Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

XSpender

brizzlegirl said:

Great newsy updates. Hope you're OK, you seem to be, especially on the domestic organisation front and savings. Maybe you could plan a routine for some of your next 8 weeks out (especially if DS is back at school) and see what you can 'achieve' ? I am definitely exercising more. Making it a non-negotiable. Not losing any weight tho which I am a tad sorry about, but just hoping its all hanging on as muscle

Have a good day

We are all OK and looking forward to life getting back to normal in some ways as it looks like DH is back to work this week after all.  He is so excited you would think he had a new job!  The senior managers wanted to get one of his team back in and she is cheaper than DH but his manager wants DH who is head of the department.  We are waiting to hear later today exactly what day he is going back. 

You are doing so well with the running.  I had promised myself I would be running 5k on a regular basis and working towards 10k by the end of lockdown but have only been out twice for 20 minutes!  We have a 10k trail race booked for August but I expect this won't go ahead. I find running is the only thing that helps me lose weight.  I bet you feel great and are more toned.

I wrote a long list of jobs at the beginning of lockdown and we have done many of them as well as quite a few that were not on the list.  It feels like we have got a lot lazier this last couple of weeks although we have still managed to do some tasks every day.  I will update the list and have a to do list each day for me and DS to complete including his school work, exercise, a task off the jobs list, housework and some fun stuff. I like a list, it keeps me motivated.  My running will have to be evenings and weekends until DS returns to school.  He is year 5 so no idea when that will be though I am hoping it will be in 2-3 weeks.

The utility room blind came yesterday so DH job will be to put that up today.:)

XSpender

DH is back to work full time from tomorrow 

DH has put the blind up but it needs to be taken down, trimmed and put in the recess as too narrow to look right over the window.  Expect lots of swearing and banging about.

Refund for other blind and one other refund received.  Cancellation for hotel in June has been done but refund will be to CC not current account which reduces the pot we had to put towards smallest debt and savings.  We still want to clear smallest debt in June. We will still find the funds to do this and round the savings up to the next £500 from the other refunds and May salaries as DH will be off furlough for some of it so his wages will be higher.  £147 off the CC is a good reduction of our debt on top of the monthly payment.

DH has really got the debt free bug! He wants us to go gazelle intense this year.  He is leaning towards cancelling our winter holiday and using the money to clear more debt, ban restaurants for the rest of the year and cut back where we can.  I am undecided about the holiday as we will lose the £600 deposit but if we used the rest of the holiday cost and the money we would have spent there we would probably be able to clear half our debt by the end of 2020 which would be amazing.  It is very tempting but I also think if we don’t go this year we never will as DS is getting older.  It is expensive for a 4 day trip but we an cash flow it without getting into further debt.

We filled DH car up at Mr M last night which was so much cheaper than the village garage or the one near work DH usually uses.  We will make the effort to drive the extra 2 miles there from now on.

We have a delivery coming of a massive pork joint and 30 eggs on Saturday.  I am so looking forward to roast pork for dinner on Sunday, it’s my favourite roast meat, and the piece is big enough to be cut into 3 joints.

Today’s Plans:

Walk the dog for an hour
Maths and reading homework with DS
Art/science homework with DS
Trim and rehang blind
Put up coat rack in cupboard under stairs (so I can sort it out next week)
General tidy up, wash hall floor, hoover landing and stairs

Suffolk_lass

In light of how long it has taken you to get your DH to buy into this, I would be going with his steer so that you keep him bought in. My experience of building up big treat holidays and memories for our DS is that he actually remembers very few and it is more about the time you spend together than the big ticket items.

I am going to add something quite harsh. I have followed your diary for several years (including your previous one) and over the years you have done various things but have not quite seen the debt clearance through to its conclusion. I think you have a bit of a Scarlett O'Hara mindset towards your debt and the possibility of paying down 50% in seven months is huge. Worth some serious consideration. There is B-all to do at the moment and the possibility that your plans might not be realisable because either travel restrictions or companies not surviving, may scupper them anyway. 

