Getting it together...one £ at a time!

teafor2

That's a brilliant run of surveys - at least some people are getting them through :T

The school terms are really short here from now on, only 5 or 6 weeks between each holiday. It'll be the summer hols before we know it, although I think in Scotland yours start much earlier than ours?

You're right to hang on in there with the building works. You'll be getting started before you know it and your patience now will pay off big time for you rather than stretching yourself too soon.

Have a good day. xx

Homegrown0

Oh i'll definitley do before/ after shots as well as plenty of progress pics Our current bathroom is the one original to the house (1980) so you can imagine what a delight that is! Hope you get round to doing the bathroom in a nice but cheap way.

Tea, school holidays here start at the end of June and go back mid-August so it really isn't too far away. And the Easter holidays this year are 2 weeks long then the following week they get Good Friday and Easter Monday off... i'm trying to coordinate childcare cover for that now!

Homegrown0

Husband's wages have finally arrived!

So...

£150 to credit card as overpayment - this means I've paid £1,856.44 this year of my £10k target for 2019, meaning i've paid off 18.5% so far. Almost £200 ahead of schedule which I'm pleased about.

£550 transferred into savings too (£250 was planned anyway, but £300 extra from husband's nightshift extra). The balance for the savings account is now £2,000 Although this will go down by likely £100-200 over the next week or two to pay for a couple of scheduled things (a course i've started, my son's new class, my MOT). I like to keep all monies out of the current account to save confusion so i'm fine with taking it back out when we need it.

Still waiting for:
- £300 from husband's job that he completed a month ago (when he's paid - hopefully next week)
- Guesstimating £300 from the job that my husband is completing this weekend.

Days until pay day: 6

Homegrown0

Getting there with PA - £7.87 cleared and £3.83 pending.

Got £8.15 in Onepoll and haven't looked at Qmee for days... so must get back onto that!

Homegrown0

Balances and paid amounts
Loan: £5,790.51 / £15,792.30 (£10,001.59 paid off - 63% paid)
CC1: £4,281.97 / £4,804.97 (started from scratch in July 18) £523 or 11% paid off
CC2: £4,024.58 / £5,031.14 (£1,092.38 paid off - 22% paid)

Total: £14,097.06 / £25,619.44 (£11,617.17 paid off, 45% paid)

Good things:

• 45% of total debt paid off (edging closer to half way!)
• Loan is into the £5ks!
• We have paid just over £10k on the loan so far :T
• Credit card 2 is so close to dropping into the £3ks that I can almost taste it!
• Our balance transfer was completed earlier this month, so all CC debt is now back on 0%

Not so good things

• Depending on what the window man comes back with, we may be adding to this debt in the next month or so. We'll be aggressively paying it off though with all extra cash if this does all come off.

Pay off your debt by Xmas 2019

• January - £854.92 (£218.51 overpaid) - 8.6% of challenge total
• February- £1,012.27 (£375.86 overpaid) - 10.1% of challenge total
  
  Total so far: £1867.19 / £10,000 (18.7% of challenge total):j

Days until pay day: 5
Loan payments left: 11
Childcare payments left: 18

teafor2

Oh Wow HG, your figures are fantastic and your determination to achieve everything you've set out to do is contagious. Being in front on the £10k challenge and nearly 50% of your debt gone is brilliant. :T

What stands out most though is how well you and hubby work as a team, it's obvious he puts lots of overtime in. Also that you're all still enjoying life while doing all of this, lovely holidays and DC's attending clubs etc. You just prove the point that with a bit of planning and foresight a lot more is possible than we actually think. xx

Homegrown0

Thanks Tea, what a lovely message. I never see things like that - I just see us flapping from one thing to the next and running about like a blue @rs3d fly but I'm glad it looks like a polished effort from the outside

We are determined to strike a balance - we spent years scraping by, adding to debt and forking out £1.5k per month on childcare so now that my income has increased really decently, our childcare bill has decreased dramatically and we're in a much better financial position, i don't want to spend another couple of miserable years scrimping and scraping to get rid of it all.

As you know, we have grand plans for our house and want to give our kids as many opportunities as we comfortably can so it needs to be a balance - for all of us.

I think we have that at the moment and without getting cocky, it's working at the moment.

My husband does do quite a lot of overtime but thankfully it's well paying chunks of time rather than him just working all the time. It means he still gets a good amount of time with the kids and I but it's definitely worth his while taking the overtime while it's available. We carry the slack for each other when they other is busy - when I'm away with work, he grabs the reins and when he's busy with overtime i crack on with whatever. It's not an exact science but it's the only way for both of us to get by.

Phew - what a ramble!

teafor2

Not a ramble at all. I've read about your childcare costs and used to think :eek: The positive of paying out though is how rich you must feel when it stops

I'm sure you do chase your tail some days with work and a young family to look after but it never comes across like that. Even your busy lists and things to do all seem under control and enjoyable.

We use the blue a***d fly saying as well :rotfl: Hubby also compares himself to a swan. Floating along serenely as far as everybody else is concerned while paddling like fury underneath the water xx

Homegrown0

Window man update
We were hoping to get the windows done for £5k.

Window man called today and materials alone will be £5,300...

I could cry!

Going away to do some sums and projections and see if it's even remotely feasible.

teafor2

Oh that's a blow. Did he give an indication of what his fitting costs would be. Would it be feasible to do it in 2 stages, downstairs and then upstairs, with 2 or 3 months between to give you time to save up a bit more?

I'm sure I remember you saying somebody else had quoted you something ridiculous and measuring up would take hours, how does the £5,300 compare to that figure? xx