Life After Lockdown

V8D

Grogged said:

By change I meant the above - you're reflecting and resetting lots in your life and doing some things differently than you have in the past.
It's all in the same life pot, so it's natural that everything comes under the microscope at some point.

Hi Grogged, 

Thank you. 🙂 

By considering everything as all a part of the same life pot has really helped me to understand why I feel like I do. Thank you! 

kazwookie said:

I think your husband is too well off, you from what you write, you do all the work, do the house, need new things etc, he has you running around for him, and he seems to do nothing except play with trains and spends money.................

I had this sort of thing about 6 years ago so I went on strike, with out saying anything, I cooked / cleaned / washed / ironed/ shopped for myself and the cat........................... it took about 1 day for him to relise that there was  no food for him and about 10 days to have no clean clothes............................ things got better, but I very nearly chucked him out..........

Good luck

😂 He does consider himself. I have said you've got things pretty easy really and he agrees with that! 

He does cook everyday and sort the food shopping out as well as laundry and vacuuming (we have a golden retriever, it's dog hair heaven if its left too long). We tend to share the rest of the housework but neither of us are particularly good or motivated by a particularly tidy house, if its clean enough we're happy.

South_coast said:

Glad you've had some time to reflect. I can recommend Berlin too, I went there last year x

Definitely going to look into it when the lockdown is over. 🙂

V8D

I'd be greatful for comments on the monthly budget I've set up on the Natwest banking app. I've tried to make it realistic rather than completely restrictive.

May 2020 Budget Amounts
	Usual (Inputted into Natwest App)	May	Lockdown May
Bills	£1,550.00	£1,550.00	£1,550.00
Home & Garden	£   100.00	£           -	£           -
Eating Out	£   200.00	£     50.00	£           -
Petrol	£   400.00	£   200.00	£           -
Shopping (clothes etc.)	£   100.00	£   100.00	£   100.00
Entertainment	£     50.00	£     50.00	£     50.00
Health & Beauty	£     25.00	£     25.00	£           -
Groceries	£   400.00	£   400.00	£   400.00
	£2,825.00	£2,375.00	£2,100.00

 
Some of the above comes back to me in expenses: business petrol and car payment which is in the bills section. Personal petrol will be c.£150/m. Just wondering if there's anything glaringly obviously ridiculous in the above?

savingholmes

It is easier for us if you do a full SOA as you are less likely to have missed something and it makes it easier for us to compare it with others we've seen

ForestBluebells

Have you factored in debt repayment and pension contributions in that? The food budget is that just for 2 people? 

V8D

The other thing I have been considering are the things we need to save towards beyond paying off the credit cards / current mortgage:

	Total Amount
Current account surplus £1000/y	£     1,000.00
Bed	£        400.00
Washing Machine	£        300.00
Freezer	£        150.00
Replace Dog Wagon	£     5,000.00
Car maintenance	£     1,000.00
Pointing /Roof / Rewire (current project)	£   15,000.00
House Deposit for Property Flip	£   20,000.00

Current project has a lot more to do than the pointing/ roof/ rewire but we haven't decided exactly what we are doing with the property beyond getting it dry / safe. There's a lot of potential for all kinds of redevelopment/ works. We would currently like to get it dry, get another property on the go to flip and use the profits from the flips to put into the current house. Long term, we aren't planning to live here forever but I can see us being here for around 10 years or so. We only want to do one more move into a place with a few acres without any neighbours; likely another major project. Complete, I estimate the current property is worth between £250-325k  (pre-Covid) depending on what works we actually do.

Immediate bed / washing machine / freezer savings don't need to be for anything fancy - this is why the figures are so low. The freezer is just for storing dog food, so only a small one is required. The washing machine is just a replacement for an old one and lives in an outbuilding and will move into a utility so doesn't need to be anything fancy and the bed is a temporary replacement whilst we are doing the works to the house (needs to last 5/6 years max).

Whilst the Covid lockdown is happening, the only thing I've put any money towards is £85 towards running a current account surplus (actually in savings account as there is a surplus in the current account for the first time in a long time). After the lockdown, I'm hoping we can really start to get on with this though as well as getting the credit cards cleared and mortgage overpayments. 

