£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 73: Day 1

Whew, back and catching up after a hectic weekend. So lovely to see family though.

I am so relieved we're in a new month and my poor budgets have been reset. We're at the beginning of a new chapter, where the pressure is on to earn more each month and to have more of an awareness of where my income actually goes, rather than budgeting on a very low figure and frittering away the 'extra'. It's going to be a new way of looking at our money, and puts the pressure on me to earn it, but I'm feeling ok about that, and ready to go and make it! Even though the crazy heat meant I got TWO HOURS sleep last night. TWO HOURS. I think by about midnight I was so angry at my inability to drop off that I was never going to get to sleep even as it cooled down. The last time I looked at the clock was just before 3am, and my alarm went of at 5. I have broken away from my usual decaf tea and indulged in some caffeine this morning, but am back on the decaf now for fear of a repeat performance tonight (I think it was partly caused by drinking caffeinated tea all weekend, I am ridiculously sensitive to it these days).

In an attempt to maintain some sort of accountability, I'm going to list my savings pots below with the totals. Next month I'll note any spends and the increase/decrease. I am only listing pots that I am aiming to grow month on month, rather than every single budget category, which would be immensely dull.
£15 music lessons
£90 holidays/weekends away
£120 birthdays
£95 car maintenance
£5 dentist
£3 YNAB
£205 extension (after the payments above are accounted for)
£50 emergency fund
£18 tutor
£100 Christmas
£10 National Trust

Out of interest, I added up everything we have paid for towards the extension costs this year - almost £3k in various fees for the architect, sewer investigations, planning permission, quantity surveying, and so far we have paid out £2,999 (£915 of that in the last 24 hours for the architect and planning submission). Although I can see logically it would have been lovely to pay that off the debt, the fact is that we're moving forward with the extension, and I'm quite proud that we've managed to find every single one of those 2,999 pounds without having to put a single one on a credit card or go begging to a parent. That's on top of paying almost £3k off the debt. Yes, our budgets haven't been perfect and there's work to do, but to have reduced the pre-LBM £500pm (or more) overspend, paid nearly £3k off the debt and paid nearly £3k towards the extension, I don't think we're doing appallingly. Onwards and upwards to an even more well balanced budget though.

Remote_control assuming we get planning permission for what we want, we're looking at a large dormer upstairs (we are in a dormer bungalow and have dormer windows at the front already, but nothing at the back) and a single storey extension across the full 7m width of the back of the house, extending out about 3m. Half of that is already covered by a single storey extension, but we're not sure whether it can be incorporated or will need to be demolished - we will go with the most economical safe option. Also fairly extensive remodelling inside - moving the bottom few steps of the staircase to it starts at a difference point, moving a couple of walls, putting in two new bathrooms and a kitchen, rebuilding part of our porch and a new front door. So a fair amount! Although the house is tiny so it's not as massive a job as it sounds. Lots can be done in different stages though - the dormer is dependant on the single storey for support because it overhangs very slightly, but apart from those shells needing to be built together, a lot of the internal work and the front porch stuff can come in stages after that point. So it really depends on the budget when we start getting quotes in, which we'll begin in the next few weeks, even though they can't be finalised until the structural engineer's work is done.

To do this week
1. Practise batch of macarons when flavouring arrives.
2. Plan out the project I want to make for DC1.
3. Investigate our internet speed/usage with a view to changing to a more useful deal at some stage.
4. Check ebay listing for bike trailer and make it live.
5. Send letters to neighbours regarding planning application.
6. Book train tickets for next weekend.
7. Order vanilla pods for vanilla extract.
8. Invoice for last month's contract work and figure out how much I need to make to cover August's salary - no buffer any more!
9. Organise DC1's party - he wants an overnight camping trip nearby with two friends and DH, which should be pretty cheap if we can arrange it, so we're planning well in advance.
10. Get ahead on contract work to end of Aug.
11. Book the other camping trip we haven't booked yet!
12. Check the hand me down uniform we were given for DC3 and plan what uniform all three DCs will need for September - attempt to buy some while it's all on offer.

