**Insert witty diary title here**

moving_forward

WinterWarrior said:

Lion bars! How can you say this is nothingness??

I have given myself a slap! They are rather lovely.

I have just worked out our daily mileage for another diary and omg it's huge.

One car shared 

AM. 11.2 miles to Mr M_F's work then another 16.1 to mine.

PM. Mr M_F walks 2 miles to train and then I drive 6.7 miles to meet him before he drives home another 2.6 miles.
A total daily trip of 36.6 miles.

Usually on a Friday I drive nearer to his work but this increases the mileage by 14.3 miles to a total 50.9 miles and he still has his walk.

I am not doing the extra Friday pick up now unless train cancelled to reduce fuel usage. We agreed this earlier.

If I didn't get him from the train station it would save 3.3 miles fuel but he would need to catch another train and then walk another 2 miles!

No wonder we are always knackered. This is on top of full time work. 
We can't afford another car so deal with it 😭

WinterWarrior

Cars are so expensive, but so necessary! 

moving_forward

We were hoping to be able to start saving for a second one again but cost of living crisis has put a spanner in the works! Hey ho still better off than alot of people so mustn't complain!

Sun_Addict

We no longer have a car so thankfully no worries about petrol prices but it all has a knock on effect on prices so end up paying eventually. 

moving_forward

Yes SA its all going up except for wages!
Mr M_F is always on the lookout for work closer to home but unless it's something he really likes the look of we agreed he shouldn't jump ship too soon after 12 years.

moving_forward

Morning peeps and all fur feather and scale babies.

I have set up a regular DD to our premium bonds emergency savings of £100 per month from 1st April. The EF amount currently stands at £525 so I am now going to use the Tilly Tidies as extra debt payment. 

I am starting with the furniture loan as even though zero percent interest I am fed up with it dragging on. It should only take a couple of months to clear 🤞🤞

When it's cleared we will then include a budget amount of £96.00 per month for future household goods and the rest will go towards the next debt.

We will then concentrate on the CC with the 0% ending soonest (31st Jan 22). This also is the biggest debt left. Obviously we hope to get another 0% transfer end of Dec but we will clear as much as we can before then.

I have also budgeted £100 per month home maintenance from 1st if May as we need to start putting aside for things.

There is a buffer of about £85.00 once our minimums (over required min payment fixed debt payments) per month are paid which will be the additional debt payment until something else goes up 🙄

Hopefully I have now included most things that need to go in the budget and left enough wriggle room for the inevitable next thing.  We know we need to be saving for the next car but this can be done when the debts gone. Current car is only 6 years old so hopefully we have some time left.  We are putting away £1,000.00 for car maintenance a year so if any left this will build up towards a replacement. 

redofromstart

Sounds sensible and well reasoned to me.

moving_forward

Thanks Redo. I'm constantly rethinking the budget but that's what's got us to the position of actually paying off the debt and saving. 

moving_forward

I saw some credit cards were offering 33 months 0% on the email this morning so applied and have been accepted for one which is about half of the bigger card and am waiting to here about another.

Even through we have till Jan till the 0% runs out, the low transfer fee (2.69% on the one accepted) over the longer term will save hundreds in interest if not thousands according to my spreadsheet.  Even if I'm not accepted for the other half we still have another 6 months time to pay it down before trying again.

This increases the minimum payments as the new card wants 2.5% minimum but that's fine as we had a buffer which we were going to use to overpay.  We will of course fix our own minimum of just over the minimum to ensure the debt goes down.

Everything else still as my update 13th March.

Sun_Addict

Great news about the card. Always good to save money on interest.