Crunchy pays off the loan early, and other stories

crunchy_time

t2rry said:

Morning Crunchy!! Good work on the books, I might have a look see if I can find any!! I need to do this with all our old phones too, so many lying around wasted!!

Same here with phones although they are smashed so will get no money for them. At least they can be recycled. We have an old iPad somewhere as well.

crunchy_time

Currently sitting at park whilst kids playing. Checked PayPal balance and slushed £6 to my loan. Also looked at the monzo pennies pot from rounding up our spends. There was £10 in there so slushed that towards my loan too! 

Every little helps!!
Crunchy xx

crunchy_time

Lots of Direct debits came out today and there was £3.59 left in my account so chucked that at my loan bringing total consumer debt to under £5k! 

Crunchy xx

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Your SOA looks fab and how you balance debt/life is noone's business but yours
I enjoy your diary, I hope you continue posting.  Have a lovely Easter break

missymoo81

Hey Crunchy, just caught up. Loving the sound of your secluded garden! I really love your diary! You’re right you absolutely need to live and pay debts off however you choose! Keep up the amazing work!

crunchy_time

Hello all!
Music Magpie paid £7.97 today! I’ve rounded it up to £8 and slushed it off my loan. Consumer debt now at £4,989! Must find that remote!
Crunch xx

crunchy_time

Morning all!

Car insurance is up for renewal so I did a comparison.  Managed to reduce it by £100 over the year.  We have been paying monthly for ever but made the choice to pay for it up front saving ourselves £13 in the process.  The money for the £260 for the year will be paid out of the emergency fund savings account so I need to adjust this in my signature once I have worked it all out.  I will also now save £30 a month from my joint account which can be slushed towards debt!

Crunch x

crunchy_time

Morning all

DS is off school today with a sore throat and a headache so I have taken the day off unpaid to be with him.  Husband could have looked after him but I really want to do my mummy bit when I can.  They are only little once.

I got paid today so have done the money shuffle for those things that come out of my account.  It is always so satisfying to do.

A couple of things to update diaryland on:

Privacy project/doing the garden on 0%

The final spend for this is about £3000.  Husband has transferred it all over to the 0% card now so we are just waiting to see what the monthly amount is going to be.

Holiday

Still don't know what to do about holiday as we don't know all details yet.  Not looking for advice on this just to make that clear.  Our destination is likely to be on the amber list which means quarantining at home for 10 days which we can do and are ok about.  The main thing that will make us postpone till next year would be if we cannot do the activities that we want to do while we are there.  We are going to call the travel company closer to the time to to find things out and talk about options so we can make an judgement call.

Emergency fund

With things up in the air at the moment about holiday which if it happens, would taking place in about 16 weeks time, I have decided to stop slushing extra cash to the loans and have started a project to see how much money we can save in 16 weeks.  We haven't had a buffer account for a while and really need to have one and this is how we want to manage our finances going forward.  The balance will go up and down of course and we won't have a target amount, but I think it will be good to get us into a savings mentality.

I'm trying to take it really easy on myself now things are going back to normal.  I'm saying no a lot more to things now.  Lockdown has been a blessing in disguise in some ways.  With 16 weeks to go till the holiday that may or may not happen, I am going to make a list of 10  mini adventures we can have as a family or with other people so we have some ideas up our sleeve when deciding what to do.  I can cost them up too.  

Looks like the sun is coming out so I am going to put my washing on the line and catch up with a few jobs.

Have a lovely day!

Crunchy xx

crunchy_time

Current buffer is £390.  Good thing I had it as I needed it to pay for swimming lessons that are of course now happening and money is now being taken out of my account!

Crunchy x

crunchy_time

Morning all!

Happy first of May!  Husbands pay day yesterday so had a money shuffle.  The loan payments would be coming out today if it wasn't a weekend so I have updated them.

Car loan is now £9370 and we have finally started paying off the house renovations off my loan so that is now £4800.

I had to chip into the buffer last week to pay for food as it was a 5 week month so it is quite low now but it has served its purpose last month for sure.

The big news is that we have postponed our big trip this summer (that we booked in Feb 2020 before the first lockdown) to next year now.  We have upgraded to a better hotel and its going to cost us a bit more but we have plenty of time to save for it.  We have booked a cottage holiday instead for a week in the UK and will go camping for a weekend too.  The cottage holiday is going to cost £900 ish plus travel and spending money probably £500.  We have paid a deposit and the balance is due next month.  We have put the holiday money into husbands isa for now - £5000 and will reassess what to do with it in September.  We are going to continue to save as if we are going on our big holiday but then use it to pay for day trips and camping this summer as well.  Anything left will go on debt and probably the consumer debt.

I'm really going to work on our food budget this month.  I'm going to shop in Aldi and try not to get extra bits from other supermarkets.  We budget £150 a week but I want it to be lower than that so it is going to be an organisational challenge for me but I think I can do it.  Method cleaning stuff was on offer in sains yesterday so I bought a toilet cleaner and bathroom cleaner for each bathroom - 3 - so I can clean when I am using it and not have to do so much cleaning at the weekends so we can go for bike rides etc.

Changing the holiday has been a weight off our minds.  I'm glad we have sorted it now and we are going to have a great summer with lots of beach trips and day trips in the UK and a lovely cottage holiday.

Crunch xx