Journey to £0 by 2020, with a few bumps along the way

Blackcats

Ps - please feel free to send me a personal message if you want to - happy to help

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Good luck!

Jox

Hope the interview goes / went well!
I don't know if you can claim for work from home tax relief but it's a few worth a few pounds if you can, I've claimed for mine, backdated it to 23/3/2020. You need a government gateway log in
https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

chelseablue

No job offer yet, had an interview on Friday which seemed to go well and they said I’d hear this week. 

It’s an Office Manager/PA role but it’s a job share role so 3 days a week. Temporary until July but could go permanent as the lady who usually does the job returns from maternity leave then and has indicated she only wants to come back 2 days a week. 

Don’t want to think about the massive drop in salary if I got it! 

Also applied to join the police as a call handler, done 1 assessment just waiting to hear back. Would really love to do that! 

Loan is now at £3,924. Got my redundancy pay out yesterday so can pay it off but would rather have a permanent job first. 

enthusiasticsaver

Hope you get something soon.  It must be tough.  Presumably less issues with childcare though at the moment. A good idea to let the loan run even if you have savings/redundancy money to cover it.  Is your husband still enjoying his new job? 

chelseablue

Yes he loves it just me having zero luck. I’ve also applied to be a police officer but I’ve heard that’s so competitive to get into 

chelseablue

I'm thinking of just going for it and using some of the savings to pay off my loan and my husbands loan, this will mean we will be £314 a month better off

If we did there would still be £25,000 left in the savings account 

enthusiasticsaver

I think if you have £25k left, your husband is in a relatively stable job and getting rid of that monthly outgoing reduces any shortfall in monthly spending then paying them off sounds a good idea.  £25k is a good emergency fund.  Are you eligible for any benefits or are you just living on your husbands wage?

chelseablue

enthusiasticsaver said:

I think if you have £25k left, your husband is in a relatively stable job and getting rid of that monthly outgoing reduces any shortfall in monthly spending then paying them off sounds a good idea.  £25k is a good emergency fund.  Are you eligible for any benefits or are you just living on your husbands wage?

I can definitely get Job Seekers Allowance which is £300 every 4 weeks. 
This is paid for a maximum of 6 months 
Will also do a claim for Universal Credit. I doubt we'd be entitled but you never know 

Sarahwithlove

For UC if you have over 16k in savings you won't get help. JSA is only because it will be contribution based so based on you having paid national insurance for last 2 years
I'd just go ahead and pay the loan off as that's a lot per month to not have to pay out it's basically your JSA.