I hope you are not offended by my forthrightness, I want you to succeed.

enthusiasticsaver

I too would be tempted to get on board with your DH if he is now enthused to get rid of a large proportion of the debt. I think there will be disruption to holidays for sometime to come especially winter holidays when risks of infection are higher.  We are cancelling both our holidays for this year and not rebooking anything until we can see that the infection is under control worldwide.  What is the balance and the rest of the spending money? Losing £600 is not ideal but if you have to fork out £3000 and that means that your debt goes down more slowly or even remains static because you have to cashflow it then it may be worth it.  Can you transfer the deposit to another holiday next year and really make an impact on the debt this year?  How much is still outstanding? 

XSpender

I am not offended at all SL.  

I have been crunching numbers all morning looking at what the impact would be as I agree with DH that we should cancel it even though I would like to go it is a ridiculous amount to spend on a 4 day trip when we have this much debt.  DH and I both have big birthdays this year and we wanted to do something different.

I am going to leave it as it is for a couple of months and not pay any more towards it. There will be £1100 due back to us.  I am waiting as I think we will move the deposit to a week in May or October 2021 rather than lose it but don’t know what yet and we wouldn’t use the £1100 against the debt now anyway until I am back to work and we know my job is continuing.

The holiday was just under £3500 and we would have spent £2-2.5k on activities when there, food and drinks are all included.  We would have cash flowed this and not got into any more debt and would have achieved our original goal of paying £10k off the debt.  

Cancelling the holiday will mean we can clear over £15k off the debt, about 41% of the total, taking us from £38k in Jan to just over £22k by the end of the year. This would mean paying £1000/month off between August and December, using the savings fund we have accrued in lockdown (leaving £1000 for emergencies), the £1100 from the holiday as well as a few bits of refunds etc.  The thought of it taking another 2 years after this to clear the £22k is doing my head in, I want it gone in another 12-18 months which is pushing it a bit.

This is all dependant on 1) me still having a job after lockdown/in the following recession 2) finally cracking the food budget and bringing it down significantly 3) sticking to the rest of our budget 4) maintaining our new found gazelle intensity

Tomorrow morning I am going to print off some charts and colour in how much we have paid off already. DH is a visual person so I am hoping this will work better for him than YNAB and the debt payoff app we have both downloaded.

I have taken the only CC I used to use for spending out of my purse.  It was only still in there as a back up in case my work CC didn’t work (which has happened on more than one occasion) but it is now in a box upstairs with the others as I am furloughed and wont need it as a back up when I go back.

I have also swapped our energy supplier which should save £300/year.

Honeysucklelou2

To be able to clear 15k in a year would be amazing.  I’ve found using 100 squares to colour in, a good incentive.

apple_muncher

Could you let dh colour it in, so he gets a feel for how far you have already come? But make sure he colours within the lines!

Ps am sitting down in shock - did I read it right that you were going to spend 5.5 - 6k on a 4 day holiday...?!?!

XSpender

Honeysucklelou2 said:

To be able to clear 15k in a year would be amazing.  I’ve found using 100 squares to colour in, a good incentive.

It would be great 

I have used the free downloadable charts from www.debtfreecharts.com.  .  I like the path one for the total debt payoff and have done one for each sub loan on the CCs and one for each of the small retail loans.

XSpender

apple_muncher said:

Could you let dh colour it in, so he gets a feel for how far you have already come? But make sure he colours within the lines!

Ps am sitting down in shock - did I read it right that you were going to spend 5.5 - 6k on a 4 day holiday...?!?!

I am going to let DH do the colouring in, supervised of course.

Yep, £6k on a 4 day break to land of lap instead of a summer holiday to celebrate our big birthdays.  

apple_muncher

That being the land of lap with reindeer, not the one with 'specialist dancers' wouldn't it?! I understand the price tag now.