In need of encouragement...

IrishSean

On an upside, i'm staying out of the 0% OD. I can't be bothered trying to budget to balance out of it come 1st Nov and it's just another 0% debt I don't need. Come Halloween i'm going to cancel it: the 40% interest rate was the clincher. Also means DW doesn't get the mid morning 'ping' from bank saying there's a dd due to come out but we're in the OD.
So what we have we'll save, pay off the borrowing at 0%, invest in home improvements, have ££ to cover the bigger outgoings, avoid the OD & new borrowing, not increase the monthly dds & spend the remainder.
I almost sound like a DFW😂...

findingthisdifficult

It's tough near the end when the debt amount gets smaller right?  Mr FTD is already spending the money we don't yet have, he's like we can buy this on HP and that on HP...part of me is like Yay new shinies and then the sensible part is like 'um no, that's what we've just come out of'

We have invested £85 in cupboard door handles and a couple of replacement hinges in a bid to get our house market ready, want to take advantage of the buoyant market and hopefully move to our 'forever (maybe just until we're old old) house.

IrishSean

findingthisdifficult said:

It's tough near the end when the debt amount gets smaller right?  Mr FTD is already spending the money we don't yet have, he's like we can buy this on HP and that on HP...part of me is like Yay new shinies and then the sensible part is like 'um no, that's what we've just come out of'

We have invested £85 in cupboard door handles and a couple of replacement hinges in a bid to get our house market ready, want to take advantage of the buoyant market and hopefully move to our 'forever (maybe just until we're old old) house.

We watched Kitchen Nightmares last night after a Pizza Express EO2HO outting.
I said to my teenager look up to see if the restaurant featured is still open..."closed in 2012 daddy".. I said soo many end up closing even after the Ramsey intervention.
It would seem the old habits creep back in; is part of the reason I re-posted the 'small wins' above to keep myself motivated to stay on course. 
That aside between hol deficit, back to school costs and a £600 hammering on car service i've had to borrow £500 MT to ensure I stay within OD until my share sale ££ transfers. 
I'm like ugh, not liking that, even if it's only £20 to do it. 
Best thing for me to to get to the point (hopefully in the Autumn) where I can cancel the OD for good & get rid of my CC. I need to start a month, Sept for example where i'm in the black, in a true sense, then sit down with DW & say here's our budget. On 18/8/20 I counted we had 82 CA transactions not including dds; there's too much financial traffic going through our joint account to effectively budget. 

I think i've been a bit naive on some of the savings projections (at one point I was looking at savings of 64% our total household income 😱😂). I also need to make a decision on the 0% stuff. I think my house refurb plans are in part wanting a physical display of 'look how well you've done'.
Mr FTD might be in the same frame of mind "we've done well now we can live a little". I can see the logic but am still in the needs vs want mindset too: loans & HP would make my blood run cold. 
It's the ML fire analogy on credit: use it well it's a great tool, use it badly you'll get burned. I can see the times I used it badly in the past and am not in that place. 
I think I need to recognise there's no magic wand.
I REALLY need a stronger motivation to save & or pay off the remaining 0%s once & for all. 
If I had a paid off BTL I know i'd be in a different situation but realistically? I need to aim for that over 3 years, when kids are getting cars & going to uni, not one year. 
Thx for reading👍😀 

findingthisdifficult

So true about the old habits creeping back in, I was talking to a friend of mine from work and I told him that the big loan is paid off next week and how it means I'll be £565 a month better off, he was genuinely shocked that I was paying that much a month!
Definitely need to remind yourself of the wins for sure, my diary reads like a rollercoaster, it is such a wobbly journey and if I had done things differently I could have paid off the loan a little bit quicker.  
£600 on a car service?!  (I'm so bad at getting my car serviced, I'm scared of the cost most of the time)

I think getting rid of the OD will help make you feel better for sure, I have a random OD of £130, I never use it but I'm too scared to get rid of it...just in case I might need it (this is a sign of how bad things have been in the past)

Starting in the black and reviewing the budget with DW sounds like a plan, what is a CA transaction?  82 transactions sounds like a LOT.  I need to review our DD/SOs and see if there's anything we can cancel or save money on.

