Small Steps Out Of Massive Debt!

GeorgianaCavendish

Thank you @astrocytic_kitten @Sunshine_girl2 @Fortune_Smiles  

GeorgianaCavendish

martinbainbridge1975 said:

GeorgianaCavendish said:

Ah, that's good to know - thank you @peb !

not sure if you know this one but o2 use to do a pay and go sim if you topped up by £10 it gave about 3-500 minutes and so many texts. worth considering. also play the retention department tricks with the existing provider as they will always move on the price when you are out of contract

Thank you @martinbainbridge1975 that is really good to know about! 

I did find a good O2 deal via MSE that was £8 for unlimited calls & texts and I think 15GB data. Hopefully that is still available when I'm able to switch.  For now, I've added a data bundle to my existing Pay Monthly with Tesco which is £2.50 for another 8GB of data without needing a credit check and then when completion happens next month (fingers tightly crossed!) I can switch over to a more favourable deal It seemed like the £2.50 bolt-on was the cheapest way of getting extra data in the short term, definitely cheaper than going over my data allowance and needing to buy even 1GB extra at that point (when they charge something ridiculous like £5). That makes my bill £10 p/m for now so not too bad in the scheme of things ... makes me annoyed with myself for all the years when I was paying £35+ just for the SIM (not the handset)   

GeorgianaCavendish

Currently researching the best current account for DH & I to have for joint expenses (again, won't be opening this until the ink is definitely dry on the house purchase - so just research at this stage). 

I like Virgin's current account with the linked savings account - the interest rates on both are really good and I like the functionality on the savings account where I can create pots for different savings goals. They also do cashback on card purchases but as I don't use my V current account for spending I'm not sure how this works in practice.
I think that Halifax had cashback on bills so I'll have a look at that. I don't want to pay a fee for an account, and I'd ideally like the savings pots functionality on either the account or a linked saving account ... 

EssexHebridean

We're currently using a S@nt@nder 123-lite account - and really like it. You can open (as far as I can gather, limitless numbers of) e-saver accounts attached for savings pots, and of course if your main bills come from it it pays enough cashback to balance off the £2 a month fee. The app is easy to use, it doesn't make you have a card reader to verify transactions, and the main online banking is simple to navigate. Even without mortgage payments going out we get enough on the cashback to mean we're a bit up overall. 

Congrats on the exchange - when is completion set for?! So excited for you! 

GeorgianaCavendish

Thanks EH, that’s the one I was thinking of when I said Halifax (no idea why that got lodged in my mind!). It sounds good, especially with the cashback for bills. 

I will play with the cashback calculator on their website and see how it would work out for us 😊 
Exchange is in 4 weeks - exciting times coming! 

Humdinger1

So excited for you @GeorgianaCavendish! Always read your diary and what a journey you have been on.  Do you feel that your resemblance to your namesake is vastly reduced compared with where you began? Love Humdinger x 

WinterWarrior

Oh, just catching up and see you’ve exchanged. Fabulous news ⭐️

GeorgianaCavendish

Humdinger1 said:

So excited for you @GeorgianaCavendish! Always read your diary and what a journey you have been on.  Do you feel that your resemblance to your namesake is vastly reduced compared with where you began? Love Humdinger x 

Thank you so much @Humdinger1 ! It certainly has been a journey   I feel hugely different to when I started this journey, in the beginning I felt as though I had no control at all - money seemed to behave in inexplicable ways that always ended up catching me out and making me the loser (much like her ladyship and her enormous debts!). I had come to the uncomfortable realisation that many things I wanted to do would be prevented by my poor money management and I needed to sort it out. I think that now I'm very aware of the emotional side of overspending and what leads me to make poor financial decisions, and I've got other strategies in place to cope with those things and also more knowledge about personal finances so I am more empowered to choose the better alternative. 
Like her ladyship, I think the potential for a spending blow out is always going to be there in the back of my mind, but because I know it is always lurking I can see it as what it is - sneaky addictive behaviour looking for a tiny crack to worm its way into my life. But as I can see it for what it is, I hope that I can keep it at bay  

GeorgianaCavendish

Thank you very much @WinterWarrior  

GeorgianaCavendish

March 2022 Round Up 

Savings
Start-Up Savings - 100%
Roof Repairs - 66.09%

Extra Income 
Prolific Academic - £84.34
Ipsos I-Say - £20.00 (Amazon vouchers)
Shoppix - £10.00
Premium Bonds - £25.00
Interest on savings - £14.26 (includes Virgin savings interest which is paid quarterly)

No Spend Days 
18 / 15 in Mar
Target for Apr = 15 NSD 

Decluttering Campaign 
22/365 items decluttered  
(zero progress from end of January   ) 

We have exchanged! Completion will take place at the end of April, so we've got another 4 weeks breathing space to add to the savings pot. Exciting times but also nerve wracking because the house does need extra work done ... we're planning to do a lot of the work ourselves but some things (the roof and the electrics) we need professional help. 

