£121K debt payoff - challenge accepted

savvysarah

KellyAS wrote: »

Wow you are doing amazing!

For Christmas we now only buy for the kids in our family plus my parents (cos they do a lot for us!), that's still 8 presents but better than 14 if we included all the adults. Could you maybe do a secret santa for the adults? Put all names in a hat then everyone picks out a name & buys only that person a present up to a certain value ie £50, that way everyone still gets a present but you're not spending a fortune.

I checked out Jordan Page earlier, she is AWESOME! Will definitely be using some of her tips.

Thank you! I really am trying. Lucky you to just buy for the children! We can't do that as we have 3 out of the 4 children in both our families :rotfl: so we don't really feel like we can ask everyone to do that! And the secret santa idea is great but our families are too split/complicated/weird to give that one a go (seriously, SO complicated :eek:)

And YES to the ikea kitchen planner - we've done this, we're getting an ikea kitchen when we can afford it

savvysarah

Moneywhizz wrote: »

It sounds as if you are doing all the right things to try to turn around this situation and it is hard to give advice without knowing more details but it seems to me that you are not going to be able to sustain living on this very limited budget for very long. You may already have done this but you really need a long term plan to tackle this debt and find the best way of doing it. You need to work out a budget that covers all your normal monthly expenditure so that you are not relying on selling things to have money for basic things like food or petrol. Selling things to make extra money is great and could be used to pay off debt but to reduce your stress levels you need to know that all the basics are already covered. If your budget is really tight then you need to look at the things that you can cut back on while still having some kind of quality of life. I think with this level of debt it is going to be a long journey so you need to make sure it is sustainable and that you have some quality of life along the way. I would never encourage anyone to take the scenic route to paying off their debt but equally trying to live so frugally that it is causing you to be stressed is not a good way forward. If you need help to work out a sustainable budget you are in the right place, even without having to post all your private details.

Hi Moneywhizz, thank you so much for this reply, honestly I really appreciate it. You are absolutely right, this level of frugality/stress/scrabbling around isn't sustainable at all, and its absolutely horrible. And while I don't want to take a meandering scenic route to debt-free land, I do want it to be realistic. However, I am hopeful that while next year we will have to be uber frugal, and it will be hard, it hopefully won't be like it has been the last two months, which has been caused by the huge amounts we have had to spend on the rental, along with late/part payments from the tenant. Ugh
So I'm hoping that once this all settles down (we find it goes in cycles with that house - nightmare then quiet for a few months), we can find a level that is sustainable, where we have to be mindful of money all the time but with less stress. And I think a big part of this will be getting a small emergency fund in place which is the plan for early next year.
Again, I really appreciate this feedback, thank you

savvysarah

Hi hi hi

Just a quick update as its nearly bedtime! We've just started an insurance claim tonight for a problem at the rental house, its been a total nightmare for us and the tenant so I'm really really hoping we can get something back.

In cheerier news - the (faux) tree is up! :j Because our house is so, so far from being 'done' we really needed the lights to cheer up the place, so I'm delighted. And I'm aiming to sort ALL gifts this week, I have 3 mornings (as long as no children are poorly, pleeeease let everyone be healthy) to get everything bought. I'm going very low key, with the mantra 'Can I afford it?' always at the forefront of my mind.

Right I'm off to bed, I'm finding a good nights sleep (as good as you can get when a 3 year old invades your bed every night :rotfl:) helps me deal with everything I need to to wade through this situation. Happy Monday all!

P.S. Can anyone tell me how multi-quote works?!

SuperMoose

savvysarah wrote: »

P.S. Can anyone tell me how multi-quote works?!

On the version of MSE I have you click on this .
Click on it on each post you want to reply to and then also click on in the last post.

You will get one post with all the posts on rather than having to quote each post seperately to reply.

Does that make sense? :think: I know what I mean :rotfl:

savvysarah

SuperMoose wrote: »

On the version of MSE I have you click on this .
Click on it on each post you want to reply to and then also click on in the last post.

You will get one post with all the posts on rather than having to quote each post seperately to reply.

