Small Steps Out Of Massive Debt!

WinterWarrior

Amazing win, well done! 

GeorgianaCavendish

Kakiste said:

Wow! That's so much more than any savings account interest rate.

I think that’s the interest paid for the next decade - at least! 😂 

GeorgianaCavendish

WinterWarrior said:

Amazing win, well done! 

Thank you! I’m so happy 😁 

Humdinger1

@GeorgianaCavendish congratulations on completing and on the PBs! In the old days, you might have frittered that away several times over perhaps and now look at you! Go you love Humdinger xx 

GeorgianaCavendish

Humdinger1 said:

@GeorgianaCavendish congratulations on completing and on the PBs! In the old days, you might have frittered that away several times over perhaps and now look at you! Go you love Humdinger xx 

Thank you @Humdinger1 ! That is so true, in the time it took to reach my bank account I would have spent it all and then some! It feels weird to just leave it there for when I need it - without thinking of hundreds of things that I want / need / deserve. 

I guess the message has finally got through to that spendy insecure part of my brain that more than stuff, I “deserve” not to feel panicked and terrified about money all the time. I don’t feel like I NEED to spend it because I can’t be trusted, and otherwise it will just disappear on inconsequential stuff when I’m not looking. 

EssexHebridean

GeorgianaCavendish said:

£500 win on PBs today! It is going to stay reinvested in the EF for now, but may take it out for building works later. Can't believe it  

Wowee - that's brilliant! Congrats - how exciting! 

enthusiasticsaver

Congratulations on the new house and the premium bonds. Lots of exciting stuff for you to look forward to. 

GeorgianaCavendish

Quick update on the pension stuff. Payroll at work have confirmed that they do not apply higher rate tax relief and it is up to me to claim that. I called HMRC and they said to write a letter with the details and send it in to them together with proof of the contributions. I found a template letter online, so I sent that off and am waiting for a response. Fingers crossed!  

GeorgianaCavendish

May 2022 Round Up 

Savings
Start-Up Savings - 100%
Roof Repairs - 100%
House Repairs - 29.37% 

Extra Income 
Prolific Academic - £54.50
Ipsos I-Say - £20.00 (Amazon vouchers)
TopCashBack - £14.27
Credit Card Rewards - £8.00 (M&S vouchers)
Focus Groups - £84.00
Interest on Savings - £3.20
Premium Bonds - £500.00


No Spend Days 
20 / 16 in May
Target for June = 15 NSD 

GeorgianaCavendish

At the end of my first month of home ownership  The first mortgage payment has gone out, so it feels really real now! 

So, the roof has been finished and we are really pleased with the result. It also came in about £1000 under budget so that was great! The asbestos survey was done as well, and although we had several areas of suspected asbestos it is only present in one of the ceilings. Luckily we are not planning to do much to this room, so we won't need to remove this for quite a while. 

We're in the process of getting quotes for the rest of the work and coordinating on timelines with them. I'm feeling optimistic that we'll be able to get quite a bit of it done over the summer. We've also got an enormous list of projects that we are doing ourselves, we made a start a couple of weeks ago and will hopefully be making good progress over the Jubilee weekend. 

I had a great month for extra income thanks to a PB win! I also did another focus group so that was a good boost too. Now that the first bills have come through, I've got much better idea of our budget and how much can be saved towards house repairs. We've got nearly 30% of the total but there is a very long way to go - once we've got the quotes and schedules worked out then I can break it down into smaller goals. 

On the financial to-do list this month is to follow up on the pension tax relief claim (if I haven't heard back after the long weekend). I would also like to do a bank account switch for an incentive payment, but I'm going to leave this until the middle of the month to make sure that the direct debits all go through ok. The last thing to do is a joint credit card for all the house expenses (although, I'm not sure if you can have a joint credit card? So adding one of us as an additional cardholder). We'd like to pick one with some rewards so I'll do some shopping around to see what offers are out there  

I've got a few changes with my personal budget over the next 3 months, with some expenses reducing temporarily - I'm going to divide this between our August holiday, house repairs and a small cushion in these categories before they increase to normal in September.