Navigating the ups and downs

rollercoasting

Hi
I'm starting a diary to keep me us the straight and narrow and for company as we labour on through the day to day shenanigans of our life!

We are a 2 adult, 2 children family with pets of various descriptions. Debt has been a constant friend for a number of years, but thanks to me getting a much better paid job things are a bit easier. There's still a deal of risk month to month as my DH doesn't do work of the paid variety anymore(he's a carer and does lots at home to keep us in food) and something always seems to crop up.

My aims are to

• Learn patience - we're in it for the long haul and I need to stop feeling like I'm failing
• find a way to get ahead with paying our bills - so building 1 month buffer of income to begin with.
• pay down more off the debt as and when we can.
• and to live life to the fullest within our meagre means

I'll post an SOA later. Here's to an even ride.......

rollercoasting

So here is the SOA. My DH has a small business so insurances etc from that are all added in, we are not expecting it to make any money this year, but hopefully in time it will start making a return.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2294
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 82.8
Other income............................ 41.23
Total monthly income.................... 2418.03

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 153
Electricity............................. 60
Gas..................................... 70
Oil..................................... 50
Water rates............................. 33.49
Telephone (land line)................... 29
Mobile phone............................ 28
TV Licence.............................. 12.37
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 300
Clothing................................ 60
Petrol/diesel........................... 210
Road tax................................ 41.12
Car Insurance........................... 45.26
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 200
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 40
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 39
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 9.09
Life assurance ......................... 39.06
Other insurance......................... 65
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 80
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 50
Holiday................................. 50
Emergency fund.......................... 25
Dishwasher & Tumble dryer cover......... 9
accountancy fees........................ 15
Business investment fund................ 150
Donation................................ 8
Pet food................................ 30
Prime................................... 6
Child maintenance....................... 200
Sewage.................................. 11.34
YNAB.................................... 5
Cleaning................................ 30
Total monthly expenses.................. 2153.73


Assets
Cash.................................... 400
House value (Gross)..................... 36000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 37900

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Debt1.............................5295.9....160.......0
Debt2............................20570.....100.......0
Total unsecured debts..........25865.9...260.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,418.03
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,153.73
Available for debt repayments........... 264.3
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 260
Amount left after debt repayments....... 4.3

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 37,900
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -25,865.9
Net Assets.............................. 12,034.1

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/i]

rollercoasting

Car maintenance pot is high as I am actually aiming to save this to purchase a new vehicle. My current car has 155K mileage so want to replace this when it gets to 200K miles - I always buy an older vehicle as live and work rurally so don't want anything too nice and shiny. Having to cross my fingers that something doesn't go terribly wrong in the short term (it has just been serviced etc)

Debt1 will hopefully be significantly reduced when some kit that we have sells - somewhere in the region of £3K to £3.5K at worst, maybe £4K at best. Probably should have put this as an asset - whoops.

Ideally I want to get Debt1 gone ASAP, and then work to building a £2.5K buffer of one months income. If I get a payrise, I will also increase my payment to debt 2 - won't be until April 19 tho.

rollercoasting

So the sea-saw continues!
In the last month we have spent £200 getting chimneys swept and then £130 to get someone to service and light the aga. After 5 returns they have told us they can't do anything else! So what do we do now?! We live in a lost in time cottage with a single skin so the aga with its hideous oil costs is essential for staving off the cold. There's also a wood burner that does radiators and an open fire but none of those reach the kitchen.
Hubby has taken a look and is going to try and sort himself but other options include having to rip it out and put something second-hand back in......sigh!! Have found a wood fired stove with small oven that could be an option but it's £500. Also annoyingly we have a full tank of oil just sitting there and £350 sat with boilerjuice for future oil (but they will refund that if I ask....)
Mostly I'm just struggling to get the energy to be positive.....

Fingers crossed DH can do what an experienced age servicer could not.....!!!

Think today will be about getting hubby's
kit listed to sell via classified ad on EBay ( I don't want to pay 10% commision on auctions) but Facebook posting has not got us anywhere. Some items we might have to hold until the spring to get the best price which is a pain.

Also had an SSE mess up where they have over charged us so £125 came out when I expecting 60. Thankfully they are sorting that out so should appear back in bank account.

