Prosperous soul in the making

savingholmes

It's a beautiful soft purple colour. It really is lovely. They will come back to finish the final mortar next week. I got them to sort a couple of flags that wobbled before and grout a gap in my floor left from removing the old counter. Cost me an extra £100. All paid for in full. 

Another £59.12 gone to debt. Now down to £16,979 debt. Next payday should get below £16K as a minimum. Will see. 

MovingForwards

A few more items ticked off your list and debt going in the right direction, it all helps towards clearing it.

jwil

Glad your patio is done, it sounds lovely!

Well done for nearly being under £16k too.

mark55man

I bet you are looking forward to your end of year report back, as you've made big progress on so many fronts

I'm sure next year will be better, but I have to say the lockdown has been very helpful in my finances by reducing spending and focussing on community support activities. So good luck to you with whatever it brings   

savingholmes

Thanks MF, Mark and JWIL. We have made progress this year - although spent more on the house than anticipated when we started the year. Need to focus more on building EF and clearing debt moving forward. I may boost EF/savings at payday rather than repaying debt immediately with it - as the target CC doesn't have to be repaid until April. We'll see. Hoping to get some kind of xmas bonus. Have been promised on my side it will be bigger than normal but they haven't given figures so not sure what that means or when we'll get it. We normally get £100 voucher from my work. DH's work has also said they may give a bonus. 

I am now almost 2 days in flexi-credit at work as it has been really busy for the last few weeks. May use it to finish earlier and go back later around Christmas or may save some hours for next year... Considering going to see MIL soon. 

clearmydebts

It's a balancing act between paying off debt vs home improvements. I'm not sorry we got some house stuff done this year. We also had some maintenance jobs to pay for as well, such as getting all the windows sealed properly and we had to have the radiators flushed. It's lovely to have a warm and cosy house now though!

savingholmes

Hi CMD - yes it is a balance. None of us have ever spent so much time in the house together - it does make it more important than even to make all the space more usable. I think that's what the kitchen and patio works have done for us, the tree chopping etc. I feel the house is finally becoming ours and we've lived here 14 years! I am hoping to get the halls stairs and landing painting in the new year - by the person/people who did the patio. They are very easy to work with and not intrusive at all. I have a house valuation planned early Jan - I'm hoping we can declutter some more and touch up areas before then - as DH and I are both off for 2 weeks or more.  Right now though feeling a tad exhausted - slept in until gone lunch both days this weekend!  It took me until nearly 3 to get to sleep though!

MovingForwards

This year has been an eye opener, everything people wanted to do or even didn't realise they wanted to do could be done due to not commuting, not spending on everyday things and having time to think. Had it been a normal year, do you think you would have achieved as much and made the plans you have?

I'm not surprised you're exhausted with everything you're doing, soon it's holidays where you can have a good recharge.

savingholmes

We just got an unexpected windfall of £1K - so going to top up EF once it arrives in our account later this week. That will top our accounts back up nicely and give us a bit of a cushion going into the new year. The plan is to pay it off debt in due course.

MovingForwards

Congratulations, that's a lovely windfall and two very good plans for its use.