Prosperous soul in the making

savingholmes

Checked into OH's car loan, it's already interest free so not worth moving will just need to consider how to deal with it when it ends about June 19.

Sending DS £200 at uni tomorrow and then another £200 after OH payday so meeting that goal.:)
Currently have £1300 in savings/emergency fund. Debts and loans repaid during the month by direct debit so currently on track. Goal for this month is not to go into savings rather than pay off extra debt.

Food is still costing too much. Spent £66 on groceries and got it delivered today to reduce temptation to buy other items. They refunded me £3.12 as something was short dated but let me keep it which was good.:beer:

Thanks for reading. Hope you are having a good weekend.

savingholmes

Also got OH a belated Valentine's present from a charity shop - cut glass whisky style decanter for .... drumroll..... £3.50! Don't know what they were thinking as even in charity shops they are normally more like £12 where we are.... Also bought him his first new coat in years - it looks like a leather jacket but is pleather - we thought it was £40 but it was actually £20. Plus it had slight marks so got 10% off it and then my DS works for the shop so we got a further 10% off. So really pleased.

Drawingaline

Wow, some fantastic bargains there!

savingholmes

£360 goes out to car loan one today.

OH gets paid tomorrow - I never know what he's going to get - as they have a canteen vending thing that is deducted from his wages.

I have the day off today. If the weather is nice may go to another National Trust property. Need to organise all my craft stuff and what I've already made too and decide where to store them. I Have been experimenting with different techniques and I like some better than others. I think the glass painting looks most effective so far versus decoupage... although I've had some success with both.

Would also be good to do some batch cooking - good from a slimming perspective and reduces the temptation to eat out / go shopping again.

I did spend another £35 or so at HB yesterday - mostly on things like food and tissues and toiletries but even so probably not all justified and an area I need to continue to work on. I went in for garden wire that cost me 99p.... :oenough said - still need to conquer impulse / fritter spend.

savingholmes

Had the day off. Mixed day - took some stuff back to the shop but pretty much re-spent it. OH is also out on a meal with friends tonight which may blow our eating out budget as we ate out on Saturday.

I have just set up PayPal which is a good first step to selling on Ebay or elsewhere. Target: Get some stuff together to list on facebook or ebay by the weekend. Ideally to include:

1. * My archery kit - used once - nice bag, bow, quiver etc - cost £160-200 new
2. * Possibly an art print if OH agrees to let it go - cost about £500 but currently worth about £200
3. * OH's golf clubs and bag - birthday present 7 years ago - he tried out one - just cluttering up the garage - cost around £60 new - unsure what can sell it for - got it from Sports Direct originally
4. * Will look if have any music to sell on music magpie or equivalent
5. * Will also look at books to sell
6. * The quilting thing I bought for £5 looks like it could easily be worth £30 on ebay plus postage - may be easier (and end up being cheaper) than me trying to make something with it although I may keep some of the materials... Not sure...
7. * Some of my recent craft bottles and jars
8. * Old craft stuff I have lost interest in (eg rubber stamps)
9. * Perhaps clothes / shoes

Need to see what else we have around the house and make a concerted effort.

I've listened to various talks on financial freedom today - and realised I am currently taking the scenic route - ie slow - but freedom would be so much nicer... I recently looked into my car loan too - I frontloaded the interest in my quote of debt level which means if I did need to sell the car I would probably get within about £1K of what I owe. I know I haven't posted an SOA but even with our current amount of debt our assets:

• Car 1 and Car 2 are worth approx £24K between them
• House is worth about £235K - on which we have roughly a £145K mortgage
• So even with a £46K debt - in the unlikely event we ever needed to sell up we would still be about £70K in credit over all.

We recently changed gas and electricity supplier - next step is to upload our meter readings so can get a final bill. Expecting to owe original supplier £200.

savingholmes

Yesterday the following payments went out in addition to the car loan:
H £18.34
D £51.50

If I am to stay out of my emergency fund / savings will have to sell stuff this month. I am gutted as in my excel spreadsheet I had missed out a payment of £273 so thought we were doing better than we were. So ideally would want to make this up.

Opticians costs are intended to come out of my savings pot as are clothes. DD and I both have opticians appointments this pay month. Considering trialling YNAB or other app to see if it would do more of the work for me. Would have to get OH involved too though as sometimes he spends money without warning and it wrecks my plans...

jwil

Good luck with the selling

natsplatnat

savingholmes wrote: »

sometimes he spends money without warning and it wrecks my plans...

I think quite a few of us know this all too well! :rotfl:

savingholmes

Thanks Jwil and Natsplatnat

I need to look at gas and elec switching again. I tried to switch to Avro and for whatever reason it didn't go through - they are saying they requested some info I didn't send but I don't have the email so I am really frustrated. They cancelled the switch - which leaves me on a really high tarrif that I thought I'd ditched. Need to work out what to do instead. It appears we now owe our current supplier about £400 not the £200 I thought. I hate it when they put up direct debits without warning but it seems pretty stupid of them not to suggest putting up the direct debit on this occasion. It's currently £113 - so to be £400 in the red shows they really underestimated when they set up the DD.

OH's tyre blew when it caught on a massive pothole on an A road last night. So potentially need to fix it £82 and make a claim. Unfortunately a couple of his other tyres need replacing.

Good job I had the B@rclays payout as I am about to have to use it. It will probably blow my ability to use it to pay off a CC balance though - so I may need to do a transfer to an existing card or a new one by 1 April instead. Soooooo frustrated.

At least OH was safe last night though - things could have been a lot worse. Luckily he also knew how to change a tyre to the spare - I wouldn't have been able to do it....

savingholmes

@vro is still the cheapest by over £25 a year so trying again. Will ring them and see if there is anything they can do to expedite the switch tomorrow. Still frustrated. Set up direct debit on a different bank account - that gives me the required 2 direct debits to enable me to switch my bank account and earn some money. So at least I have that to look forward to.

Don't want too many credit checks in a short period though so may apply for a 33 month balance transfer card first. Then I can switch BC if necessary and perhaps my M&S balance - one is due 1 April, the other 15/6. The credit club says I am eligible but not the CC limit I am likely to get...