchen table during breakfast to send some scary Belgian guy a Sea Urchins 7" he'd later claim never arrived. The amount of cardboard I used to hoard cos I might need it for packaging, colleagues giving me copious jiffy bags (and likely pitying me) - it is making me shudder right now. I can't go back to those days.

getmore4less

MrBloater wrote: »

This leaves my to-do list looking fairly well done, save for plugging in the end dates of all the contracts for my predictive balance sheet. My spreadsheets are in a state of limbo, payments have come out of my current account but haven't been credited onto the mortgage account / credit card bill so I'll have to wait till tomorrow morning before I can see how much spare we have to throw at tidying up the rest of the debt.

You really should know this by now.

If you don't you still don't have a budget(plan) that says where you want to be spending you money and tracking that you are keeping to it.

pavlovs_dog

Mr B it will continue to sit there sapping your joy until YOU do something. Get it on ebay or get it down the car boot sale.nnEither way, get it gone!

With the mini bloaters about to go on school holidays the money could go towards some summer fun. Perhaps give them a say in how it is spent, to introduce the idea of budgeting and making choices in a tangible way?

getmore4less

MrBloater wrote: »

Elephant 1 - The Cars
............
But we do spend the princely sum of £780 a month on car leasing.
............
I traded it in for a Skoda Octavia - a car I have greatly admired for a long time.

Cars are the biggest drainer of money, more than a house as that is asset based.

Lets say round it to £10k a year.

Breaking the lease cycle is a problem as if needs a larger up front pot of cash, changing to a cheaper lease might be a better option.

Do a use analysis to identify cars that do the job, then look at what you could be happy with.
Mileage might make leasing a good option.

Remember once the car austerity period gets you on track and gets rid of much of the debt you will be swimming in cash

The Octavia is a very good car and in L&K form comes with many goodies. There is a good reason loads of taxis are Skoda.
Even in Elegance form(loads of them) you get all the useful stuff.

For something more luxury look at the Superb(but they come at a price).

A three year plan could easy save £10k and have two fully paid for cars sitting on the drive.

£10-£15k to buy 2 vehicles £5k-£10k to run them, £10k saved.

You don't have to go from one extreme, bangernomics to new every 18months.

plenty of middle ground running a vehicle for a few years.

You probably could run better purchased cars for less.

If the mileage is right maybe one lease and one purchase but something special.

What are you running now(with cost split) that will give people ideas of what could be good alternatives that give you as much of what you want/need and save some cashflow.

if not already get onto briskoda.net


One thing you must not fall for is the you have a good car I need one, SHARE.

Also look at your running costs, there may be other savings.
What's the total cost of motoring for the year, the lease is only part of the cost.

The goal is to get BEST value for money while still filling the needs and hopefully most of the wants.

Most peoples cars spend a lot of their life sitting in car parks or on the drive doing nothing.

getmore4less

If stuff is not selling give up or get the kids to do it.

Focus on the things that sell.

Work out your hourly pay rate for the effort involved if you can't get above min wage its a hobby and a lousy one if you don't like doing it.

Car boot might be a nice day out and if you can use it as an education exercise for the kids(value of money) and prize them away from the TV and video games then there might be some value other wise get the stuff to charity and out of the house.