My main question is how to prioritise all this? Would you just leave the savings blank apart from the current account surplus goal and clear the credit cards first and forget about the mortgage and these savings goals until after they have been cleared to £0. The credit cards are on 0% if that helps. 

South_coast

Not an answer about priorities, but you could probably pick up a freezer and washing machine second-hand (after lockdown obvs) if you're not looking for anything fancy? Even new, I think you can pick up a w/m for about £200? 

V8D

savingholmes said:

It is easier for us if you do a full SOA as you are less likely to have missed something and it makes it easier for us to compare it with others we've seen

Will have a go at this, thank you. 🙂

ForestBluebells said:

Have you factored in debt repayment and pension contributions in that? The food budget is that just for 2 people? 

Debt repayment of minimum plus a bit factored in. Nothing factored for pensions. The food budget is for two people and one dog.

V8D

South_coast said:

Not an answer about priorities, but you could probably pick up a freezer and washing machine second-hand (after lockdown obvs) if you're not looking for anything fancy? Even new, I think you can pick up a w/m for about £200? 

I don't feel comfortable with picking up appliances second-hand purely as why would someone be selling? Could be genuine or could be because there's something wrong with it and you're going to end up spending on it, so I'd rather buy new with a warranty. Our current washing machine was inherited from my husband's grandparents, is at least 20 years old and we spent a weekend 6 years ago replacing all the bearings. Now it's well and truly on its last legs. 

If one comes up cheaper, we'll either buy before planned or put the surplus money back into something else. 🙂

V8D

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information

Number of adults in household........... 2

Number of children in household......... 0

Number of cars owned.................... 4

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax: £5,000 (obviously not whilst lockdown is on) + expenses which usually pay for the XF / £49 worth of the mobile phone bill and £250 of the petrol bill.

Monthly Expense Details

Mortgage: £405

HP loan repayments: £368 (XF)

Council tax: £125 (split over 12 months)

Electricity & Gas £55.17 

Water rates £35

Telephone (land line) / unlimited phone calls and fibre broadband £33

Mobile phone £65

TV Licence £13

Satellite/Cable TV £0 (don't have, don't want to have! Also no Netflix etc.)

Groceries etc. £400 (food for 2 people & 1 dog)

Clothing £100

Petrol £400

Road tax £95

Car Insurance £90

Car maintenance (including MOT) £85 (accounting £1k per year for cars without manufacture's warranty)

Car parking £5 (don't usually spend anything)

Other travel £0 (if we go anywhere we drive)

Childcare/nursery £0 (no children!)

Other child related expenses £0 (no children!)

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc) £0 (no repeat prescriptions. We were thinking about getting private health insurance, though. If we do it's £45-£60/m)

Pet insurance/vet bills £30 (dog is fully insured)

Buildings insurance £20 (includes contents and up to £2k outside the house)

Contents insurance £0 (see above)

Life assurance £0 (was looking into this allied private health cover, it's about £20/m if we go for it)

Other insurance £0

Presents (birthday, christmas etc) £10 (spend very little on this as we tend to make hampers and get a lot of nectar points)

Haircuts/beauty £25

Entertainment / Eating Out £250

Holiday £0 (at the moment)

Emergency fund £85

Total monthly expenses £2,694 

Assets

Cash £500

House value (Gross) £200,000 (current)

Shares and bonds £0

Car(s) £70,000

Other assets £10,000

Total Assets £280,500

Secured & HP Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Mortgage...................... 113230...(405.2)....2.29

Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 32000....(368)......5.9

Total secured & HP debts...... 145230....-.........-   

Unsecured Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

CC1............................6300......85........0

CC2............................3150......85........0

CC3............................1650......45........0[b]

Total unsecured debts..........11100.....215.......

Monthly Budget Summary

Total monthly income £5,000+expenses (usually c. £650/m)

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). £2,694

Available for debt repayments £2306+expenses

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments £215

Amount left after debt repayments £2,479+expenses

Personal Balance Sheet Summary

Total assets (things you own) £280,500

Total HP & Secured debt -£145,230

Total Unsecured debt -£11,100

Net Assets £119,170

Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com. 