Does that make sense? :think: I know what I mean :rotfl:

Thank you! That makes sense I was just missing the last part, I'll try again when (if!) I have a few replies.

savvysarah

Ok, money is flying out all over the place (bills) so I'm just sitting tight here. We are still waiting for a bit more rent - the tenant paid around half last week, most of which was taken off for maintenance work, so we really need the rest of it to cover that mortgage.

We are also waiting on some expenses from Husband's work.

I'm going to do some gentle Christmas shopping in the morning, I'm aiming to get lots of the kids stocking stuff, and some books for my mum, using W*terstones points. I'm holding out on a food shop until Thursday, although we have an Imminent Teabag Crisis looming so this will be a tough one! For reals though, I'm really trying to stretch our food shops this month, so I think we'll make it to Thursday.

Ok I'm off to read now, I'm trying to use screens less in the late evening so books it is. Currently reading the Michelle Obama autobiography - its definitely one to motivate you to be productive!
Happy Tuesday all

april_hunt

haha I know it's hard cutting out trust me but if they don't bother with you then I wouldn't neither. Simply say I'm just buying for the kids and leave it at that I know for sure if you were my friend or family I'd simply say not to bother (not that I would only gift one way) and do a dinner night or something we both liked. Now playing catch up to your diary xx

april_hunt

With your tenants not paying rent was this agreed for them to do so or not? When a friend rented before and was without a fence due to the strong winds last year she waited 4months before something was done and continued paying rent. I currently private rent and a lot needs doing to the place we knew this anyways but have taken it upon ourselves to kinda redesign the place. Our landlord said we have free range to do what we wish. Started doing a new fence, painting all done by us, currently looking at replacing all flooring/carpets and ripping the bathroom out. We fixed the windows ourselves. I'm glad my husband is in the construction trade too but I don't mind getting my hands dirty we did say about the cooked (it's built in) he did say hed pay for replacement take it out off our rent or whatever. looking to redo the driveway too. After writing this and reading this I think we must be mad lol xx

savvysarah

april_hunt wrote: »

With your tenants not paying rent was this agreed for them to do so or not? When a friend rented before and was without a fence due to the strong winds last year she waited 4months before something was done and continued paying rent. I currently private rent and a lot needs doing to the place we knew this anyways but have taken it upon ourselves to kinda redesign the place. Our landlord said we have free range to do what we wish. Started doing a new fence, painting all done by us, currently looking at replacing all flooring/carpets and ripping the bathroom out. We fixed the windows ourselves. I'm glad my husband is in the construction trade too but I don't mind getting my hands dirty we did say about the cooked (it's built in) he did say hed pay for replacement take it out off our rent or whatever. looking to redo the driveway too. After writing this and reading this I think we must be mad lol xx

Crikey I wish you were renting my house! You sound ace! To try to explain better, our tenant does pay, although she has rarely paid on time for the last few months. This month, she paid £400 a week late, and most of that was taken by the letting agent for management fees and repairs. The remaining £250 was paid a week after that (so 2 weeks late) and should hit our bank tomorrow. The amount paid won't be enough to cover the mortgage this month so we'll have to add money from our spending account, which isn't great at Xmas. We did have a buffer in this account, but its all gone because of the repair work we've had to have done this year so we're flying close to the wind right now :eek:

savvysarah

A little Sunday night update - how quickly is time flying right now?!

Anyone with kids at school will agree that these last couple of weeks before Xmas are Bonkers :eek: - I've got stuff to do/make/buy/go in for most days now, but I'm pleased we're over the hurdle of the dreaded Christmas Fair - I stayed in budget, all the kids won something thank god, and I even won a bottle of fizz so that Xmas day morning Bucks Fizz sorted! :beer:

I've also had a couple of poorly ones this week, coughs, colds and high temps so I'm trying to keep everyone fairly chilled, but they are just getting so excited, I'm hoping they don't peak too soon and crash!!

Money wise, some big bills have gone out, just a couple more to go out in the next couple of days, and I've shuffled money around to cover the mortgage on the rental which comes out tomorrow. Then, I'll go through the numbers for the rest of the month, make sure I've got the last couple of gifts (very small budget for this, I promise), and plan the food for the big day. I don't like the months being like this, all over the place but I think it'll just be for this month with all the festivities.

Right, poorly child is crying for me so I'm off! Happy Sunday!