Mr FTD is in exactly the same frame of mind, it's like look at what we've got, look at what we've done.  Cabinet door handles turned up today and they fit which is great but I've wasted £20 on hinges this week in a bid to find a replacement hinge for one of my kitchen cupboard doors, I genuinely didn't think it would be this difficult to find a replacement hinge!

IrishSean

CA-current account, sry, abrev. Overload, lol

I got such good ideas on this thread for budgeting and used them as paving along with the other good intentions, hehe

Now £600 did include new brake caliper plus timing belt & water pump which was a cheap £350 alone: along with clutch its 1 of 2 biggies u have to allow for every 5 years or so, mileage dependant: and folks, never play 'timing belt roulette' that's the mother of all false economies!!

I like your thinking tho, an OD of a few hundred would make more sense for us, £1500 is just too wacky an amount...

I do wonder is there a bit of a death rattle now the debt's well down.. I remember realising at one point that my gambling buzz was a thrill of the chase (even in terms of creative ways of making card payments with an 11k balance & none at 0%!). One thing is I don't miss the stress of those crazy times, but having no 'work' to do on personal finances is weirdly boring and frustrating; does that sound bonkers?
My heart does go out to to the avid savers who chased rates for the past 20 years only to find everything now sub 1%: how mind-numbing must that be?
Never mind those who from the early 2000s have been relying on interest to top up living costs or a pension: you'd have been stuffed since 2007!

In short we should count our blessings; redundancies+ evictions+ huge debts+ recession will plunge some into situational crisis not seen since ww2...

ryanm8655

IrishSean said:

CA-current account, sry, abrev. Overload, lol

I got such good ideas on this thread for budgeting and used them as paving along with the other good intentions, hehe

Now £600 did include new brake caliper plus timing belt & water pump which was a cheap £350 alone: along with clutch its 1 of 2 biggies u have to allow for every 5 years or so, mileage dependant: and folks, never play 'timing belt roulette' that's the mother of all false economies!!

I like your thinking tho, an OD of a few hundred would make more sense for us, £1500 is just too wacky an amount...

I do wonder is there a bit of a death rattle now the debt's well down.. I remember realising at one point that my gambling buzz was a thrill of the chase (even in terms of creative ways of making card payments with an 11k balance & none at 0%!). One thing is I don't miss the stress of those crazy times, but having no 'work' to do on personal finances is weirdly boring and frustrating; does that sound bonkers?
My heart does go out to to the avid savers who chased rates for the past 20 years only to find everything now sub 1%: how mind-numbing must that be?
Never mind those who from the early 2000s have been relying on interest to top up living costs or a pension: you'd have been stuffed since 2007!

In short we should count our blessings; redundancies+ evictions+ huge debts+ recession will plunge some into situational crisis not seen since ww2...

Not at all bonkers, can completely relate.

A friend of mine has recently become debt free and feels the same way ha.

I'm anticipating an anticlimax when I'm finally debt free but I guess it's finding something else to focus on, whether that's a hobby or saving.

I enjoy reading your diary though as you set out your thoughts. Keep it up!

findingthisdifficult

IrishSean said:

CA-current account, sry, abrev. Overload, lol

I got such good ideas on this thread for budgeting and used them as paving along with the other good intentions, hehe

Now £600 did include new brake caliper plus timing belt & water pump which was a cheap £350 alone: along with clutch its 1 of 2 biggies u have to allow for every 5 years or so, mileage dependant: and folks, never play 'timing belt roulette' that's the mother of all false economies!!

I like your thinking tho, an OD of a few hundred would make more sense for us, £1500 is just too wacky an amount...

I do wonder is there a bit of a death rattle now the debt's well down.. I remember realising at one point that my gambling buzz was a thrill of the chase (even in terms of creative ways of making card payments with an 11k balance & none at 0%!). One thing is I don't miss the stress of those crazy times, but having no 'work' to do on personal finances is weirdly boring and frustrating; does that sound bonkers?
My heart does go out to to the avid savers who chased rates for the past 20 years only to find everything now sub 1%: how mind-numbing must that be?
Never mind those who from the early 2000s have been relying on interest to top up living costs or a pension: you'd have been stuffed since 2007!