Mini goals:
- £1.39/31 June rounding down pot.
- £2,837/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £0/£932 extension pre-build costs projected shortfall (this is how far short we are expected to be of our £5k pre-build costs budget, taking account of the monthly savings we will be making as standard for the rest of the year).

reality_check

Do you need your tv licence? I can't imagine you ever have the time to watch tv, it's a good little saving to make if you don't need it! I think you are doing wonderful with paying debt and those extension payments made in cash! :T Xx

Gemsy81

Thats a fantastic achievement that you have paid for all that extension work on top of everything else. You are doing really well! I'm starting to learn that this is a journey, and as long as its all going in the right direction the majority of the time its not too bad!

DrSpendLittle

Really nice to read your recent diary entries (I've been off here the past couple of months) and see how your mindset has changed. You seem to be more focused and determined with this extension and whilst some may lambast you for taking on extra debt whilst already in debt, I think the extension will provide you with a much more targeted and focused reason for debt slaying. You've started off on a really good footing, by cash flowing the work to date and still paying down your existing debt. I wish you the very best of luck for the next stage!

wishingthemortgaheaway

Could
You camp in the garden for child's birthday do??? Even cheaper, and much less stressful!

BettyBoof

De-lurking to say congrats on a job well done. £3k debt cleared and £3k towards the extension is no mean feat!

Kitten868

Woohoo go TOPM! Im being very naughty putting my bonus towards having a wall removed. You need to have things go forward to keep you going while your scrimping through. Finding the extras is a great way to do it. How exciting for you. We have removed a structural wall and put in an RSJ diy so if you want any tips let me know. Planning is in!!!

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 73: Day 3

Morning! I'm pleased to report that my budget hasn't fallen on its ear yet, and I still have money in the bank :rotfl: . It was a slight fear of mine that without the daily reminder of updating here, I'd completely lose it, but so far so good.

Well yesterday I got paid for June's contract work and got a really good client booking (unusual at this time of year, so I'm very pleased). Between those I now have enough to cover August's £700 salary and £160 expenses, and am £25 into saving for September's. Although it's nowhere near as relaxing as having my three month buffer, I'm so relieved to already have August's salary ready to go. I have a big provisional booking for mid-August which should cover September's salary even if I get nothing between now and then, but because it won't be absolutely confirmed until the week before I do it, I'm not counting my chickens and am hoping to get a little further into saving for September before then. This is usually the hardest time of year for me to earn significantly more and I was expecting to rely 100% on my buffer to get me through, which has been a bit of a worry since committing to this larger budget. Fingers crossed I can pull it off.

I made an error with my budget at the beginning of the month and accounted for the same purchase twice, so I had a surprise extra bit of money (only £50!), which I have split between debt overpayment and the extension fund. Which reminds me, I haven't updated on debt totals yet this month!

£10,502.88 Barclaycard
£2,725.28 Virgin
£19,970 Parental loan
£33,198.16 Total

The mortgage stands at £191,653.71. This means a reduction in unsecured debt of £360.29, and a reduction in the mortgage of £317.73. This means that my 'net debt' figure (all my secured and unsecured debt set against the value of the house in January) is a POSITIVE number for the first time since beginning this journey. Only £118.13, and I know that's totally arbitrary because I'm not about to sell the house, but whatever, I'm enjoying it while I can. For anyone who hasn't read the whole £170+ page saga, the reason I always include my mortgage here is because I added some of my unsecured debt into my mortgage at the beginning of the year to make repayments more manageable, but it means my mortgage is very much tied up in my consumer debt figure, in my head if nowhere else!

Anyway, back to that extra cash. I forgot to account for the payment I'd made for planning permission, so the shortfall on Monday was actually only £717, not £932 as I posted. As well as making a small extra debt overpayment (all of a tenner) I was able to add to the extension pre-build fund, reducing the shortfall from £717 to £626. I'm really pleased with that, and hopefully I can keep reducing it alongside all the other budget challenges this year presents! £25 of that shortfall reduction came from a premium bonds win too, which was terribly exciting! Not quite £1m, but £25 of free money isn't to be sniffed at :T . Well done to everyone who suggested premium bonds to hold my extra cash for the extension.

