Time to Face The Music

RelievedSheff

Not quite a no spends day today. Had to pick a couple of bits up from the shop this morning. £5

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are from stores. Cereals for breakfast, we have both taken our packed lunches to work and dinner tonight is turkey in black bean sauce with whole wheat noodles and spring rolls.

Today's jobs include:

• cleaning the bathrooms (didn't get done yesterday)
• vacuuming the house
• walking the dog

EssexHebridean

Our neighbours have given us some chillis they have grown - which is lovely of them, BUT we have no details about how hot any are aside from one variety (there are three different in the bag) and as I am a little bit sensitive to chilli - I get a skin reaction with too much, and too much is quite frankly very little! - it's a bit of a roulette game using them! Poor MrEH will be "Guinea pig" to taste a tiny bit of each before I use it! 

SA - it's not possible to use too much smoked paprika, surely? Lovely stuff! 

RelievedSheff

My other half is always the chilli tester. He likes things much hotter than me

RelievedSheff

Sun_Addict said:

RelievedSheff said:

I made the jerk pork a bit too spicy tonight. Oops!

We both ate it though 🤣🤣🤣

No point wasting it 😆 I’m rather heavy handed with spices, especially chilli and smoked paprika, I often get Mr SA and DD coughing if they come anywhere near the kitchen 😆

Those balances are continuing to come down nicely.

The balances are mostly heading in the right direction. Bit gutted that I had to put the £305 for the new tyres on Card 5 to be honest but the total debt balance is heading in the right direction at least.

We need to get the gearbox on the car sorted out early next year as well. Will probably wait until the car HP loan is paid off in February before we get that fixed. That will end up going on Card 5 as well. We are both getting plenty of 0% balance transfer offers through now so will get the car fixed and then balance transfer to 0% and get it paid off in 12 months.

With the car HP loan paid off we will look to putting the spare £250 per month into a fund to cover the costs of the car and the van.

EssexHebridean

Saving monthly for vehicle costs is 100% the way to go. we've also found that now we both have newer vehicles there is less maintenance to be paid for so we built up a bit of extra cash in the account which then helps saves towards future replacement vehicles. I'd not want to go back to paying things like insurance monthly again now at all.

RelievedSheff

EssexHebridean said:

Saving monthly for vehicle costs is 100% the way to go. we've also found that now we both have newer vehicles there is less maintenance to be paid for so we built up a bit of extra cash in the account which then helps saves towards future replacement vehicles. I'd not want to go back to paying things like insurance monthly again now at all.

We pay our insurance and tax annually. It is more maintenance bills we need to save for really.

We have been unlucky with the Hyundai gearbox I think. The car is only 5 years old!

It is more for the van then anything. Next year isn't too bad as it only needs an oil change but the year after it is a major service including the cam belt and it will be ready for a set of tyres by then as well. That will be an expensive year so the more we have saved towards it the better.

EssexHebridean

Yes, I thought you already set money aside for the insurances. It's so much better than having to pay a premium every time isn't it! We put aside £165 a month which covers pretty much everything aside from diesel for both cars, and we have found that is really a bit too  much - you should get a great head-start towards future vehicle purchases if you're planning to set aside even more even allowing for your extra vehicle plus the van probably being costlier than a regular car.  I still wish we could go back to the old days of 18,000 mile servicing on diesels though! 

RelievedSheff

EssexHebridean said:

Yes, I thought you already set money aside for the insurances. It's so much better than having to pay a premium every time isn't it! We put aside £165 a month which covers pretty much everything aside from diesel for both cars, and we have found that is really a bit too  much - you should get a great head-start towards future vehicle purchases if you're planning to set aside even more even allowing for your extra vehicle plus the van probably being costlier than a regular car.  I still wish we could go back to the old days of 18,000 mile servicing on diesels though! 

The van is 30,000 service intervals!

It missed it's first service at 2 years (before we owned it) and didn't have that until we bought it at 2.5 years old in April so we are going to give it an interim oil change this time, but in the future it might only get done every couple of years as per the schedule.

EssexHebridean

Wow - I’ve got service envy!

enthusiasticsaver

Balances are coming down nicely on the debts. I agree that saving the £250 monthly after the car loan gone is a good idea. We have paid out an eye watering £1300 this month on two mots and services for both cars, a new cam belt and insurance for DHs car and new cam belt for mine and a service on my e bike. Vehicles cost a lot.