Crunchy pays off the loan early, and other stories

t2rry

Hi Crunch!  On my usual sporadic catch up around here, congrats on hubs payrise and the imminent trip, have a fabulous time!  It's great to see where you're at and that it's all kind of just life now, that's got to be the way to win at this hasn't it?  I think if we can be aware of and minimise (if not eradicate completely, I know I haven't) lifestyle creep, we have got to be ahead of the game I think!

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Assuming you're away on your family trip   Hope you have an amazing time xx

crunchy_time

Good evening everyone!

I am back from holiday!  Oh my goodness it was amazing.  I feel totally relaxed and ready to roll for a new academic year and all it brings!

Here is the money news:

We owe a bit on our credit cards now for excursions as the lawsuit didn't allow us to save enough money beforehand.  In saying that it is about what I thought it would be, which is £1675.  I'm not at bothered by this as we save £500 a month for holidays so we can pay it off in the next couple of months using budgeted money.

After sharing my plan with husband to pay off the loan early, we has now decided it would be better do snowball it rather than do it the way I detailed it above.  Sign so it's a bit back to the drawing board with this one. 

The emergency fund is now back to £0 as we had a load of fees to pay for the law suit but hopefully that will be it now.

Some balances have gone down a bit whilst we have been away.

Sofa loan is now £373 
Both the 0% cc's are now £3574.

I got paid today and have stocked up the cupboards for the week.  Husband gets paid a week today.

We have to pay to empty our septic tank and a boiler service soon as both need doing.

Right, I had better get on with our new plan then.  I'll be back at some point.

Hope everyone is good!

Crunchy x

crunchy_time

So basically, the new plan is this:

Build up as big a savings buffer as we can and as soon as we can.

We are moving away from the Dave Ramsey method and going to focus on save save save.  We have had nearly a year now of just doing up the house debt and car debt. No more consumer debt. We are comfortable with what we spend money on as have been budgeting for years now. 

The plan is to save and become debt neutral but take it one step at a time.

I have raised my payment t to my Isa from £50 to £100 a month and husband will do the same for his after he gets paid. Everything left after bills at the end of the month will go into a buffer pot and will be used for things that we need to pay for. E.g the septic tank empty etc as and when it comes up.

My cc 0% deal comes to an end end of nov. I applied for a new one but was turned down I guess because of my low salary and the fact that I have a big loan. Husband has had to apply for one for me. We are also going to use this opportunity to buy DD a new bed and 0% it so we don’t have to use the cash we need for other stuff and saving.

We also have to bear in mind the increase in living costs and the uncertainty around this and some of the monthly extra would be going towards that.

Not very traditional MSE but this will suit us. Not everybody will agree with this but I don’t mind.

Today I went though the kids clothes and school uniforms and found some things to sell if I can psych myself up for eBay again! Luckily only one child needs new school shoes but the other one will prob need some before half term - spreads the cost! I need to buy a new lunchbox for DD as she is no longer in KS1 - no free lunches anymore!

Crunchy x

crunchy_time

Afternoon all!

Kids are at a club today so I am getting sorted with my life admin.  I have adjusted our budget for the impending rises to costs especially electricity.  At the beginning of the year our bill was £107 a month.  Now it is £163.50 a month and I have set it to £300 from  October.  I read that we will get a rebate off this monthly but I am budgeting worse-case scenario for now.  I'm going to think about doing an energy audit, especially for electricity.  Our house is 5 years old and well insulated with underfloor oil heating which heats the whole house and we have already discussed ways in which we can reduce our oil consumption.  However, I need to go through every electrical item that we have in the house and decide how we are going to manage each one including hot showers.  That's a project for an evening this week.

I have also downloaded an app to sell books on.  I have a lot of books and many I don't want to keep. This never used to be the case, I always wanted to keep every book I own.  I got addicted to buying books last year but have really cut back this year.  I'm already up to about £7 on the app with lots more to go.  I have also started a pile for ebay to put on either today or tomorrow so I have time to post before school starts.

The kids want to sort out their rooms and do a car boot sale at some point as well.

Septic tank emptying cost £140 so shall pay for this on Friday when husband gets paid.  The pump for it has broken too so this also needs to be sorted at some point.  Husband is going to do some investigating.

Right, let's get going and see how much I can achieve in an hour before I have to pick up the kids.

Crunchy x

crunchy_time

Made £16 for my books and they will be picked up on Thursday.

I looked through the bay of e pile and think it would all be best to go to the charity shops so I have bagged it and put it in the boot of my car ready to go.

I have made a list of electric appliances and what they cost to run each day or each use just so I can get an idea about costs and where we can cut back.  Previously we have done oll the usual money savings stuff which has long bit part of our lifestyle- efficient light bulbs, turning off lights when we are not using them but I feel we need to up the anti.  The electric heater in the garden office looks like it might be a real headache for husband.  His only other choice is work inside a lot more when we are not here but then the heating will need to be on more.

Crunchy 

EssexHebridean

If your heating in the house is gas, and the heating outside is electric, then using the gas will still be more economical. It gets even more so if you can use TRV's to make sure that rads elsewhere in the house don't all fire up when DH needs heating on in the room he's working in, too. Otherwise something like a heated throw might be economical for him to continue working in his office? 

Linz4383

Catching up after a very long time! 
Did you try vi.nted? It's loads easier than bay of e! 
I made £100 for our holiday, I found it easier to use and post, just turned off ro.yal mail and yodel

crunchy_time

EssexHebridean said:

If your heating in the house is gas, and the heating outside is electric, then using the gas will still be more economical. It gets even more so if you can use TRV's to make sure that rads elsewhere in the house don't all fire up when DH needs heating on in the room he's working in, too. Otherwise something like a heated throw might be economical for him to continue working in his office? 

It’s actually oil in the house and electric heater in the office. The things is husband has lots of screens like mission control so moving that into the house will be a pain. I think we are going to have to see how he goes. The office isn’t that well insulated and he does like to be warm. It might be that we have to compromise and cut out else where from our budget. In the house we have underfloor heating downstairs and then towel rails in the bathrooms and radiators in the bedrooms. The radiators are usually on the frost symbol because the downstairs heats the upstairs well. We lap the landing one on 1 so it stops the sensors from thinking it is colder than it is. 

There is a slight gap in the front door so may get or make a fraught excluder for that, keep the thermostats down as low as possible, everyone to have slipper socks and wear layers, hot water bottles and extra blankets on beds etc.

Maybe husband can work in the house for the first hour or so until the sun warms the office up a bit.

crunchy_time

Linz4383 said:

Catching up after a very long time! 
Did you try vi.nted? It's loads easier than bay of e! 
I made £100 for our holiday, I found it easier to use and post, just turned off ro.yal mail and yodel

I downloaded it but never used it. I’m getting quite good at buying clothes for the kids that last a long time. DD is coming to the end of some summer pyjamas that she has had now for three summers! I don’t mind donating them to charity over going through the hassle of trying to sell them. I’m gradually building up a good wardrobe of clothes for me that is lasting and anything that needs to go is usually because I have warn it out! 

My friend raves about it though so I’ll ask her more about it when I see her next.