The Last Leg; 6 years later, debt free in 2021

Kakiste

Yay! August will hopefully mark the first ever time I've paid my car insurance in one lump sum so I hope to follow you in the cutting down DDs from my monthly budget. 

greensalad

Baileys_Babe said:

That is good news. As you say you will are paying so much less, saving over 45% this year.
Like you, we pay annually but save up over the year. To work out how much I am going to save a month I divide the latest cost by 12 and plus 20% to cover any increases next year, for you this would work out at £30 per month 😃  Usually, I can remove the increase by changing the provider, but this gives us a cushion in case I can't.

The cushion is a good idea! I'm going to continue on saving for the same amount but I have a miscellaneous car pot which could be used to plump up the amount.

Also Amazon Prime came out today (we use it a lot, both shopping and movies, as we don't have Sky or anything). Always nice when you've saved for something over the whole year and then it finally comes along! I remember the days when Amazon Prime would throw my entire budget.

greensalad

Kakiste said:

Yay! August will hopefully mark the first ever time I've paid my car insurance in one lump sum so I hope to follow you in the cutting down DDs from my monthly budget. 

It's so exciting, I feel like a fancy adult who can pay the annual fee lol

greensalad

Payday came earlier than expected! I hadn't noticed payday fell at the weekend this month and we get paid a day early with Monzo so it came today!

My pay was under target this month annoyingly. Due to doing lots of overtime, my tax gets squiffy every now and again and they come along and give me a new tax code. It's only a marginal amount dipped, but it's still annoying. Also I didn't get paid any on-call fee. Normally I consider my wages £500 up per month (pretax) because I do a regular amount of on-call shifts over the month. But depending on how they fall within the month sometimes I go without and then get two lumps in one paycheque. So next month I'll get a grand extra. All works out the same in the end.

We were cushioned by the fact my OH got his bonus! About £600 take-home from it. I gave him an extra £80 pocket money as we discussed, when I got my bonus I bought myself a new pair of winter boots so he gets a little extra too. He's going to spend it on upgrading some of his homebrewing equipment which I think sounds like a good idea. 

I also started a new category this month, savings for friend's weddings. We've got two coming up this year (one postponement and one that was always planned for September) so I've made a new category to cover accommodation (I think we already paid accommodation for one of them at the venue), gift, drink, getting down there etc. So far I've just got the one 2022 wedding (my cousin, postponed 3 times now) so we'll see about making a new category for that one!

Paid £280 of OH's CC. Now with moving we're unlikely to push to pay it off any quicker than the end of the 0% term (Feb 2022) so just keeping on paying that amount. If we get to buy the house and we've saved a bit of cash may well just knock it on the head but it's not an issue being 0% and still going down each month. Updated signature!

After everything I was able to save £2,623 towards the house today, though we're still likely to pull out of LISAs at some point but I'll count that when I come to it!

greensalad

Have been having a good laugh and reading through my much older debt diary on here, started in 2014. It's so interesting to see all the things I used to do and the position I was in. It's almost annoying me that I was so close to the end but managed to get into so much debt again! The debt the "first time round" was actually fairly understandable. A tiny bit of student loan overpayment debt, an overdraft from uni days, and only a tiny bit of silly spending. 

Anyway, in money related stuff today (and I think I'm going to pick up this old habit from my old diary!) I'm going to start doing No Spend Days again.

So today alas is not an NSD. Popped to Co-op at lunch and picked up a few bits for our next few meals on the plan. Should take us through to Wednesday and came to £18. Includes weekend treats (nice bread, a chocolate bar each). Ocado comes next week so we'll need to do our meal plan. 

Got the pack in the post to send off my old broken mobile for all of £11. Charging it now ready to factory reset it and pop it in the letterbox.

OH got a £50 reward for doing well at work in his team. It got cashed into his reward portal. He already had £50 from last year too, so we've got £100 and it'll probably get cashed in as John Lewis vouchers when we buy a house and will use it for something nice and new. 

