Crunchy pays off the loan early, and other stories

crunchy_time

Pay day yesterday and money shuffle complete! Not much of a move on the balances until I can pay the min payment on my 0% next week.

Filling up the bigger car has gone from £65 to £100 and we are starting to be even more mindful than before of being frugal in our entertainment. We turned down a cinema and restaurant trip with friends because it would cost us over £100 and we just cannot afford that if it’s not for someone’s birthday in our family.

Scraping money together this morning for a food shop for the week. A nice relaxed weekend with perhaps a bike ride  if possible. 

Crunchy x

crunchy_time

Morning!

Min payment made towards my credit card last night - £50 off reducing it to £1487.

Husband got paid today so I can add another £100 to the emergency fund later as well as top up the savings pots.

Its about 6 weeks until our holiday now so a lot of extra money is being absorbed into buying a few bits that we need for it and saving for spending money.

Husband has been promoted at work into a more senior role so will be getting a pay rise next month which is great news.

July is a five week month and I’m setting us a challenge to get through it with only £500 so £100 a week. Totally doable. Starting tonight by not buying any alcohol for a Friday night drink! 

Happy weekend everyone!

Crunchy x

crunchy_time

Afternoon all.

It feels like a while since I have updated! 

A brief round up: we finally seem to getting somewhere with the lawsuit which is a huge relief. So far we have spent about £700 in legal fees that we shouldn’t have had to do. I don’t think we are going to get it back so it looks like we might have to write this off as proper adult stuff. I am proud of us for being able to pay for this with cash and not use credit or savings. It has meant we haven’t been able to pay off any extra debt so far this year though.

We have also had to pay out another £1k on car repairs. At the moment this is sitting on credit card as the £400 emergency fund and £100 so far saved in the car service pot won’t cover it completely and if I pay it off I won’t have the money to pay the next round of legal fees so I shall wait a bit longer.

Out holiday is in a matter of days now and husbands and we need cash for spending money.

Its a once in a lifetime trip with lots of things to see so we may come back with a little debt but are ok with that.

Once we are back, the plan is to devise a new budget to take into account everything. I want to end the year with no extra debt other than what is listed on my signature and already be making a dent on that so that any bonus husband gets can go into savings for once.

until then we are knuckling down, keep costs low and not going anywhere at all really. We just need to get toiletries and a backpack now. 

Crunchy xx

crunchy_time

Husbands credit card is now down to £2198 and the sofa loan is now £413.

It’s nice that it is still being chipped away it even when we can’t pay anything extra at the moment.

Crunch x

crunchy_time

Just shaved £50 off my cc bringing it to £1437.

Finished work today for the holidays! Woohoo!

Exhausted and had a big cry. Going to snuggle up tonight with the dog and watch a feel good film to make me feel better ❤️‍🩹 

Crunchy xx

ohdearhowdidthathappen

End of summer term must be such a relief!  Are you returning in September of have you found pastures new?

crunchy_time

ohdearhowdidthathappen said:

End of summer term must be such a relief!  Are you returning in September of have you found pastures new?

It certainly is!

I haven't found pastures new yet but I have eliminated a lot of possibilities which to me feels like some progress. I’m going to find the answer on a beach at some point in the near future 😉

crunchy_time

Schools out for summer!

We are off on our big once in a lifetime trip next week! I have a million things to do to prepare for it but I wanted to get doing a new SOA out of the way so I could really focus and be present on the holiday and not be thinking about it while we are there.

Husband has had a big pay rise which is life changing to us and we are now in the six figure club (if there is such a club).

£99,500
£16,500

Income 
£5200 (conservative estimate until pay day on Friday)
£1190
Total £6390

We have 2 children and 2 cars. The cars are 6 and 7 years old.

Outgoings
Mortgage £1136
All bills/DDs £844
Sports clubs £206
Childcare £228 varies throughout year
Hair cuts £60 including dog
Oil £50
Car repairs £100
Pocket Money £68 they get their age but have to buy everything including saving up for phones and cars in the future. They have to tidy their rooms to earn this and more.
Food £650
Fuel £350
Household
Spending money £250
Clothes £250

Debt
Loan 1 £262
Loan 2 £272
Sofa loan £41

credit card £100

Savings
Long term savings stocks and shares £200
Emergency fund £200
Loan/savings £300

Total £6167
Left £223

So that’s the budget. Here comes the plan….

crunchy_time

If there is one thing I have learned this year, it is the importance of having money in the bank, no matter what the level of debt is.
The lawsuit and £1500 of car repairs so far has shown this to me and I haven't felt very secure because we have had to rack up some debt because of this.  

My aim for the year was not to rack up anymore credit card debt and that is still the plan and should be a lot easier now that we have the payrise.

Medium Term plan - next 3-4 years

Credit cards
When we come back from our holiday, the two 0% credit cards will be roughly £3600 so the plan is to combine these together and pay £100 a month for 36 months to clear it.  We can just forget about it and let it run.

Loans
Loan 1 £15,730
Loan 2 £13,700
Total = £29,430

Of this
£15,428 is cars of which the combined min payments of £534 pays off
£10,854 is house improvements
£3148 is projected interest as the loans are 3%.  Interest is already charged but will be less if it's paid off early.

One car is due to finish in August 2024 and will be 9 years old at that time and the other in March 2025 when it will be 9 years old too.  

I've worked out that if we save £300 a month as soon as we sort out the new 0% credit card we will be able to pay off the house improvements part of the loan by the time the new CC finishes in 36 months.  I am going to save this rather than pay it off and aim to become debt neutral for the £10,854 because it makes no difference and then we will have some money should we need it.

There will then be enough money in this pot to pay off Loan 2 once the car part finishes in 2 years time.  The interest will be reduced and we can then use the money to overpay loan 1 until that car part is paid off.

There is always the option as well in two years time to just let the loans run and use the £11k towards a new car.  We shall see.

Sofa Loan
This is 0% and due to finish in May 2023 so the plan is for this to run and then perhaps be used towards overpaying the loan as well.

Before we kick off this new plan we do need to do a few things
 - Get a new bed for daughter as her mattress is not good - it's 8 years old and lost it's support.
- plan out and cost up the remaining few bits for the garden
- finish off the law suit
- pay off the car repairs - it was £1000 but will be £850 this week once I can  pay it down a bit
- Set a budget for Christmas and the 3 birthdays that we have in the Autumn and devise and stick to a plan for saving for Christmas and birthdays for 2023.

Having this plan is so much better than having £1600 left over every month and panicking about what to use it for so I am pleased. It’s about sticking to it and not allowing lifestyle creep and over consuming.

Next step is to try and have as many NSD's as possible before our holidays next week.
Today wasn't - I spent £6 on icecreams and duck food at the park.

Aiming for a NSD tomorrow and looking forward to husband's payday on Friday because then we will know exactly how much money there will be each month and I can flesh out some of the details a bit more.

Crunchy xx
 

crunchy_time

Husbands pay day today! 

£5197 so wasn’t far off my £5200 estimate.

The money shuffle is all done and we have pretty much all the money we need for the holiday and £500 of money for trips out. There is a hotel night to pay for and perhaps breakfast at the airport as well. We have just got to not fritter it away.

Anyway it looks like a beautiful day today! I am taking the kids swimming today so not a NSD but hey ho!

Crunchy x