Starting All Over Again

ZaSa1418

crunchy_time said:

Hi!  Subscribed to your diary!  You are doing brilliantly!!
Your story resonates with me.  We got £2800 away from being debt free (from £28k plus) 3 years ago and then an ill-thought out lifestyle change and various repercussions from it brought us deeper into the red and we now owe £16,500.  I'm kicking myself of course but this time it will be forever (except for cars).
Keep up the good work!
Crunchy xx

Thank you, it is so frustrating when we realise how close we were only to take 10000 steps back and pretty much start all over again. I don't regret spending all the time i could with my youngest though, my now 5 year old i had hardly any time off and regret it so much. 

ZaSa1418

Today i have paid another £50 off my credit card. I have some money left in my account as we have spent below budget on a few things this month. Still have £70 left and it is payday on Friday so will send the extra to the credit card. 
I am a little worried i am becoming obsessed because all i seem to do is check our accounts. I know exactly when we get paid and get our child benefit etc so it is pretty pointless but i just can't help it at the moment. 

Naomim

I think we all become like this when on the debt clearing path.  I check my bank account every day, I look at my Monzo account and the pots even though I know nothing has changed.  I wonder if it's all because our debt maybe has been borne out of being out of control, having our head in the sand and ignoring it for so long and now we're in control but need to feel that we are keeping a very tight reign on it?

Well done on being under budget this month

Naomim

ZaSa1418

Thank you for your post, this totally makes sense. Now i feel in control i am petrified of not making progress. I am sure i will get better as the months go on. 

ZaSa1418

Yesterday was such a busy day with work and the kids i didn't get as much done as i wanted too.
I could view my payslip yesterday so wanted to do as much of the finance planning as i could but i got as far as writing the amount i was being paid into my budget planner and that is it  
Today is payday though and I have done all i can until tomorrow when hopefully hubby will get his payslip in the post. 
I got a small bonus this month so i have moved that out of my main account and put it in savings for the moment until i send it to the credit card company after Hubby's payday. 
I have topped up my tax free childcare account so i can pay the childminder later when it clears and moved money over to one of the accounts that our loan comes out of. 
Then it is a waiting game for all the direct debts to come out next week. 
I have a voucher for £5 off a Lidl shop when you spend over £30 so we will use that tomorrow for the weekly food shop. 
The cats are going for their yearly injections which are already paid for , i am so glad we did the vaccine for life when they were kittens it has saved us so much especially as they are 15 and 13 years old now. We will pay for a couple of months of flea/worming treatment but i have the money saved for that so no unexpected cost there , lets just hope they are in good health as i always worry they will find something especially due to their age. 
If they are all fine then i am going to look at changing their insurance as the premiums have got ridiculously expensive and as they are older the insurance policy seems to cover less and less each year (even with lifetime policies) 

ZaSa1418

I have been so busy i haven't updated for a few days. 
Luckily the cats are fine so i am trying to find a decent policy, as with older animals insurance companies tend to limit cover even on lifetime policies and add lots of co-paying and unless i find something before Friday i might have to go down the route of either renewing my current policy or not renewing and paying for everything myself.  I am also getting extremely annoyed at some exclusions they are trying to place, injuries from over 13 years ago with no problems since backed up by a vet and they still want to argue it  

I have managed to do my budget for the month and have also done our monthly shop of cleaning products, i looked on amazon and found some amazing deals so i am stocked up for a good few months now which is great and was again within the budget i set.  I have also bought the last of the birthday presents for my littlest so now all i need to get is decorations for the house as although we won't have a party i still want the house to look all done up.
Hubby gets paid Friday which means once i have allocated all the money to the relevant budgets i can make my overpayment on the credit card which will nearly clear it thanks to my boss who gave me a generous bonus. 

I am also trying to declutter and have a couple of piles of stuff, 1 for the charity shops and 1 for potential selling. 
I am going to give some of the stuff to the local childrens centre when they are taking donations again and i will also send some of the children's clothes to the local women's refuge. I am not getting far though as i am a hoarder and am rubbish at parting with things. 

Naomim

Pet insurance is such a rip off!  My dog is only 7 and has multiple health issues and I can't change provider as it will all come under pre-existing conditions and not be covered at all.  

Good going on the sorting out I've done this too but not listed anything yet and MrM gets paid on Friday.  👍

Keep at it

Naomim

ZaSa1418

Naomim said:

Pet insurance is such a rip off!  My dog is only 7 and has multiple health issues and I can't change provider as it will all come under pre-existing conditions and not be covered at all.  

Good going on the sorting out I've done this too but not listed anything yet and MrM gets paid on Friday.  👍

Keep at it

Naomim

It definitely is, it is just so frustrating they want to exclude stuff that happened 13 years ago and not even just that but the areas around the injury site which is absolutely ridiculous. 

ZaSa1418

Payday for hubby today yay. I spent the start of my day moving all the money to our various pots so that is done for the month (well until my payday in 25 days)  and lots of payments have come out, the last batch comes out Monday.

I kept my work bonus in an old savings account incase something went wrong with hubby getting paid but as it didn't I have paid off an extra £1k to my credit card. I will pay more towards it next week as after all the payments come out Monday i will see what extra excess i have to send with it.

I paid Hubby's car tax which is due tomorrow , had that saved up as we put that aside throughout the year. 

My car insurance is due September so i will look for quotes throughout the week next week and hopefully find a cheap policy. I have 10yrs of no claims and hardly using the car so it should be ok, i have savings pot for this as i like to pay it yearly. 

Not much planned for the weekend, if the weather stays nice it will be lots of garden time and picnic lunches which is cheap enough. 
I am still decluttering but struggling with paperwork , i mean who knows how long of this stuff should be kept for as there is so much conflicting advise out there  

ZaSa1418

This past week has been so busy. 
I have paid off another £1200.00 to my credit card and i should be able to clear the rest of it in the next 2 months. 
I am looking for car insurance still and will go through topcashback when I do eventually renew. 

Work have pretty much said I won't be in the office until next year and even then it will only be once or twice a month which is a huge relief for me tbh as all this extra money i am saving on the commute is clearing the debt and without that my debt free date would probably be in the 2026 range rather than late 2022. 

The little ones activities start again in a few weeks which is good and they are all paid up until 2021 now as i had paid a week before lockdown for the next 12 weeks Also school uniform including shoes still fit so i don't need to go out any buy anymore for the time being which helps. 

Hubby has to wear a uniform so we did the reclaim tax for uniform and it was so easy to sort out. We already have confirmation his tax code has changed so i guess he will get a small rebate. We also got some PPI in the last few years which was taxed so we have claimed for that back and it says on our online account it is done so hopefully we should find out if we get anything back from that too.

Under budget for food again this week which is fab so that will go in to my overpayment pot for the end of the month.