early 40s and not fabulous at all

Plush

Thanks, feeling like I'm on a slippery slope at the moment. I did spend a lot during the weekend, not only on eating out with my cousin, but also shoes, clothes, and a Christmas present.. I'm returning some stuff but once again I'm not confident I can get to the end of the month without touching the Halifax overdraft. £126 for the next 2 weeks won't cut it, even though all bills and regulars are paid. I usually budget at least £100 per week....

Nothing else to report... weight-wise I'm stable, not losing but not gaining either. Dating life is nonexistent, I don't think I've gone so long without any love interest. I must be getting old

Money_maker

I haven't followed your thread but notice that you're single so not sure why £126 wont cover two weeks if you're careful. Perhaps jump over to the old style board for some tips on economising - just till payday. Saves the o/d charges.

Plush

Money_maker wrote: »

I haven't followed your thread but notice that you're single so not sure why £126 wont cover two weeks if you're careful. Perhaps jump over to the old style board for some tips on economising - just till payday. Saves the o/d charges.

Thanks. Yes it should - IF I'm careful - but I did get to £14K+ credit card debt over 3-4 years so...

What's the old style board?

UncannyScot

Plush wrote: »

Thanks. Yes it should - IF I'm careful - but I did get to £14K+ credit card debt over 3-4 years so...

What's the old style board?

Old style Money Saving
Go to top of page and scroll through forum boards to find it.... good source of tips

Plush

Btw, I "only" get charged a flat fee of £3 for getting into overdraft.

Well, sort of - I have the Halifax Ultimate Reward account, which has a fee of £12 per month, but the fee increases to £15 in the months when go into overdraft. I pay the £12 to get other perks (ww travel and mobile insurance, and home emergency cover) - I wasn't able to find a better deal for these, but maybe I'm wrong...

Buffythedebtslayer

Hello Plush XX

you sound so much like me (except I have no children and rent, from my mother no less - so that should make you feel a bit better ) that I thought I would say hello

I haven't read anything - streaming cold flu thing and my nose is driving me mental so I have the concentration span of a nat. Will be back later to read so more

XXXX

EssexHebridean

On the bank account fee - as I recall the first thing when evaluating the worth of these is to establish whether you really need the extras that the account offers. First thing I'd question is the mobile cover - your home contents insurance would cover I would think, although there would obviously be an excess to pay - but if you're not a regular "abuser" of mobiles it might be worth just "self insuring" by putting a small amount aside each month to help towards the cost of that.

Travel insurance can be had for under £25 for the year I believe - that's based on full worldwide cover so if you're not likely to travel outside Europe it might even be less.

The home emergency cover I have no idea about but did you check to see how much it would add to your home insurance to add this on?

Absolutely agree about Old Style being ace - definitely head over there for a look.

As for your £126 - come on then, what does that need to cover? Try noting down everything you will need to spend (yes, need, not want!) and see if it will really be that tight...

117pauline

Hi Plush

What's going to get in the way of you managing on the £126?

Perhaps you could see it as a challenge to get to the end of the month. Check the cupboards and freezers so you can menu plan from them.

You have been doing well so don't let this blip take over. It's easy to think s** it I might as well spend whatever.

You sound a bit down? I think it's that time of the year when all the shops seem to be full of "buy me" messages and it' s hard to avoid it especially when the budget is tight. It's like the whole message is that you aren't a good person unless you spend a fortune.

Have a good weekend, take care
Pauline

Plush

@Essex: regarding the insurance, my contents insurance policy doesn't cover mobile and I'm known to lose phones, I had 1 claim per year or so (well ok, not every year but still). Regarding travel, I did a quote for both of us and it was much more than that but I shall check again. Home emergency cover - I tried to add that to the contents cover that I have with Barclays and it's way too much. The Ultimate Reward account fee is not small, however it also offers the fee free overdraft facility of up to £300 - which I do want to have. I will re-evaluate all my insurances but at the moment I'm paying this, between Halifax and Barclays:

£16.83 total* (£15 halifax acct fee, plus £6.83 barclays contents insurance, plus £3 barclays blue rewards acct fee, minus £8 barclays current account reward), which covers:
- ww travel insurance, including winter sports
- mobile phone insurance
- home emergency cover
- fee free overdraft of up to £300
- AA breakdown cover (which is the only one I don't need, as I don't drive, but it's included anyway)
- contents insurance

*In the months when I don't use the overdraft, the Halifax acct fee drops to £12, so the total drops to £13.83.

So far, I claimed on the mobile phone insurance and the home emergency cover and used the overdraft, but I definitely want to have travel insurance as we travel at least 2x year.

The only other insurance that I need to pay for is mortgage unemployment insurance, which is £36 per month (this would cover the mortgage payments plus house bills for 12 months in case I am made redundant). I have accident & sickness insurance, and life insurance through work. Building insurance is already included in the service charge that I pay (I own a leasehold flat).

@Pauline: for instance, I just got a note from school - school photographs £10 (cheapest in the pack) and choir concert at the O2 which is £31 (my ticket and coach travel for DD). While I have budgeted for childcare and activity clubs and school lunches, I have not budgeted for these. Well, not yet. My YNAB is up to date now and I hope by end of Dec to come up with a realistic budget for 2018, which includes these "unexpected" items.

Of course, you could argue I don't need the school photographs and DD doesn't need to go to her choir concert, after all it's not mandatory. I'm not prepared to drop that for her though.

And yes, I'm a bit down again... hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks both!

Plush

On a different note, I've been thinking about adding the credit card to the mortgage. I posted a detailed message in the mortgage section but no one replied so I've deleted it for now.

My mortgage fixed rate is expiring in July next year, and I'm thinking about remortgaging. The flat is leasehold and there are 92 years left, and I think it's a good idea to extend the lease now (when I have a job and costs to extend lease are still relatively low, meaning less than £10K). However, I don't have £7-8K sitting around and I cannot borrow more from my mortgage lender (Halifax) because of the current CC debt. However, if I add all the CC debt to the mortgage, I should be able to pay off the cc debt completely and also borrow to extend the lease.

I've done the maths and monthly repayments (including overpayments!) would be less than I'm paying now, even with the extra £20K debt added to the mortgage. Well, assuming that mortgage rates don't increase by more than .25 by the time I remortgage. My LTV is quite good, even with the extra debt added to the mortgage, LTV would still less than 60% so I now qualify for much better interest rates. I got really lucky with my flat purchase, bought it at the right time, and its value is much higher than 5 years ago. I couldn't afford to buy it now.

However, I don't know if it's a good idea to add the CC debt to the mortgage.. so I will try to re-post a message in the Mortgage section with less details and simpler questions (those brokers in the Mortgage section only seem to respond to shorter posts/pointed questions).