Other jobs include log processing as none ready yet and it was proper cold here last night.

Onwards and upwards....

rollercoasting

So the aga is officially sacked. Dh did everything he could but we can't sort either...so what to do now....?
I'm all for just putting in a log burner as we just need some space heating, but DH thinks we should get a rayburn and go wood fired. It will all depend on what comes up nearest and is CHEAP.

On a positive note today was glorious and we spent most of it outdoors. No cash spent either so that's a bonus.

Tight cash flow now for rest of month (and it's only the 1st!!!) Got to survive until 25th for payday. Freezer full which is great.

rollercoasting

Oh should add we've listed the kit and had a couple of enquiries so fingers crossed, and I sorted two loads of kindling today and the fire is snicking as I write. Love this time of year.

chocolatebum

Just popping in to say hi.

good luck with the sale, hope you get a good price.

Igamogam

rollercoasting wrote: »

So the aga is officially sacked. Dh did everything he could but we can't sort either...so what to do now....?
I'm all for just putting in a log burner as we just need some space heating, but DH thinks we should get a rayburn and go wood fired. It will all depend on what comes up nearest and is CHEAP.

We got rid of our solid fuel Aga/rayburn. After 23 years I had fallen out of love with it - We cooked with it, it heated our hot water,ran 11 radiators for CH and kept the cats happy. Then I decided one wet and windy wild November night I had had enough of ferrying coal/wood from shed to house and decided we needed to 'future proof'. The following March we installed a pellet boiler for HW and CH - it feeds itself pellets from a store outside and we empty the ash ONCE A YEAR!! Just had 2.5 tonnes of pellets delivered which should last us 12 months I now have an oven I can control and a very efficient induction hob.............dont miss the AGA one bit even though when we installed it we were, and still are I guess, 'purists'...no back up cooker etc. Cats were disappointed though;)

Good luck with what ever you decide!

rollercoasting

A pellet boiler sounds amazing! Your poor cats though!!
Sadly we don't think we will be in this house very long so whatever we decide to do either needs to be super cheap or something we can take with us. Our cashflow is also pretty low at the moment too which isn't helping.
We're in a quandry of not knowing which way to go at the moment....seen a oil fired rayburn today - which would work, but it's been sat in a garage for a while so there's a risk the boiler will have gone (and you have to connect it up to the hot water) - if it needed boiler replacing that would be another £350 quid to get a new boiler - so ultimately not a cheap option - and definitely not a light option as we'd need to get the whole 260Kgs in the house (up a few steps!!)

A simple log burner is an option, but DH feels like we should be able to cook / heat kettle on something.....There is an tall slim oven /log burner combo which is nice, super efficient, but it's £500. Would fit straight in though and we would be able to take it with us....Just don't really want to spend £500 but we may have no choice.

Sigh.

Igamogam

rollercoasting wrote: »

A simple log burner is an option,

Sounds like the simplest idea - we lived for about 4 months in the depths of winter and me newly pregnant with just a log burner and a combo micro whilst we had the monster Aga installed! Can be done

Quandary indeed!

rollercoasting

THanks Igamogam. I think you are right - and from next year we will have a huge supply of free wood which will definitely help. Isn't it amazing what you can get on with when you have to - we lived in a building site for about a year when I got pregnant, but still had loads left to do. On the day I had my LG we were installing the kitchen! After that the rate of work slowed down considerably!!

We actually found the 'perfect' stove at the weekend and were practically in the car on the way to pick it up and the lady said she had just found out that her husband had sold it to someone else......Back to hunting again!!

We're going to a place on Friday which has a few different options so fingers crossed. Probably looking at paying £350 ideally and no more!! Still got to figure out how to get the old AGA out....think we will just take it as scrap and get back what pennies we can from it to put towards the new burner.

No major money news from my side - made my lunches last 2 days, and we've had no spend days. Money is super tight this month though but DH very tuned in to things (which is great and makes me feel much better)We're a long way off pay day though - all the money we have has been given jobs and I feel VERY poor as a result -but at least that means we know what we have to do to stay on budget.

No major enquiries for hubby's kit yet either.......... but tomorrow is another day so fingers crossed.