LBM and determination in full force.

stinabean

Ooh forgot to respond to your food ideas - I've always wanted to be a batch cooker to make evening meals bearable but no matter what I do, if I freeze the food, by the time I eat it its bland and generally not nice!
Any tips for sealing in the flavour? Maybe I'm freezing badly

Treadingonplaymobil

Hello! What sorts of things are you batch cooking? I find it works best for things where the flavour develops - curry, soup, stew - rather than things where fresh cooking matters, like stir fry or meat'n'2 veg type meals..

enthusiasticsaver

Congratulations on your pregnancy. My DD is expecting her DD2 early next month so on maternity leave now.

Sorting your finances out is essential as presumably your income will drop on maternity leave. Have you worked out what your income will be and whether you will be able to meet all your bills?

What interest rates are you paying on the cards, finance deals and car? That determines whether you can just continue to reduce slowly while on maternity leave and concentrate on saving or if you should debt reduce more aggressively.

Don't be tempted to overspend for the new baby. No doubt family and friends will buy gifts and lots of stuff can be borrowed or picked up second hand cheaply.

I batch cook things like casseroles, Chile con carne, spaghetti bolognese, lasagnes etc

stinabean

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Hello! What sorts of things are you batch cooking? I find it works best for things where the flavour develops - curry, soup, stew - rather than things where fresh cooking matters, like stir fry or meat'n'2 veg type meals..

I've tried batch cooking just mince with veggies and sauce to add to things like spaghetti/jacket potato but it never tasted quite how I wanted it to. It has been a year or two since I attempted so will re-try this weekend and maybe add some more salt and multiple veg to thicken up :idea:
Other than that I've done a sausage casserole in the slow cooker and freeze that - although edible and the sausages were actually really nice, the sauce wasn't. It could be me, it could be the random recipes I was using!

stinabean

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Congratulations on your pregnancy. My DD is expecting her DD2 early next month so on maternity leave now.

Sorting your finances out is essential as presumably your income will drop on maternity leave. Have you worked out what your income will be and whether you will be able to meet all your bills?

What interest rates are you paying on the cards, finance deals and car? That determines whether you can just continue to reduce slowly while on maternity leave and concentrate on saving or if you should debt reduce more aggressively.

Don't be tempted to overspend for the new baby. No doubt family and friends will buy gifts and lots of stuff can be borrowed or picked up second hand cheaply.

I batch cook things like casseroles, Chile con carne, spaghetti bolognese, lasagnes etc

Oh congratulations to your DD and to yourself!

Impending maternity leave is really what's put my bum into gear to try and get this sorted out. I've worked out what I'll get (SMP only) and my work are also giving an extra sum a month as a loan to help me make sure everything is covered. The plan is to go back to work full time as I work from home anyway so will be paying them back from my wages when possible.
But yes, I'll have enough to pay my half of the unavoidable bills such as mortgage, utility etc everything that *must* be paid. It leaves me with some extra for food, nappies too.

The only thing we've actually bought so far ourselves is one little outfit and a baby grow that I just loved. Everything else has been gifted, fortunately for us! I think we may actually have everything now bar bits like a mattress for the cot and some sheets, but that's a way away yet.

Looks like a slow day at work so I'll be checking what my interest rates are on everything today and popping them in here.

Ooh I also cook a large lasagne (the one of two meals I feel confident cooking :rotfl: ) and that'll do me and OH dinner then lunch the next day and dinner again. We're quite unadventurous and are happy to eat the same thing over and over if it's the easy option!

stinabean

Right, dug out all the paperwork and below is what I owe where, interest rates and how long they last etc. It looks horrifying to me, I don't think I've ever listed it properly like this before!

Will also copy and paste this into the beginning of my diary so I can refer to it easily.

