My accountability Diary for £42k!!!!

KellyAS

So pay day wasn't as good as I thought  the lowest hubby has had for a while. It will cover our bills and debts but I'll have to try and increase my work to cover food costs or we'll be living on beans on toast for a while, or dipping into other pots to borrow money! But at least it's there, 18 months ago we would have been screwed! Hopefully when the schools go back I can get the boys clothes sorted to get some extra money in.

Glad that I have my savings pot for gifts so mother's day is covered already. No extreme spending needed this month I don't think, but Hubby is working for 1 week so will need enough money for fuel for that week.

All debt is on 0% until July so no need to move anything around until then. I would love to get those balances down as low as possible beforehand if I can. 

KellyAS

Today I have changed all my payments to just above the minimum because I need to know exactly what is going in and out and I want to see these balances come down! I have been reading some other diaries and it's motivating me to get these debts gone. The payments haven't increased by much but I've rounded them up to the nearest £10 so hoping that will help a little.

I'm going to try and use up the food we have in the cupboards to save some money this week, difficult when you have 2 fussy eaters in the house! But even if just us grown ups do it at least that's something saved. I just wish the boys wouldn't ask for stuff then not eat it, especially expensive fruits and berries! I need to be more organised about things like that so I can make bits with them.

Hubby and the eldest need new pants. Eldest has grown 4cm in 4 months! So looks like I need to start looking for some new clothes for him soon, littlest is still growing slowly (he's tiny like I was as a baby!) and I have plenty of the eldest's clothes for him. Hubby is not trendy at all and lives in joggers/jeans/tshirt so he's ok for clothes and I got new clothes for Christmas, just need new underwear which I'll have to wait for the shops to open before I get that.

I must admit I'm feeling a bit deflated about our finances at the moment. Everytime I save some up and think I can make extra payments or put it in savings something happens where I need it! But I guess it's good that I have it as before I'd just rely on credit. Still, doesn't help with the motivation. I guess because all of our balances on each card are fairly high it's going to take a while before they start coming down.

I managed to get the boys old clothes out of the loft yesterday so when I get 5 mins here and there (and I'm not updating this!) I can start sorting them. Then just need to decide the best way to sell them! I hate listing things 

Sarahwithlove

Maybe start keeping a tally of how much you have managed to fund yourself from savings etc and how much you would have been charged in interest if you didn't have that money available. Will help with the motivation hopefully then 

KellyAS

Sarahwithlove said:

Maybe start keeping a tally of how much you have managed to fund yourself from savings etc and how much you would have been charged in interest if you didn't have that money available. Will help with the motivation hopefully then 

Thank you. Yes that might be a good idea. 

Scloud

I round everything up to the nearest pound & overpay a little bit that way. It really helps budgeting but also helps to feel like I am chipping away at all debts whilst focusing on my one big snowball one. 

Its such an achievement to not be reliant on credit. Well done! 

KellyAS

Grrrr blimming sky  just got my confirmation email and it says my bill will be £25 a month! That's not what I agreed to. I can get it from BT for £17 a month so why would I agree to that amount!! Waiting on the phone to them now. Not impressed.

Scloud, I do already round all our bills up to the nearest £ and that goes into building our emergency fund. With the credit I am going to clear all the extra pennies but I can't do it until this months payments have gone out otherwise they will just reduce the payments   

Managed to keep shopping bill to under £100 this week 

KellyAS

Sky all sorted   

KellyAS

So it turns out hubby was underpaid this month (I thought he was but he said not!) he only got 80% pay in stead of 100% because he worked both shifts last month. I hope the pay gets sorted before next payday but I doubt it. Funds are running a little on the low side at the moment. My work has dropped off a bit so I'm trying to promote bits for Easter now. Need to get some plans together for weddings too as they will all start again soon.

Debts 18% paid. All payments for this month have come out so I will see if I can pay the extra pennies somehow to tidy the balances up.

KellyAS

So it's been a while since I was last on here! Not a lot has changed on the debt front, been paying away what we can whilst on limited funds but don't seem to be getting far, what I pay off we seem to need to borrow again however I do have some good news too.

Bad news - hubby is still furloughed so our savings have dwindled   but at least we had some this time! He is furloughed til the government scheme runs out then the company have their own scheme as they are still not able to run at full capacity yet that will be until February 2022 possibly  but at least he still does have a job!!

Good news - hubby has recently managed to pick up some extra work for a friend 3-4 days a week £100 a day so that will definitely help out, earnt £600 so far this month

Bad news - Mum lent us an extra £1700 so we could get our kitchen floor fixed, it was in such bad condition we had to rip it up and due to having young boys we couldn't live with rough bare floorboards and concrete for too long, too many injuries would ensue! So what we owe to Mum has increased a bit but at least the house is on it's way to being finished!

Bad news - Our TV died so we got a new one in April. Yes it was new from the store but the cheapest smart TV we could get and on 0% credit for 9 months so needs to be paid by January, I'm putting funds away monthly towards that. 

Good news - we have won some compensation of about £1500 which we should be getting in the next couple of weeks. Not yet decided where this is going to be allocated. Possibly will use it to reinstate our savings or pay off the TV, maybe both.

Bad news - lots of our 0% deals have come to an end so I had to do a bit of rejigging with the balances so this has resulted in a few hundred in transfer fees    hopefully the last time I have to do it!

Good news - I got a part time job 2 days a week! Yay! So now have a set income of £708.33 a month (putting away £131.60 for tax due to self employment just in case I need to pay anything) which is definitely helping to get us back on track. Also am working on a few new products for my own business that will hopefully bring in more sales, they don't cost me anything but time at the moment and hubby's friend is helping out with a new idea that we want to get off the ground in the next year.

More good news - we can start to look at remortgaging as our rate ends in January 2022 and as we have a good LTV (54% from the mortgage company but I think if we sold it would be a little higher I will get it valued in the next few weeks just so we know as we would eventually like to move), anyway we have provisionally been offered a 5 year fixed rate for our mortgage plus £20k to clear the debts for 1%! That would save us £480 a month! Yes, I know it's not great to move unsecured debt to secured debt but I trust the advice from my mortgage advisor (who I've known since we were 15! ) and all our cards are being cut up when they are cleared. That will make a HUGE difference to our situation.

So, the plan going forward is to set all credit card payments to the minimum whilst we sort the mortgage. None of them are accruing interest and they all (except 1 with the lowest amount on) have 0% deals that go past February 2022 so we can clear them once the mortgage completes. Setting payments to the minimum will free up some cash now while hubby is still furloughed.

Then all the credit cards will be cancelled 

We should have around £4-5k left after the mortgage completes so that will go to my Mum's pot for repayment.

Then I can see what we are left with every month and hopefully start saving a decent amount so we don't get stuck like this again

KellyAS

Woo hoo, we have reached a milestone. We have now repaid 20% of our overall debt.