Crunchy pays it down....£20k...the final chapter

reality_check

My plans change as much as yours, always have new ideas. You are doing fantastic! Debt is coming down and with moving house and all the new things bought and paid off! I really enjoy your diary and reading your updates :T xx

crunch_time

Thanks reality_check! Yes I do change my mind all the time. My relationship with and how I think about money changes a lot - sometimes during the course of a day and my diary is a real reflection of this. It is a real journey for me and cant believe the change in nearly 2 years of being on here.

Right, banking done for now. Signature updated! One change from yesterdays post is that I have decided to put £60 aside into the emergency fund 'just in case.' Better that and we use it than use credit cards again.

Credit card now stands at £495
Total debt at £13,667

I also paid off £100 of the wedding weekend.

I'm looking forward to not having to say 'teen' when I talk about my debt with the husband, hopefully at the end of June!!

Challenge today is to figure out how to make £28.28 of food budget last a week. I suppose its a turn up for the books that husband is happy about this challenge and has been giving me tips. I don't want to have to use that £60.

Wish me luck!!
Crunchy xx

crunch_time

Morning diary.

So I didn't do very well with the food budget - have gone over by about £40. I'm blaming husband and his roast last weekend. I also may or may not have spent about £10 on a few bits from the shop once. So lesson learned. We can do it without top up shops.

I'm going to do online shopping as well. The hassle of taking two kids and then having to carry it all in is taking its toll.

Crunchy xx

kirtsypoos

Hi Crunchy,

I find online shopping so much easier (especially with sainsburys, as they do freebies - this week I got flora, PG Tips Earl Grey, Coconut water and other bits and pieces for free), and then used a £20 off a £60 spend voucher for the remainder....did one in my name, one in OHs so we ended up with 3 weeks worth of shopping for just over £80.00!!

I just set up a new email address so I get the new customer discount every time

crunch_time

Ooh well done kirstypoos! I have done it before with sains just recently not been organised to do it so nice nipped to the shops. Or I haven't planned ahead enough to get the better delivery charges. Now I have a shopping day each week I can get more organised.

I saw a job on the site yesterday. It was perfect in every way except it was 4 days a week. Initially I thought cha Ching!! But this was followed by feelings that I would really miss my daughter. At least I know I still like my job and I am excited about doing that sort of thing in the future.

I think my mind is made up. Husband said yesterday that he just wants me to be happy. I'll keep my eye on the job board of course but I think I will stay at home and do supply. I'm not going to get these years back so I'm going to make the most of them being little.

We are sitting in this weekend and getting some things done at home. Lots of organising needs to be done.

I'm looking forward to next Friday when it's husbands pay day and we can get closer to £12,xxx.

Must get these bits on bay of e and some stuff on tree gum

Happy weekend everyone!
Crunchy xx

crunch_time

Morning diary!

Husbands pay day has arrived! £275 off the loan bringing it to £12,898. And total debt it now £13,393. It.feels.so.good.to.see.it.going.down.

Spendy weekend coming up. Trip out tomorrow with friends, meal out on Sunday with friends and going to London with friends on Monday. We then have a busy weekend next weekend with DS birthday so spendy June. I've just drawn up a budget with husband as he wanted to 'buy stuff' and wanted t start landscaping the garden. He can see now that maintaining friendships is more of a priority - and we hardly ever see friends these days. The landscaping has officially been put off until next month. Phew!

£100 clothes money has paid off the shoes that were sitting on the credit card so that is officially back to £0 again - woohoo!!

All Isa payments are up to date too meaning we officially have £592 in savings so we are back on track with those now.

I also did an online food shop and it really did make a difference with how much I spent. I need to go to the butchers today and get meat and eggs but other than that I am in budget for the week. As we are out so much this weekend a lot of it should run into the week after as well.

Having a lazy day today ready for a busy weekend!

Crunchy xx

crunch_time

Hello all!

Just a quick update. We had our house valued today. Bought it for £177,500 and valued today at £200,000. Not bad for less than 18months living. When we buy a garage (which still haven't been built yet) for £7k he said we could get max £220,000 for it.