In order of what deal runs out quickest:

My Halifax - £1,873.53. 0% until Oct 2018. After this, goes up to 18.95% p.a

My Barclays - £1,430.98 total.
£261.18 at 0% until Feb 2019
£655.30 at 0% until (I think) April 2019. End date not yet showing on statement.
£514.50 at 0% until May 2019

Boiler with Barclays Personal Finance - £2,000 - 0%. This is a repayment plan of £83.33 per month, due to end Nov 2019.

Lloyds - 0% till end date of April 2020. Can't remember total amount owing and is OH's anyway, bar £599 of the total which is mine.

Windows with Hitachi Finance - £2,346 - 4.1% per annum, 7.9% APR. Current payment plan is £39.10 per month. Log in says I can make overpayments/repay early at no charge however I'm sure I was told there was a fee! Last payment Feb 2023 if no increase in payment made.

Car with Vauxhall Finance - £12.190. 3.99% a year, flat rate fixed / 8.7%APR. Due to end March 2023.

Mortgage with Platform - £148,500 over 35 years at 3.04% until July 2022. Then changes to 4.49% for remainder unless I switch. Monthly repayments are £575.

We also have a Mattress plan on direct debit due to end in June this year, and a Sofa due to end in Dec. 0% on both, happy to let these play out at the monthly payment till gone.

As I'm clearly clueless - what would be the best course of action. Tackle the ones with 0% ending soonest first? My behaviour pattern is constantly just moving everything to 0% but my credit rating is pretty shocking now so I don't think I could get a card for this. Must get this under control.

ALSO I have zero clue on the different between (for example) 4.1% per annum and 7.9% APR. If anyone could explain in really simple language for me I'd really appreciate it!

blue_eyed_girl123

I've not been able to find if you said how much you had available to pay off debts (on top of your monthly direct debits to debt) but would you be able to get rid of the Halifax one by the time the baby comes? That would be one less to think about and would mean you wouldn't have any more 0% deals ending until Feb 2019 from what I can read .

blue_eyed_girl123

Also, if you're not especially confident at cooking with a slow cooker, you could get a large stockpot (again, I think around £10 ours was) and just cook a large bolognese or similar? We also do curries in ours but cheat and use jars . Can easily make 5 or 6 meals worth and then we just cook some rice or pasta (depending on what it is) to have with it on the day .

stinabean

blue_eyed_girl123 wrote: »

I've not been able to find if you said how much you had available to pay off debts (on top of your monthly direct debits to debt) but would you be able to get rid of the Halifax one by the time the baby comes? That would be one less to think about and would mean you wouldn't have any more 0% deals ending until Feb 2019 from what I can read .

It's because it's never accurate due to me constantly "not caring" and just using my overdraft as "that's what it's there for".
Provided I don't go overdrawn, and there's really no reason I should other than poor willpower, I should have £600 left a month after all Direct Debits and Standing Orders have left.
This remaining £600 has to provide:
Groceries, I usually spend £200 a month but this can be less if I actually remember to transfer half from OH. Will make a conscious effort to cut back on the takeaways for dinner too.
Pet Food - Usually around £40. This has been fluctuating as we're trialling a few options for a sensitive stomached Boston Terrier but think we've found a winner.

This is also ignoring my £65 and £35 direct debit already going to Barclays and Halifax as since laying it out up there I should probably go for minimum on Barclays and pile the payments on Halifax.
So to pay off Halifax before my SMP kicks in, I need to pay a whopping £624 a month which isn't feasible.
To do it before the 0% ends, would be £267 a month.

I feel like that's actually possible on a full time wage but SMP is really going to skew that. I think my only option would be to pay off £267 a month until SMP kicks in, and then just pay as much as I can and suffering some months of interest.

blue_eyed_girl123

At least setting a target is better than not having any target . And have you tried the dropping a brand level trick? We've tried it on most things and not noticed a difference at all. Good luck with the pet food! I feel your pain, our cat who we found abandoned, was tried on Wh1sk4s because it was on offer and we ended up with a £400 vet bill...

Make sure your OH is getting involved, H2B and I have described this as our "austerity" period, just do what you can to make it through