My 5 year plan

fatrab

I am in a state of shock this evening.

Someone who owed me money since 2013 just played me half of it! It was a refund for part of our wedding photos which the photographer messed up. That's going to help this month, couldn't have come at a better time!

He's promised the other half next month but I am not holding my breath waiting for it.

Result!

supersaver1000

fatrab wrote: »

Cost of vehicle would be around £4500.

Any thoughts?

Is the cost of the vehicle offset by selling your wife's car? Otherwise I'm thinking that if you have to outlay the £4500 for the car purchase which cuts costs by £1200 a year, you wouldn't actually see any benefit until year 4. That's not accounting for any big repairs or upkeep.

It definitely makes sense though to have a vehicle each that you can interchange depending on the weather/mileage.

fatrab

Yes, essentially that would be the plan, and if the wife's 4x4 was sold already it would be a no-brainer. My only concern is that if her current car takes a while to sell we'd be paying for 3 cars for a little while. My intention with the small car would be to buy it cheap-ish through the trade, run it for a year, keep it clean and sell it on for little or no loss. I used to do this year on year and generally it pays off.

We can beg borrow and steal from other places to raise the capital for the 3rd car (not taking any loans, overdrafts or credit cards) and it would save me money by month 2 after tax and insurance are paid out in full initially. Then once we sell the 4x4, return the monies used to buy the small car.

It's a bit of a gamble as the 4x4 is a bit of a marmite car, folk seem to either love 'em or hate 'em so it might take a while to sell. Personally I like the big thing but it's just not practical any more and it's expensive to run.

I put the feelers out yesterday and have been offered 2 very suitable cars already so I'm not going to struggle to find something when the time comes. I have around a month to think about it as the weather is still a bit patchy up here and I can't see me wanting to stop using my car any time soon, plus Mrs doesn't go back to work until 2nd April to hopefully the 4x4 will sell by then.

I was determined to offset the damage done by my tax bill this year, and if this idea pays off then I will have achieved that. Fingers crossed!

fatrab

I've used some of the money received last night to advertise the car on Auto Trader so hopefully that'll get better results than the free pages on FB, Gumtree etc.


It's the cheapest one in Scotland, and the second cheapest for it's age and mileage in the UK and there's not a lot of them for sale so hopefully it'll stand out. It's also a desirable colour and the top of the range model so again, fingers crossed!

JoJoC

Hope you get the car sold nice and quickly, avoiding the crazies that seem to be coming your way!

No advice on the buying and selling of cars, but I hope you find a solution that works best for you

fatrab

Morning! Well Friday is here again and it's almost payday - woo hoo!

Earlier this month I banked my January expenses so I added the remainder of the money I received the other night to it and paid next month's rent in advance. That puts me a little step ahead which is a situation I've not been in for a long time. Feels good

Mrs fatrab also made a contribution to the pot today even though she's on statutory maternity pay, as I think she could see me stressing with the tax bill last month and the final bill for CC1 this month, which will be paid on Tuesday. Assuming nothing goes awry over the next 4 weeks I'm going to be in a position to start hitting this debt mountain by March's payday.

One thing I did today though (I know it's only 8.30am but it's been a productive morning) is increase my pension contribution. Like many other employers, mine will match employee contributions up to 8% so that's exactly what I've done. It's not going to give me a millionaire lifestyle when the time comes but I'll be able to add more to it once the mortgage is paid off and my feet are clear.

Feeling positive heading into the weekend, have a free day out to a car show on Sunday and some decorating to get on with around the house. Once I finish painting the kitchen I need to start stripping the wallpaper in the hall. It's woodchip and I think it's been there since time began so that'll be fun!

Have a great weekend

fatrab

Morning all, just a little update for the weekend.


Not lost any weight this week which has annoyed me a wee bit, but I'll just need to make more of an effort this week. Also not managed to touch the decorating as I got home on Friday and could feel myself coming down with something, I had the shivers and felt terrible all day yesterday but I'm feeling better this morning thankfully.


So it's been another quiet weekend so far, hardly been out the door. I'm off out to wash Mrs' car this morning before the car show and I'll pop up some "For Sale" signs on it while it's there, hopefully another petrolhead will see it.


Cheers!

supersaver1000

Good luck with the car sale. Hopefully you can sell your wife's car before you have to lay out for the new one. It sounds like there are plenty of cars around of the type you are after, so I guess it all depends on whether you could be without one vehicle if you sell and then have to look around. But it could take some of the risk away.

I don't know what car hire is like where you are but might be a thought if you sell then have a bit of a gap? I hired a brand new VW golf for £95/7 days earlier this month and I can get a van for around £19/day. Its saving us having to buy a second car for dd as I don't need a car every day and neither does she, so I hire one when there's a clash. I used Budg3t to start with, but am using a local firm next week as they are more flexible. They only have a £350 excess rather than £1k like the big firms so I'm considering whether to have an excess cover with this new firm - its only about £3 online so I might still get it.

I'm sure it will all work out, what's the worst thing that could happen? Would there be a possibility of not selling your wife's car at all?

fatrab

We'd be better off financially with one car but Mrs is adamant that she "needs" one, but dropping down to one car temporarily wouldn't be the end of the world. I certainly wouldn't need to hire one. Father in law's car doesn't turn a wheel and they live a few minutes walk from us so it could be borrowed if necessary on occasion.


With the next round of bad weather forecast I'm happy to keep using my car for the next month and see what the weather is like by end of March, that would be the ideal time for me to get something more economical. So fingers crossed we get a sale in the mean time

fatrab

Last week's spending stats:

Fuel - 53%
Car Advert - 37%
Shopping - 10%

This week's mini-goal is to only spend on fuel and shopping. Should be easy enough to achieve (I hope!)

Updated SOA for March and one more day until CC1 is terminated!