Plan this weekend is to read more of my book, finish sewing a pair of cream jogging bottoms I made (a pattern I've made in black and they're so comfy and warm), start on a jacket I cut out a while back and also try and knit another sleeve of my Icelandic jumper (I'll wait for OH to have a long gaming sesh so I can watch some crap TV and knit!)

Also need to clean my filthy house!

Kakiste

Ive just looked around my house and thought the same!

greensalad

Oof another spend day! OH convinced me to walk tot he shop to buy butter and cokes. I also had to buy a newspaper (why don't they give them out free anymore) because I've decided to chance washing a pair of grey suede trainers (which are now brown suede trainers) ready for summer and I need something to stuff them with. Of course yesterday I received a massive Amazon box (repaired grow light for my plants) stuffed with brown paper that I immediately put in the recycling that was collected yesterday also. Sod's law. Hoping the trainers come out OK. They're about 3 years old and still good on the soles really just looking very unattractive so I thought washing machine on cool with loads of oxi powder might brighten them up a bit. Soaking the laces too.

So far not done much this morning. Washed hair and showered (and put make up on, what a treat!), read a little of my book, ate some tasty bread with aforementioned butter. Now going to make a start on cleaning the house while the trainers wash. Hopefully get them sat outside in the sunshine to dry off as much as possible. Need to wash bedsheets which requires two separate loads due to our minuscule bargain-basement washing machine. Bedroom is covered in clothes so will organise everything into loads and get it done.

Also posted off my broken phone for all of £11 so should get some profit next week.

Need to print out a sewing pattern and make it up. Should be a quick sew but I've sorta been putting it off. I'm getting paid to sew the test sample so I really do need to get on with it... and who doesn't love funnel neck jumpers now all we do is sit at home?

Interesting news today about 5% mortgages being back on the cards in the budget. We'll wait and see. If it comes to fruition and the rates are better than the Barclays product we'll jump but as far as it goes currently I guess we'll just keep going with the springboard option.

greensalad

Happy Sunday!

Had a lie-in, cut out a new jumper for this pattern I'm testing, will get sewing it later (looks like a quick sew, want to do it in one sitting ideally!)

Trainers all dried out and looking a bit better, they'll last me until the soles wear through I think (they're already slightly worn in the ball of the foot). So maybe new trainers next summer rather than this... 

Bed sheets are in the wash and I've done two loads of normal laundry. Had croissants from the freezer for breakfast. Just about to make myself a pie for dinner from some pre-frozen pastry (made for the mince pies at christmas) and whatever I can rustle up in the fridge (potatoes, cheese, onions and maybe some parsley I think). We've got frozen roasties and parsnips too ready to go, plus a cabbage. Can't wait until my garden is going again so I can grow my own. Homegrown cabbage tastes so good!

Yesterday I cleaned the kitchen and my desk only so really need to get on with the other rooms but at least they're less labour intensive.

About to shuffle some plants around so I can plant up some spinach!

greensalad

Got the jumper all sewn up! I really like it. The pay is 40 USD which should get me about £28. I think the fabric was about £18, but I'd already bought it (it was fabric I bought for something else that ended up being the wrong colour) so I'm not really out of pocket, and I've got a new jumper. Always sucks when I pattern test something and it ends up not fitting or being weird, so at least I have something I will wear and enjoy.

Managed to rustle up a pie entirely from things we had around. Frozen pastry, cheese leftover from Christmas (truckles in wax so they keep forever), frozen parsley, leftover potatoes and a rogue onion. Bought a big bag of potatoes for doing mash last week so boiled them all up, froze half parboiled. I'm so happy I've got my "frozen roastie veg" working correctly. It means I can always just make more and have yummy roasties. I'm going to be planting out potatoes next month and I think when I come to harvest I'll be able to make loads of batch roast potatoes.

greensalad

Decided to list my chilli plants at a higher price than what I was really comfortable with... just to see if I got any bites. Got a bite today 4 for £10! Not too bad at all. They said they want to come Wednesday so I'll see if they do. I wasn't planning on selling them while they're still so little so presumed they wouldn't be worth as much. When they're larger £3 each seems reasonable but I listed them for £3 anyway.

If this goes well along with the tomatoes I might be quids in haha