In short we should count our blessings; redundancies+ evictions+ huge debts+ recession will plunge some into situational crisis not seen since ww2...

82 transactions!  That is a lot to keep on top of, this is exactly why we have 2 joint accounts 1 for all the DDs and 1 for the spending as well as 3 other accounts for savings and business spends.

Ooh I may be playing timing belt roulette, in fairness my last service wasn't too bad, maybe I'll book a service to go with my MOT.  I'm clueless about cars, I was just thinking like oil change, filters and sparks checked etc... didn't even think of a timing belt.  I think the car was serviced 2 years ago and it only has 52000 or 54000 miles on it, not bad for a 9 year old car.

I'd definitely consider reducing the overdraft when you feel able to (I'd be more inclined to dip in to mine if it was a bigger amount for sure)

I think I will be bored when the debt is gone but then I quite like the idea of contributing more to my pension (boring but a grown up thing to do) building up the savings pot and paying a little more on a mortgage in order to get our for a long time house (maybe not forever)

Agree 100% on counting our blessings!

IrishSean

😀👌
You've made me feel less financially crazy, haha

It must be weird for the ppl who do like 10 years DFW then adjust to a different financial way of life. I know pain of debt, threat of eviction, ccjs, bankruptcy etc is really bad but after all of that repayment (100s of k in extreme cases) it must seem very strange and maybe even unsettling. 

I'm getting good ideas from family about cost effective home improvements which the money saving side of my brain is liking. 

Timing belt, if your car needs one (some have chains that don't need done, google 'honest john; belt vs chain' for full list), needs changed around 5-7 years or 70kmiles (some are 50k miles up to 120k miles).

If it breaks the average cost of repair is £1000 - £4000+ depending on vehicle. It can't be checked for wear, a record must be kept; if it needs done it can't be ignored, on most cars the water pump & coolant get changed too, (about £70 extra but mad not to). Happy motoring

Thx all for reading, hope some of it helps.

findingthisdifficult

  sorry 

I just can't imagine not having to pay someone back, I said to Mr FTD, I'm almost a little anxious at the loan ending as I'm so used to paying £565+ a month off a loan, I genuinely think I'll be scared to spend the money differently (savings, stuff we 'need' etc)

We've been productive this morning, changed all the kitchen cupboard handles (made such a difference) and fixed 2 door handles (1 to match rest of handles downstairs and 1 that was hanging off upstairs).  
Made a list of items to get rid off recycle or skip as they're cluttering our garage...slowly slowly we will get this house ready to market.  Feel free to share some cost effective home improvements.
One of our biggest issues is that we have 3 bedrooms and only 1 is used as an actual bedroom (can potential buyers see past this?)

Checked out HJ, I am not 100% sure but looks like my car might have a timing belt but I may have read the article wrong, it's an automatic ford focus (for some reason I feel like someone told me it is chain driven but as I said I'm clueless about cars)  Definitely considering adding a service to the MOT, if my car cost £4k to repair, it wouldn't be worth doing...

Thanks for the tips

IrishSean

Agreed (oh, I meant strange / unsettling not having debt; wasn't advocating non-payment😱😉)


Yes depends on engine; some fords are timing belt, some timing chain. 
Here's definitive list 👍
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/chain-cam/ 

On kitchen we are looking at getting kitchen units a) hand painted (special paint) b) sprayed, OR c) re-laminated (it's a pretty authentic looking beech effect but sun faded in places).
We like the layout: door shapes are fine, like you, new handles needed. Will prob change to granite worktops (price dependent; I might b naive here) and maybe new sink to freshen up. Still a fraction of new kitchen costs.

Hand-painted by my friend who's a prof painter £100 - £200
Spray £700
Relaminated £1500
New kitchen total circa £7000 😱

Getting lights redone, cracks filled, painting and a tiled floor running hall into kitchen. Brown tile effect laminate in kitchen has fooled most for years😂
Going to get real tiles.
Huge list of other stuff but that would freshen the kitchen big style 😊