Time to Face The Music

RelievedSheff

I am aiming for a no spends day today for the first time in what seems like ages!!

Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be from stores. Breakfast was toast, lunch will be an omelette and dinner tonight is BBQ with kofte kebabs, lamb chop, sausage, salmon, corn on the cob and grilled peppers and tomatoes. 

Today's jobs include:

• working from home
• cleaning the kitchen
• load of washing hung on the line to dry
• walking the dog
• finding somewhere to temporarily store all of the van gear that is going to be delivered in the next few days!

The other half is on strict instructions not to spend any money today. Think he is going to take the dog out for a long walk this morning and then he is cutting the grass this afternoon when the washing is put away.

RelievedSheff

Aiming for another no spends day today.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be from stores. Breakfast was a sausage sandwich, lunch will be something cobbled together from the fridge and dinner tonight is mixed seafood thai curry with noodles and spring rolls.

Today's jobs include:

• working from home
• vacuuming the house
• dusting the house
• walking the dog
• taking delivery of yet more van stuff

The other half has just taken the dog out for a long walk. They will be gone for a couple of hours I should think. Think he is just pottering around doing a few odd jobs today.  He has to clean my car at some point in the next couple of days. We were going to sell it although it isn't really worth anything, but the other half's mum is in desperate need of a car after hers had to be scrapped so we said she can have that one. We are meeting her at Penrith on Saturday with it.

Sun_Addict

That's a nice thing to do and will be much appreciated I'm sure. 

RelievedSheff

Balances Update 21.04.21

Debt 1 = £0
Credit Card 1 =£0
Credit Card 2 = £0
Credit Card 3 = £1908 (£500 repayment 29,9% interest)
Credit Card 4 = £4808 (£68 repayment 0% interest)
Credit Card 5 = £8489 (£233 repayment 19% interest)
HP Car Loan = £2678
Furniture Loan = £0

Total Debt = £17883

Savings = £0

The motorhome has decimated our savings. Time to start afresh again with that!!

RelievedSheff

Sun_Addict said:

That's a nice thing to do and will be much appreciated I'm sure. 

To be honest I would rather she had it then sell it for the £300 or so it would fetch.

It is nothing special and it it isn't very tidy but it will be ideal for her to chuck the dogs in the back.

rugbymadfamily

Debt still coming down nicely, not long to go and CC3 will be gone!

Thats a really nice thing to do, as you say £300 or so not worth it compared to being able to help someone out :-D

warby68

Bit surprised you've wiped every penny of the savings - are you still waiting on a holiday refund?

Hopefully you've got what you need for the van now and can quickly regroup/stop spending

Nice thing to do for MIL - we'll give you a wave as you pass by on the M6.

RelievedSheff

warby68 said:

Bit surprised you've wiped every penny of the savings - are you still waiting on a holiday refund?

Hopefully you've got what you need for the van now and can quickly regroup/stop spending

Nice thing to do for MIL - we'll give you a wave as you pass by on the M6.

It hasn't technically all gone yet. Still got £950 which has been transferred into our current account which will pay for the tax and insurance and any that is left will go back into the savings account to start that again.

Had a couple of expensive buys for the van. The refillable gas bottles kit was £550 but that will repay itself relatively quickly. And then we bought an Avtex TV for it. At £368 it wasn't a cheap buy but it is the best 12v TV you can get for touring. We have had cheaper ones in the past on the boat and the picture, sound quality and viewing angles are atrocious. We decided to bite the bullet and do it properly this time. Only have to buy it once then.

All of this does mean that the shed purchase has gone on a back burner for now. But it isn't the end of the world. We are not in desperate need of it, we do have the garden storage boxes to use for now. We will just get the shed later in the year instead.

We have now bought all of the expensive items that we need for the van and the little bits (these have added up quickly) so we can stop spending on it now. No doubt there will be the odd bit here and there that we find we need but the expensive stuff has been bought. It was nice to have the money there to buy the items this time around and not stick it all on credit cards!

We are both looking forward to meeting up with MIL. It has been ages since we have seen her.  

joedenise

Absolutely agree about the Avtex TV.  The DVD player gives up the ghost long before the TV but as we don't bother with DVDs it's not a problem but if you do then it could be a problem after about a year.  The guarantee on the DVD player is only a year the rest of the TV is 2 years.  We're on our 2nd TV but that is over a period of about 15 or so years so not too bad.  We use a Humax box and record stuff on it and then take the box with us in the van.  We also have a Firestick but don't usually use it but it's there if we want to.

Glad you've got the expensive stuff out of the way and you're going to wait until you see if you need anything else!  Gaslow is brilliant it's probably the Best Buy we've ever made.  It's expensive to buy but will pay for itself over time and if you change your van in the future you can take it with you.  Definitely much cheaper to fill once you've got it too!  Don't know how much it is in your neck of the woods but here our local Morries sell it for 57.7p/l so much cheaper than Calor which I think is about £35 for a 11Kg refill!

Enjoy meeting up with your MIL and agree with others it's a nice thing to do for her.

RelievedSheff

joedenise said:

Absolutely agree about the Avtex TV.  The DVD player gives up the ghost long before the TV but as we don't bother with DVDs it's not a problem but if you do then it could be a problem after about a year.  The guarantee on the DVD player is only a year the rest of the TV is 2 years.  We're on our 2nd TV but that is over a period of about 15 or so years so not too bad.  We use a Humax box and record stuff on it and then take the box with us in the van.  We also have a Firestick but don't usually use it but it's there if we want to.

Glad you've got the expensive stuff out of the way and you're going to wait until you see if you need anything else!  Gaslow is brilliant it's probably the Best Buy we've ever made.  It's expensive to buy but will pay for itself over time and if you change your van in the future you can take it with you.  Definitely much cheaper to fill once you've got it too!  Don't know how much it is in your neck of the woods but here our local Morries sell it for 57.7p/l so much cheaper than Calor which I think is about £35 for a 11Kg refill!

Enjoy meeting up with your MIL and agree with others it's a nice thing to do for her.

The new Avtex TV doesn't come with a DVD player, presumably because they have had so much trouble with it in the past. Not a problem though as we will put a few films on a memory stick to take away if needs be. Hadn't thought about taking the Firestick. Thanks for that.

Our local LPG station is the same price 57.7p per litre. We worked out it will cost about £26 to fully fill the bottles vs £35 per bottle for the Calor equivalent and the van holds two bottles. The Gaslow only takes 13 full fills to pay for itself. Of course the other advantage is you can part fill the bottles if you are going away rather then starting your trip with a half bottle.