My 5 year plan

fatrab

Morning,

Last night I had a look over the car finance figures (6.9%) versus the personal loan figures (3.1%) and I definitely made the right move overpaying the car finance first.

The total amount of interest payable on the loan is £483.36, I saved more than that with my first overpayment. I'm looking forward to finding out what effect the second overpayment has had, albeit a smaller amount than the first one.

I've added my financial timeline into my OP as it seems like a handy way of keeping track of things, and can be easily added to or amended as things progress.

Also noticed last night that Mrs' mobile contract doesn't end until January, don't know why I had December in my head. Bummer . I have set reminders 1 month before each mobile contract ends to call up and cancel, but I'm seriously thinking of terminating the tablet's contract early. I'll still need to pay the £10/month until the end date (July) but it's not being used. It'll be one less thing to have hanging over me and April looks like it's going to be a quiet month, so if I can save £40 in other areas that'll offset the cost of paying off the tablet. Time to get trimming away at the old budget again!!

Have a great day

Storm89

Great news about the weigh loss , you've really stuck to it. We are doing terribly here haha.

fatrab

Storm89 wrote: »

Great news about the weigh loss , you've really stuck to it. We are doing terribly here haha.

I'm not looking forward to this week's weigh in. I think Saturday and Sunday's eating and drinking may have undone all my hard work last week. Trying to cut down on the carbs this week but my body is craving them after the weekend.


I want to lose 5lbs in April, just need to give it 100% for 4 weeks. If I'm successful, that'll be over 2st off and I'll be 15st 7lbs by end of April. Still want to lose another stone after that though

fatrab

So I've just cancelled the mobile contract for the tablet.

£38.78 to terminate early, so that's £10 per month off my monthly expenses total.

In my SOA I have £170 stated for my expenses (other income), but this month's are going to be £195.73. So there's £25.73 towards the early settlement already. I only need to find £13.03 to fully offset this termination charge.
Easy peasy!

Storm89

That was a good move to cancel the tablet, £38 isn't a huge amount to pay to leave. You'll lose 5lb in April easily , you've got into the swing of it now.

fatrab

Morning!

Not a lot to report today, so I'll keep it short!

Had a wobble last night, there's a really good take-away in the village where my brother lives and they do the nicest salt & chilli chicken wings I've ever tasted. I was up visiting him last night so I gave into temptation and had a portion. £5.30 of delicious guilt!

But that was all I had last night, just the chicken wings. In the past I would have had a curry or a special fried rice along with them, and prawn crackers, and possibly a spring roll or two too!

Busy day in work today so I better crack on.

Cheers

fatrab

Where to begin.....

Woke up early this morning, so had a look over the finances and went through my emails to see if I'd missed any offers or anything of interest in general. I only found one thing - I've not received my cashback yet from January's energy switch but it says on the email 3-5 months so I've got that to look forward to!

Just submitted this months timesheet and have 5 hours overtime, it's not much but every little helps. I've also submitted my expenses so they should be approved and paid within 5-7 working days.

I'm driving back home today, so I'm going to see how many mpgs I can squeeze out of the little car. Currently showing 65.8 hoping to get that up to 70.

So the plan for April......

I need to get back on track with the diet and alcohol. I've let things slip this month, partly because I knew I was going to be off work for a week but also because I knew I'd be hitting the diet hard from this Monday onwards. I've got a night out planned on Sunday with the boys but after that I'm aiming for 90 days alcohol free! That should mean take-away free too, plenty of NSDs and lots of nice healthy dinners and lunches.

Since the clocks went forward I also don't have any excuse for not getting fit again either, it's time to get out for a long walk/jog along the beach every evening while I'm up here instead of sitting on the couch watching rubbish on the telly.

I had set a target of 15st 9lbs by end of March but I don't think I'm going to hit that, 15st 7lbs by end of April seems more realistic. I'll do my official weigh in on Saturday this week for month end, fingers crossed and praying that I'm still under 16st!

I also need to look into PPI. I don't think I've ever had it, but I bet loads of folk thought that too. I remember refusing it many moons ago on several credit applications, but I've had a heap of credit cards, loans and car finance over the years.

Suppose there's only one way to find out

fatrab

Jeez, where is the year disappearing to? First quarter gone already!!!

Over the past 13 weeks I have lost 24 pounds (in weight lol), paid an additional £4148 to my debts and now have a safety fund. I've sold an expensive-to-run car and bought a more cost effective one, set plans in place to save myself hundreds of pounds over the coming months, achieved challenges that I never thought I would and I've even inspired others with their plans which is way above and beyond anything I ever thought would come out of my journey.

Here's hoping the next 3 months are as productive as the first 3 have been!

fatrab

My eldest son came over last night and we gave the wee car a going over to make sure everything was looking ok. Brakes, suspension, lights, fluid levels, tyres etc.

We found a few wee things that I'll budget to address over time but the only major thing we found was that one rear tyre was, we suspect, an original tyre from when the car was new. The date stamp on the tyre was 4111 (which is week 41 from year 11) meaning the tyre is 6½ years old. The tyre also has some castellation - the inside edge is like a 50p piece instead of being round - which was causing some excessive road noise. The tyre on the other side of the rear axle was dated 2012, also over 5 years old, so it made sense to replace the pair. £40 each.

Both front tyres were replaced as part of the deal when we bought it, it came with a years MOT and the car was last serviced in January (1000 miles ago) which was good to find in amongst the service history.

Brake pads are in good condition but it will need rear discs at some point, so we're going to take the brakes apart this weekend and give them a clean up and proper inspection. Total price for both discs and a set of new pads is £68 so it's not going to break the bank if we need to replace them. The only other small things we found were cosmetic so there's no urgency with them. I just don't take any chances with tyres or brakes for obvious reasons.

Overall, I'm very happy with the wee car. I averaged 76mpg yesterday!

Debtnomoreplease

Hey Fatrab, I'm with you-where is this year going?!! In a good way though :-) Looks great when you put the amount of weight you've lost and the amount of debt you've paid off this year together at the end of the month-huge well done!!!

Just read about the chicken wings-they sound delicious and you're bound to have a blip every now and then-we are human! ;-)

Keep up the good work