I’m taking control of my life, now.

enthusiasticsaver

savingholmes wrote: »

With the DH job - I personally wouldn't want my husband working nights and weekends and wouldn't see it as worth the money as it is very restrictive and he wouldn't be around for the children or if we could afford a weekend away it would be more complicated....

Only you can decide as a couple though...

Presumably it wouldn't be every night and weekend. It is probably on a rota and might mean he is around during the week for the children. £4K extra is a lot and would help to pay the debt off quicker. My brother does a shift pattern which includes some weekends and late nights and early mornings, not overnight though and it makes his commuting easier as less busy on the roads and every 3 weeks gets a 5 day weekend. He gets time off during the week to go shopping when less busy than the weekend.

JoJoC

Interesting about the job opportunity - I suppose a pros and cons list is on the table? Its worth considering!

boxofpaws

savingholmes wrote: »

With the DH job - I personally wouldn't want my husband working nights and weekends and wouldn't see it as worth the money as it is very restrictive and he wouldn't be around for the children or if we could afford a weekend away it would be more complicated....

Only you can decide as a couple though...

Childcare not an issue, his children are all grown up, and we don't have any.

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Presumably it wouldn't be every night and weekend. It is probably on a rota and might mean he is around during the week for the children. £4K extra is a lot and would help to pay the debt off quicker. My brother does a shift pattern which includes some weekends and late nights and early mornings, not overnight though and it makes his commuting easier as less busy on the roads and every 3 weeks gets a 5 day weekend. He gets time off during the week to go shopping when less busy than the weekend.

Correct, it's on a (very complicated rota) not all nights and weekends

JoJoC wrote: »

Interesting about the job opportunity - I suppose a pros and cons list is on the table? Its worth considering!

We have done a mental pros and cons list but they are even Stevens. So in fact he has just told his managers he will do whatever they think is best.

System

If he doesn't like the shifts , can he change back ?

boxofpaws

Good things

• loan is now paid off with balance transfer.
• this means all debt is on 0%
• EF has £1300 in it. This was the rest of the balance transfer. So effectively, we have borrowed the EF, it was unintentional, the intention was to put it to a (we have a couple about to come to the end of the deal) bug actually I am quite comfortable with this arrangement.

Bad things

• Spends are through the roof. See below

Spends
Stepchild 1 -£50. He had run out of money.
Stepchild 2 - £50 (I'm not supposed to know about this one)
Mil Mother's Day meal £42
Beer and wine for night away at sisters birthday -£35. Excessive in hindsight.
Sisters birthday present and card -£42 (high because of Christmas present failure)
Groceries Sainsbury - £6.90
Groceries Morrison - 1.39
My mums Mother's Day planter £9

Total £236.29:eek:

Saintliness- 0/10

117pauline

Hi BoP

Thanks for popping by my diary. Your user name always makes me smile, so thanks again.

Have you a budget for presents? I think it's easy to under-estimate how much we spend on events like Mothers Day.

Is there anyway you can claw back some of the overspends by some frugal meals?

Also re the step-children. I would almost suggest a budget category for them. My Ex still subs them a considerable amount even though they are in their late 20s/ early 30s and in full time employment.

I think 0/10 is very harsh though. Give yourself some credit, woman!

I have promised myself to post regularly again so no doubt we will be meeting on these boards in the near future.

Take care honey, have a great week
Pauline

boxofpaws

Cumbria_lass wrote: »

If he doesn't like the shifts , can he change back ?

If the job that hes currently in stays as it is, I am sure he would be able to go back. But we have a strong suspicion that it may change in any case, so he would be on shifts either way. Might as well look all accommodating if the outcome will be the same.


He did shifts for a few years before and he was ok with it. It's not perfect but its ok.

117pauline wrote: »

Hi BoP

Thanks for popping by my diary. Your user name always makes me smile, so thanks again.

Have you a budget for presents? I think it's easy to under-estimate how much we spend on events like Mothers Day.

Is there anyway you can claw back some of the overspends by some frugal meals?

Also re the step-children. I would almost suggest a budget category for them. My Ex still subs them a considerable amount even though they are in their late 20s/ early 30s and in full time employment.

I think 0/10 is very harsh though. Give yourself some credit, woman!

I have promised myself to post regularly again so no doubt we will be meeting on these boards in the near future.

Take care honey, have a great week
Pauline

Thanks for dropping in Pauline.


The step children don't really ask for a lot in the grand scheme of things and we never had any money at all when they were growing up so there is a bit of guilt associated with that. So I do think that even though it might take us a bit longer to pay everything back, we should be able to help them out every now and then. I know there have been a couple of situations where if my Dad hadn't bailed me out, we would have been in the mire. I think we might monitor it though and try to limit to £100 per month. In fact, I think that's what the husband has done, he sent money to 2 of his sons and when his daughter asked for some, he said it was already gone.


His daughter doesn't work full-time so its in her gift to earn more money if she needs it, so I don't really feel bad at saying no to her.


Re the food, I think I was inadvertently already taking your advice. I have sorted out dinner for 2 nights with some mince and made soup for a few lunches. I think we could do a jacket potato meal as well. I have a gammon joint that should do some lunches and dinners.


You always give such sound advice, thank you for doing that now, even when your situation is far from ideal.


See you over at yours!

boxofpaws

Just a quick update of totals, I haven't done that for a while


Barclaycard £ 5,788.71
Lloyds £ 1,202.05
MBNA £ 3,725.00
Tesco £ 6,599.98
Tesco £ 5,500.09
MBNA £ 5,688.75

Total £ 28,504.58

EF - 1176

Offset total £ 27,328.58


You may have gathered that I am logging all spends here, to keep me spending mindfully. Once we have applied for the new mortgage (and hopefully got a bit of a payrise), I will redo the SOA with the new payments, and more accurate spending. Then once a month or so, I will do a round-up of all debts, the EF and the mortgage.


Thats the plan

boxofpaws

I know I am being a bit of a bore about the remortgage, but I have had another thought (dont worry, its not about consolidating)


Current monthly payment is £1165, and remaining term is 17 years. If we remortgage the balance, with a much better interest rates, our monthly payment will go down by about TWO HUNDRED POUNDS for the same term. If we shortened the term to about 13 years, the payment would remain the same.


Once we remortgage, the most expensive debt will be our mortgage. However, we definitely won't overpay the mortgage if we take it out over 17 years because I am so desperate to pay off the consumer debt. But if we shortened the term, effectively we wouldnt really notice.


So should we shorten the term?

Suffolk_lass

If you can afford that £200 each month - yes! If you need it to build your emergency fund - no. Once your emergency fund reaches 6 months bills, you could start overpaying by £200 per month (or more, if your consumer debt has gone by then).