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

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 82: Day 6

Hello! Just popping on for a quick catch up as I don't think I'll get a chance tomorrow, and then we'll be into another new week.

We have had a day just pootling around the house and town today, and it has been wonderful - so nice to slow down! I have instigated a 1hr family clean up session on Saturday mornings, with the aim that I have less to do during the week, and that went surprisingly well, then DH occupied the DCs while I got on with some admin work and briefly met them in town. Must must must get better about saying no to plans so we can have more days like that.

A busier one tomorrow - we are driving to a christening (well, I and the DCs - DH is going away for work). I bought a gift that was both nice and cheap (this book), which I was pleased with - I'm not religious, so a token gift feels fine for a christening to me.

A question about balance transfers - the balance transfer has gone through to Santander. When are we likely to get a statement? Will it be a month after the balance transfer do we think? Or the 1st of next month? Or sooner? I'm basically wondering whether we actually need to pay the usual minimums off the debt this month - the balance transfer (from Barclaycard to Santander) went through before the Barclaycard statement date, which means we only had to pay £82 as a minimum payment on the remaining balance of the Barclaycard, and I'm wondering whether it will be October before Santander sends out a statement. Obviously I know we should pay the full £244 that we budget for the Barclaycard each month off the debt, but I'm wondering about diverting some of this into the 'spend some time together' fund for DH and I, as there isn't realistically any spare for that, and even £50 would cover two nice brunches out, which would be two more than we managed across the whole of last year! Things are so much better over the past couple of weeks and I think we both really want to keep it going, and a bit of indulgent time together would be lovely (and by 'indulgent' I mean 'a £10 fry up and coffee' :rotfl: ).

Ordered DC1's birthday presents today - the ones that I couldn't get locally. I won't pretend it was the must budget friendly order ever, but the presents total is under £150 for everything - the main gift from us, plus a couple of little ones from DC2 and 3, and a couple of books from us too. The actual party will be dirt cheap - just the cost of camping (£20 I think) plus any special cake decorating bits needed (I have a pretty good stash of food dye, piping nozzles etc though, so not anticipating a big spend) - which makes a change as we have spent a small fortune in the past. The birthday pot is going to be very slightly in the red, but the next birthdays within our immediate family aren't for a few months.

I got paid for some work yesterday so am inching closer towards October's income goal, but still an alarmingly long way to go. Have got a big provisional client booking which I'm keeping fingers crossed about as it will cover about another £300 of the income I need.

To do this week
1. Try on uniforms and triple check the DCs have everything they need for the new school year (I am 99% sure they do, but panicking nonetheless as I haven't actually yet opened the bag of new uniform).
2. Check birthdays for September and write cards.
3. Make veg soup.
4. Make rolls.
5. Confirm balance transfer has actually gone through after DH phoned on the weekend.
6. Find a couple of alternatives to current architect to obtain quotes from.
7. Read planning officer email regarding drainage and establish how much of a rush we are in to sort a drainage query raised on there.
8. Properly clean and tidy a few rooms that are looking particularly grim:
(a) sitting room.
(b) dining room.
(c) kitchen.
(d) our bedroom.
(e) utility room.
9. Go through cupboards and menu plan appropriately - SO MUCH food in the house right now, although not much fruit and veg. Plan in food shopping deliveries/top up shops in town.
10. Make tealights (I saved all the empty tealight cups from the last batch we had, and bought some little tealight wicks, in an effort to reduce, reuse and recycle!).
11. Get rid of charity shop stuff lurking in the utility room.
12. Shop local for DC1's birthday presents, leaving time to order online for anything I can't find.
13. Pack orders for smaller business.
14. Contract work for next week.
15. Update work mileage tracker with journeys last week.
16. Restart social media for work, even if it's just one or two posts this week to get back in the swing.
17. Clear work email enquiries - lots of enquiries coming to nothing at the moment, but hopefully some clients will confirm work soon.

Wow look, I've done everything :T and it's only Saturday! Clearly I needed more to do. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

September money goals:
- £10.14/30 September rounding down pot.
- £3,766.98/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £124/864 income needed for October.

PositiveBalance

When I transferred from my old CC to Santander recently I didn't get a bill for the first month, much to my surprise. However, I think it is to do with the billing cycle and when the transfer occurs in relation to the billing date so call them and check so you don't end up having a nasty surprise.

Well done on keeping all the plates juggling. Now go spend some time with your OH. X


P. S. LOVE the book and will be buying a copy for the new daughter of a physicist and granddaughter of a physics lecturer. :rotfl:

Suffolk_lass

I think you should budget to pay the normal minimum payment on the residual on the Barclaycard - you and DH are already appreciating your frugal dates - there is plenty of time to increase the budget when you have certainty - and the last thing you want is a black mark on your credit record before you go for the extension and need to remortgage

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 83: Day 1

Well it's nice that we appreciated the car passing the MOT. Yesterday it started belching black smoke and losing power every time we went uphill . Couldn't get above 30 uphill on the dual carraigeway/motorway, which was a bit anxiety inducing. I was by myself with the DCs and it was a very unrelaxing drive to and from the christening. Going to phone the garage this morning and get them to take a look at it. AGAIN.

