Ok, here goes nothing!

Bobarella

Congratulations to you Laura! So great. Here's to the next stage!

LauraB89

Morning all!

Had a long weekend of painting, painting, painting the new house. So excited to get it all done and be all moved in - at the end of this month! Crazy!

I have £4,400 in my account and the plan is to top it up with savings each month and then just make sure that I don't dip below £4,100 (as the wedding stuff still to pay for comes to £3,100).

I only have ONE credit card, which I am paying off each payday but I am not throwing everything spare at it, as we have so many things that we need/want for the house and wedding that so long as it is going down each month for now, I am happy. I have 1.5 more bonuses on my current monthly plan, then I go to quarterly - which will start getting paid in May. So the plan in my head is to use that for honeymoon this time around, then once the wedding is done and we have sorted the house, if there is anything left to pay off of the card, my August bonus can square that away.

One thing that hit me this morning, is that I really want to lose some weight and tone up for the wedding. So I am getting back to couch-to 5k, which I did once before. I hope that the upcoming wedding will be a good enough motivator to keep me on the straight and narrow.

How was everyone else's weekend??

xxx

ab_saver

Sounds brilliantly exciting- it's lovely to make the place your own a bit. Moving day is so close now.

Your financial plans all sound extremely sensible- you have got yourself into a really good position for all the exciting life changes ahead.

My weekend was a working one - I have today off which is just enough to sort my life out before going back in tomorrow.

I've been following your journey with interest as your big achievements are the sorts of things OH and I want to do over the next few years.

boxofpaws

All happy news! :j

Please post your c25k progress, I need some inspiration to get back into the fitness groove. I REALLY loved doing the programme last year

Bobarella

All sounds very positive indeed!

LauraB89

Hi everyone,

I am finding the whole budget quite complex at the moment! I have my debts down to £1095 on one credit card - yay!

But I also have over £3100 in my savings account! Now at least £2,500 of this is for the final wedding payments, and I am still owed a fair bit from the ladies coming to the hen party and family staying at the house for the weekend (£1,300) which is coming in dribs and drabs.

I am finding myself spending a lot on the house as well - DIY is slow and expensive!!

But on the bright side - on Friday, we will finally move properly and that is very exciting. I am really looking forward to being all in one place as living in two is a bit of a nightmare. I am not sure how much of the deposit I am going to get back, but we will see!

But I am focussed on a few things to get me through;

- My debts are going down each month (not many people buy a house, pay off a wedding and come out of it with less!)
- I have savings (only just over what I need for the wedding, but they are slowly but surely getting added to)
- I have my house
- I love my new job
- This time next week, we will be moved in!

The other thing that is on my mind a little at the moment is the car - in about 2.5 years when the lease is up, we need to pay about £5k to buy the car. I would really rather do this than continue paying out each month. So, I have a plan. I am going to set up a regular saver once the wedding is out of the way, 2 years, £200 a month and that will give us the bulk of the amount due. This will only really work once we have paid everything off, but, if we can factor it into the budget then we won't really notice it.

I have also factored into the budget an overpayment of the mortgage each month, so I need to get to a Santander branch and get the house account moved from Halifax. I am struggling with this a little, the Halifax staff in my branch are LOVELY and really friendly and helpful. I am not a fan of the Santander staff. But Halifax only pay me £3 a month and Santander will pay me about £16 a month. £13 a month is a big difference, and I very rarely go into a branch!

Update on my year goals;

- Buy house - CHECK
- Get married - Less than 3 months to go!
- Have all the babies - no update just yet..!

I hope everyone else's week is going well

xxx

ab_saver

Sounds like you are doing amazingly well. You are right - buying a house and getting married whilst decreasing the debt are massive achievements!

Good luck with moving - and getting your deposit back. I think it really depends how they manage it - in my student house the agency would find fees and charges for everything (including the £160 bill for paying a professional inventory company) so we lost about £150 each. In my current place, my landlady manages it and she seems fair and reasonable so I don't think we'll lose much or have much to squabble over. Our agency insisted on having it professionally cleaned with one of their recommended cleaners (even though they cost loads and didn't do a better job than we did!).

It sounds like you have a sensible plan to pay off the car too - all very exciting and very sensible.

Honeysucklelou2

It's so lovely to read of your progress and feel the joy jumping out of each post. Wishing you a stress free move.

Bobarella

All sounds great Laura. Well done and hope all your plans work out

LauraB89

Hiiiii everyone!

It's been aaagggeesss that I posted - moving house and decorating and everything has been a bit mental really!

So, to summarise;

- I LOVE COUNTRYSIDE LIVING - holy moley! I feel like I am in the right place Been drying washing on the line - FOR FREE. DRYING CLOTHES FOR FREE. Life changer.
- Getting milk delivered - organic, full fat, creamy milk. Delivered to my door. Three times a week!
- New job is amazing - same pay, much easier. My boss is really supportive and I love it.
- My debts are down to £727! That is it! Will be paid off in no time!
- Wedding is only 9 weeks away - aarrghghghghghghgh!

So, I have decided that my next challenge is to save up to pay off the car in the next couple of years. What I decided to do, is to save up into an investment account with Nutmeg. We need to save up about £5k, which should be ok once all of our debts are paid off. It's all very exciting!

I hope it's been going as well for everyone!
xxxx