In spending, rather than debt-busting, news, I booked a camping trip we committed to ages ago but didn't actually book because of the Great June Budget Collapse. It was £30 more than the £90 I had in my holiday pot, but instead of balancing it with the emergency fund money and telling myself I 'needed' to, I've left it as a negative figure in YNAB and will balance it at the end of the month when I get next month's money in. I find that seeing red numbers in YNAB is very unrelaxing, while green ones lull me into a false sense of security, even if they are only achieved by juggling money around, so I'm leaving this pot £30 short as a constant reminder that actually I don't have enough to make my budgets balance perfectly this month, and I need to offset that by having £30 less in the holiday pot next month, rather than just losing my emergency fund.

Budget recipes of the week:
- I made panzanella for dinner last night, which is a brilliant budget meal - I make it with tinned tomatoes and leftover slightly stale sourdough, so it's super-cheap. I'm sure it would be miles nicer with fresh toms, but it's perfectly acceptable with tinned - I add a dash of vinegar and sugar to up the flavour.
- Mango sorbet - I think I already mentioned this one, but two tins of mango puree and some sugar syrup (made by heating sugar and water) in the ice cream maker for 20 minutes and semi-healthy mango sorbet appears! Not super cheap at £2 for two tins, but that makes 900g, compared to £2+ for 500ml of actual sorbet.
- oatcakes - although going totally gluten free didn't eliminate DC3's tummy issues, we have found that keeping grains/processed food generally to a bare minimum helps a lot, so I have been making gluten free oatcakes for her snacks. The rest of us love them too! I buy jumbo oats for everything, and just whizz them in the magimix to make these. This is by far the best recipe I've found, although I use about 1.5x the water. Mega cheap and tasty.
- flapjacks - more oat based stuff. I don't even think about these as money saving as I make them so often, but I keep meaning to post about them. I make a couple of batches of flapjacks a week and load them with various things. I use this basic recipe, and this week's batches have (a) extra butter and cocoa powder added for chocolate flapjacks and (b) finely ground flax, chia, sesame and sunflower seeds and frozen cherries added before baking, to make more of a granola flavoured flapjack. A good way of getting the good fats from seeds into the DC too - they each take one for a school snack every day - one batch makes 16 flapjacks, although DC3 only gets one of those 16 cut in half each day rather than a full one (cruel mummy).

Wishingthemortgageaway camping in the garden won't cut it at all, but I think the campsite DH is planning is only about a tenner a night - it's fairly basic! - and only three miles away.

reality_check I have frequently campaigned to get rid of the TV license, to no avail. Even though DH and the DC don't watch it often, they refuse to admit defeat on it. And I do love the olympics/world cup/wimbledon sport coverage of big events, so I suppose it's fair enough. Much tension watching the football last night! The older two DCs were up till 10pm!

To do this week
1. Practise batch of macarons when flavouring arrives. Still hasn't arrived
2. Plan out the project I want to make for DC1.
3. Investigate our internet speed/usage with a view to changing to a more useful deal at some stage.
4. Check ebay listing for bike trailer and make it live.
5. Send letters to neighbours regarding planning application.
6. Book train tickets for next weekend.
7. Order vanilla pods for vanilla extract.
8. Invoice for last month's contract work and figure out how much I need to make to cover August's salary - no buffer any more!
9. Organise DC1's party - he wants an overnight camping trip nearby with two friends and DH, which should be pretty cheap if we can arrange it, so we're planning well in advance.
10. Get ahead on contract work to end of Aug.
11. Book the other camping trip we haven't booked yet!
12. Check the hand me down uniform we were given for DC3 and plan what uniform all three DCs will need for September - attempt to buy some while it's all on offer.

Mini goals:
- £4.47/31 June rounding down pot.
- £2,853.79/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £306/£932 extension pre-build costs projected shortfall (this is how far short we are expected to be of our £5k pre-build costs, taking account of the monthly savings we will be making as standard for the rest of the year).

Sea_Shell

Well done on the POSITIVE net worth. Here's to that figure growing and growing!!

apple_muncher

Just to say that if dc3 has gluten issues, then oats will still aggravate that as they contain a v similar protein and are often processed in places that also process gluten-containing grains. Some people cannot tolerate even gluten free oats either. Glad her tummy issues have reduced, but wanted to let you know that oats aren't gf.


(sneaks back to lurkdom)