So I won't be making any assumptions about what I'll be doing with any extra money at all, since I'm going to need to hire a car for work this Friday if the garage can't see it before then (which will wipe out 70% of my profit from the day). I'm really :mad: about the whole thing - I really thought we might get more than six days use out of it after a full service! I'm going to stamp my foot a bit and hopefully they'll at least check it for free, since really any major issues should (presumably?!) have been picked up when they serviced it a week ago. I know it's not their fault that it's an old car with high mileage, but I feel like going so catastrophically wrong six days after a service isn't quite the done thing.

Ugh. That aside, it's another week, another ton of stuff to do. Feeling a bit stressed despite a lovely weekend, which is mostly down to the car, partly down to DH being away and everything being on my shoulders and partly down to needing to speak to some more people for quotes for the extension drawings so we can move forward with it. And also the really nice builder we met who promised a quote by the weekend hasn't delivered a quote, which has annoyed me disproportionately because I am annoyed about everything else.

I'm in the frame of mind where once upon a time I would have booked a day out with a friend (shopping or a meal out or a spa) for when DH was back home, taken a day off work and spent the money without guilt. And now I can't even relax enough to do that because of the cost/lack of earning. ARGHHHHH when do we get to take a break from it all?! In a decade or three, I guess.

Since it would be nice to interject some good news, I'm going to mention the fact that we spent hardly any money all weekend, as we had vouchers for ice cream to use on Saturday and didn't need to spend any money at the christening party yesterday. That's all I've got for positive things right now!

Right, rant over, back to the here and now. Job list for the week....

To do this week
1. Sort the car!!!
2. Phone the potential extension drawing chap who replied to my enquiry email last week.
3. Find at least one other extension drawing person to get a quote from.
4. Chase first builder for a quote.
5. DH to phone another builder for a quote.
6. Contract work for next week.
7. Contract work for the following week.
8. Make cake etc for DC1 birthday party.
9. Stick to social media schedule for work.
10. Pack orders for smaller business.
11. Make some packed lunch supplies - quiche, savoury muffins etc.
12. Piece of work for client A.
13. Piece of work for client B.
14. Life coaching check in.
15. Swim club subs.
16. Snack subs for DC3.
17. Clear the ironing mountain.
18. Order trainers and another pair of school trousers for DC2 (why do they keep growing?!).
19. Top up fruit and veg shop.
20. Contemplate the upside of the house/car/work stress, which has meant losing 2lb over the past week. If I can keep the stress levels up my 'how do I lose weight?' crisis may be averted :rotfl: .

September money goals:
- £10.14/30 September rounding down pot.
- £3,766.98/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £124/864 income needed for October.

Sea_Shell

Oh no!!!!!! I feel really guilty that I somehow jinxed you now.:(:(

CathT

Fingers crossed for the car TOPM.

Treadingonplaymobil

The garage can at least look at it tomorrow morning, so I can hold off booking a hire car until we know whether it's fixable. I'm at the stage of wondering whether we should still get rid - if it can be fixed for a couple of hundred quid, but has a year's MOT and fresh service, we might be able to get £800 or something for it (no idea if that's realistic - it's a 2004 Mondeo estate in fairly dreary condition with a couple of dents and scratches and 140K on the clock) which could be the basis of a new car fund. I can't make that choice without talking to DH though, as it's him who uses it for commuting.

graemec23

Hi Just wanted to say that I have enjoyed reading your blog and wanted to ask a quick question.

I seem to have missed when you arranged for additional lending on your mortgage to pay off your bank loan. When was this? I'd be interested to read about this and get any other comments you had about the process etc.

My situation is quite similar to yours.
Slightly younger kids
Higher unsecured debt (~£40k)
Lower Mortgage (£120k - 50% equity)
Also have a 2nd mortgage (£75k - 50% equity) on a rental property(its our old flat that we couldn't sell)

My unsecured debt is ever more eye-watering than yours!

Transferring the unsecured debt to my mortgage was not something that I had considered before, due to my high unsecured debt my credit rating is pretty poor and I figured they would have rejected any sort of request.

ellen_vannin

Maybe you could get a quote for the car from one of these buying sites where you just put in the reg. number.

Then you will be able to take a decision based on the facts.

Does not seem right that anything major not picked up when the service was done.

Moreplease

Quick question on your budget pots - are they actual pots (different bank accounts) or do you keep a spreadsheet and break the pots down on there? ☺️