DH's dad is out of hospital and doing much better. He's got a lot of appointments to come, and a ton of new medication, but we are so pleased to have him home and he's slowly getting back to normal. It was a frightening and stressful time, so we're just pleased to have him home. 

I had my annual bonus paid this month which was very welcome and has given a boost to my savings. 90% of it went towards the roof fund (I feel like I need one of those fundraising thermometer charts!) but with the remaining 10% I split it between our August holiday, the buildings insurance which was due on exchange, padded some of my personal budget categories to give me 6 weeks wiggle room, and made a very small extra payment into my emergency fund. 

We amended our holiday plans, we're going for less time now and cut out one of the spots on our trip completely, but it has saved 6.5% of the cost of the roof so it was worth doing. (I have a new unit of measurement for all spending - % of a roof!) 

I've refined my savings targets above a bit because I was getting confused - we've now got the full amount of "Start Up Costs" which includes : that extra large first month's mortgage payment (1.5x more than usual); insurance policies (minus buildings, which has been paid already), my best estimate of first month's bills; cost of installing broadband etc. As I mentioned before, I've padded this fund a bit with the idea that surplus can be moved over towards the roof fund but honestly with the cost of living rises, I think we may well need all the money I've allocated here. 

The roof fund is counted separately now, and we are 66% of the way there. The roof work is starting in May and we would like to be able to pay for this from savings made without needing to borrow any money. We do have options for borrowing (DH's parents have offered us 15K which we would repay over 5 years) but I think we'll be able to cover the cost of the roof ourselves and then save this other money for electrics and plumbing. We have pretty scary ballpark figures for rewiring and replumbing, but until we get in there we don't know the full extent of what needs to be done nor how urgently it needs to be sorted. So I'm keeping it at the back of my mind for now 

On my personal budget - I've cut back some of my regular expenses and have been able to make 40% savings in two categories but I won't really feel the benefit of this until next month. One of these categories will end completely in July, so that will give a bit extra a month to reallocate somewhere (probably towards the house). I have used some of that 10% from my bonus to "age" the money in these categories so I'm now budgeting 6 - 8 weeks in advance instead of 2-4 weeks. Because I started buying super-advance rail tickets the month before commuting started, and with the injection of cash from my bonus, I'm in a fortunate position of being able to snap up the super-advance tickets as soon as they become available for purchase (about 11 weeks ahead of travel) . I've already noticed some increases in the prices of one of my return journeys so it is something to keep an eye on for sure but for now the super-advance seems to be working better than the Flexi Season ticket would. 

I had a good month on Prolific, even though it started slow. I also got to a £10 reward with Shoppix (my second cash out since I started using it in mid-2020) and I'm getting close to a cash out with Storewards and getting closer with YouGov (although that has slowed down as well). I managed to get another £20 Amazon vouchers via Ipsos this month and am 200 points away from another one. I've decided to save these up towards Christmas presents for my nieces and godchildren, if I manage to reach that target then I'll borrow an idea from @EssexHebridean and get an iTunes voucher to pay for a year's worth of my iCloud storage plan (79p a month, but still ....) IPSOS have been a bit cheeky with the screening out after too many questions, I often let it go but I got screened out of one when I had answered 75% of the survey so I appealed that and got the full points added to my balance instead of the 3 points you get as a "thanks for trying" reward.

Thank you to @astrocytic_kitten for the recommendation about checking with my employer on a Microsoft subscription, I do qualify for one via my work. I haven't fully checked out the details yet because my existing one has 2 months to go but I will look into that more during April, and all being well I can reallocate the money in that savings pot over to something else (again, probably house repairs!) 

I switched my savings over to my Virgin savings account as they raised their interest rate to 1%. I saw Chase are offering 1.5% but you need a linked current account and I don't want to do any credit applications until the mortgage is completely sorted - I'll keep an eye on it though! 

I added a data bolt-on to my phone package, so now I'm paying £10 a month. Once the mortgage is sorted, I will likely try to switch this to something cheaper (MSE had an £8 deal with O2) but I need to be careful on network coverage because the new house is in a weird spot for a lot of networks, so will think about this nearer the time. My phone battery doesn't seem to be doing too well on the days I'm commuting but I wonder if this is just because I've forgotten what it is like to be away from a power source for so long! I think I'll start a savings pot towards a new phone anyway because my phone is now 4 years old, so seems like a good idea to put some money aside so I'm not caught out.

MSE tasks for April include sending my old stamps off to Royal Mail to swap for the barcode ones - I'll check with my parents and my in-laws to see if they've got any to send at the same time. I'm glad RM backtracked on withdrawing the Christmas and limited edition stamps as I've got quite a few of these, but I've also got a couple of books of standard stamps that I won't use before the deadline (I got these as compensation for how rubbish my RM Redirect service was at first, I don't usually keep such a big supply of stamps). And I'm going to open a retirement stocks & shares LISA in the new tax year. I'm still not sure about savings in this vs adding to my pension, and beyond what I need to open the account, I don't think I'll be saving much into it at all this year but I've only got a few months left until I'm too old to open one - so I think I would rather keep my options open by having the account and deciding if/how I'm going to use it later.