I'm a pessimist after the last time but that's made me pleased as our equity is around £47k now.

I've been up and down about paying down the mortgage vs paying off the loan but now I feel like we could move sooner and not have to work so hard to pay down the mortgage for equity..... I want to get rid of that loan.

Husband feels the same. The £275 a month would go towards a bigger mortgage payment anyhow so it makes sense to get rid.

The best plan would be to save up to pay it off early. Then if we need the money we can use it.

If the referendum affects the housing market though we will have to think again.

So it looks like tackling the massive loan is next on the list.

Crunchy xx

OrangeFairy

Hi Crunchy,

I love seeing that debt value drop - it's going down nicely.

Concentrating on the loan is definitely the right step I thing - get that dastardly thing sorted andthen you can concentrate on the mortgage!

OF x

crunch_time

Morning

ahhhhhh big long exhale for me this morning after yesterdays news. I've been beating myself up about our past mistakes for so long. In our last house we had an interest only mortgage and never managed to make any payments. We also didn't make any money on it when we moved so always felt we needed to pay catch up.

So I've always felt uneasy about getting to this stage in our debt pay back adventure as I know I might have had to make a choice between paying down the mortgage or get rid of the loan as quick as possible.

So, new leaf turned over, new strategy to work out.....

1) My credit card is now at £0 again - woohoo! So we don't need to worry about that.
2) Husbands credit card is at £495 and we have mainly been using his mileage money to pay it off. He starts his new job in a months time so has a month to make 3-4 work trips to earn enough mileage to pay it off. If he doesn't manage this, they owe him 4.5 days holiday which they have offered to pay and this should be enough to pay it off.
3) Emergency fund - I'm set to put £500 towards it when I get paid on the 19th June. I can then put another £500 towards it when I get paid again on the 19th July. I'm pretty certain my contract and how it all works means that I will get paid again for the last time on 19th August but I shall ring HR and check next week.

I shall then be unemployed, albeit for the short term (which I am now happy about), but my August pay shall start off the 'gosh I don't have a job fund' which I will contribute to when I earn money for supply in the Autumn term and hopefully build up enough to get the loan under £10k for the start of 2017. This means the fund needs to be £1254 according to my spreadsheet. Its it's not, its no bother. At least I have savings and am not in any more debt.

My plan in 2017 would be to get the loan down to £5k. This means paying off an additional £1700 or £142 a month. Therefore, my plan in 2018 would be to get rid of it completely using the same strategy as 2017. SO I would be debt free by Christmas 2018.

But I think we can do it sooner than that.

By then we would have paid off another £10k of our mortgage anyway and 2018 was the first potential date to consider moving. From then on we can either pay the £275 a month on to the mortgage for a year to get it down sooner - plus the £140 a month overpayment to the loan we were making. That is a lot more equity - another £5k and then comfortably move. Or we can move that year. But how great to have options and potentially not have that loan hanging over our heads for much longer!!

I'm so glad we had the house valued as it has totally shifted mine and more importantly the husbands view of loan vs mortgage. I always knew in my heart it was the right thing to do.

I'm feeling more inspired now. I felt quite depressed looking back over theses last few weeks. The daunting task to trying to do it all has made my shrink back but now I'm ready to stand up, take the bull by the horns and get this loan paid back.

Happy bank holiday weekend everyone!!

Crunchy xx

crunch_time

Evening all!

Not much to report here. I've just checked all our accounts and sorted everything out from a spendy weekend. Things will be tight but that's a good thing, we need to get real. Just got to do a YNAB budget for June.

I've done a meal plan for the rest of this week and next week and started a sains order for Thursday at £1 I only have £50 to spend after I bought lots of extra stuff last week. I don't have a lot to buy so hopefully it will all come out ok.

I sold 3 things on bay of e all for more than 99p. 2 people have paid and after postage and fees all I have made is £2.61. I'm starting to think whether it is worth it or not. I must make the effort to take the rest of the stuff to the secondhand place........ or just give it to charity.

I've also been thinking about ways I can make some extra money online in the evenings like with surveys. Must head over to the other boards to check out - I'm sure ive seen a guide to it somewhere.

Crunch xx