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

savingholmes

V8D said:

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information

Number of adults in household........... 2

Number of children in household......... 0

Number of cars owned.................... 4 Can you sell any of these?

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax: £5,000 (obviously not whilst lockdown is on) + expenses which usually pay for the XF / £49 worth of the mobile phone bill and £250 of the petrol bill. - What is your income during lockdown?

Monthly Expense Details

Mortgage: £405

HP loan repayments: £368 (XF)

Council tax: £125 (split over 12 months)

Electricity & Gas £55.17 

Water rates £35

Telephone (land line) / unlimited phone calls and fibre broadband £33 Vodafone do broadband for £23 not sure if the includes calls but think it does - and we got paid via £co to switch - worth a look at that or similar

Mobile phone £65 Seems high - are they in contract? At the end of the deal could you extend your phone by going sim only for a while

TV Licence £13

Satellite/Cable TV £0 (don't have, don't want to have! Also no Netflix etc.)

Groceries etc. £400 (food for 2 people & 1 dog) - Is it worth looking at the Grocery Challenge thread and Old School Board to see how you could get this down?

Clothing £100 - Could you halve this for a while and put towards debt?

Petrol £400

Road tax £95

Car Insurance £90 - If you were to reduce your vehicles how much would this save?

Car maintenance (including MOT) £85 (accounting £1k per year for cars without manufacture's warranty) For 4 vehicles this seems light

Car parking £5 (don't usually spend anything)

Other travel £0 (if we go anywhere we drive)

Childcare/nursery £0 (no children!)

Other child related expenses £0 (no children!)

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc) £0 (no repeat prescriptions. We were thinking about getting private health insurance, though. If we do it's £45-£60/m) Is there a particular reason to do this?

Pet insurance/vet bills £30 (dog is fully insured)

Buildings insurance £20 (includes contents and up to £2k outside the house)

Contents insurance £0 (see above)

Life assurance £0 (was looking into this allied private health cover, it's about £20/m if we go for it) I believe everyone should have this - and as an absolute minimum it needs to cover the value of the mortgage but preferably at least a year's worth of income to allow the surviving person to grieve without worrying about money. We've had friends die young in teens and twenties as well as later. None of us know our time

Other insurance £0

Presents (birthday, christmas etc) £10 (spend very little on this as we tend to make hampers and get a lot of nectar points)

Haircuts/beauty £25

Entertainment / Eating Out £250 Do you give each other personal spends? We went to £50 each personal spends and then £50 for eating out at one point. We have doubled it in recent months as we are on a long road to debt freedom and have similar income to you.

Holiday £0 (at the moment) I would be tempted later to add about £50-100pcm into the budget so you can at least have some getaways post lockdown

Emergency fund £85 I would say you need to be saving much more than this  and prioritise getting a minimum of £1K EF - and if you are self employed higher.

Total monthly expenses £2,694 

Assets

Cash £500

House value (Gross) £200,000 (current)

Shares and bonds £0

Car(s) £70,000

Other assets £10,000

Total Assets £280,500

Secured & HP Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Mortgage...................... 113230...(405.2)....2.29

Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 32000....(368)......5.9 What's this on? Do you really need it? Could you sell it and get a cheaper one? Can you get a better loan rate?

Total secured & HP debts...... 145230....-.........-   

Unsecured Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

CC1............................6300......85........0

CC2............................3150......85........0

CC3............................1650......45........0[b]

Total unsecured debts..........11100.....215.......

Monthly Budget Summary

Total monthly income £5,000+expenses (usually c. £650/m)

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). £2,694

Available for debt repayments £2306+expenses Do you know where this money is going? Could you look at old statements or start a spending diary to track it down. Even without making the changes suggested above - if this leftover figure was real you could clear your CCs in less than 6 months of normal income.

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments £215

Amount left after debt repayments £2,479+expenses

Personal Balance Sheet Summary

Total assets (things you own) £280,500

Total HP & Secured debt -£145,230

Total Unsecured debt -£11,100

Net Assets £119,170

Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com. 

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Some thoughts for you to consider. We each forge our own path so you need to find what works for you. At least you have a good loan to value level on your mortgage