First Steps to Solvency

ladyholly

There is one thing better than buying your first house and thaeis the final mortgage payment and receiving that biit of paper saying it is all yours 

alt80

Goals W/C 12th Oct

1. Spend less than £50 entertainment probably not going to be hard this week. £0
2. £10 groceries spend (have everything we need so should not be spending anymore than a few quid on milk or loaf of bread). £0 - this will be broken tomorrow need milk for coffee and can’t live with my coffee haha
3. Check and update the Yolt app daily. Done but nothing to update. It told me I’ve spent £2900 less than this time last month!
4. Structured work days - 9am starts 5.45pm finishes, emails off in evening. Lunch with wife. Eat dinner with family rather than wife cooking twice. Working from home all week (lockdown) apart from fee earners booked. Day 3 - done as I said I would
5. Train with wife 4x this week. Going to regret this I know haha. She’s already decided what we’re doing so no chance of backing out now. Completed slept badly last night and wife woke me up to HIIT lol sounds a bit wrong written like that
6. Activity with son everyday - probably going to be dog walk not going to be allowed to do much else... Dog walk and bedtime story 

alt80

@ladyholly haha never got there just bought bigger houses / more of them. Would be kind of nice to not be mortgaged up to my eyeballs I imagine lol.

alt80

Sense check on this please. I’ve added in a small clothes budget / £2k/a holiday and £2k/a emergency fund which I know I need. Still with the card payments just about balancing. Need to be more like £1500 under if I’m going to not be juggling the cards for years and get the RR balloon paid. BMW can be handed back next year so that would be £550 including running costs and getting something through the business so no new personal costs incurred. Also looking like £80/m off Res mortgage in January.

Monthly Income Details

Total monthly income.................... 7750

 

Monthly Expense Details

Mortgage................................ 1330 (will go down when current rate ends looking like £1250/m at 1.44% fixed for 5 years)

Cars………………………................ 1650

Cards.............................................1000

Council tax............................. 230

Electricity............................. 85

Gas..................................... 70

Water rates............................. 55

Telephone (land line) including internet................... 0 (through business)

Mobile phone............................ 43

TV Licence.............................. 13

Groceries etc. ......................... 650

Clothing................................ 85

Petrol........................... 300

Road tax................................ 85

Car Insurance........................... 100

Car maintenance......... 65 (servicing)

Car parking............................. 10 (often 0)

School/ pocket money/ trips....................... 1100

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 15 (PMI through business inc. dental, just written an incidental figure) 

Pet insurance/vet bills................. 30 

Buildings insurance..................... 30 

Contents insurance...................... 20 

Life assurance ......................... 70 

Presents (birthday, Christmas etc)...... 85

Haircuts/ beauty................................ 0 (covered by wife’s nail income)

Entertainment........................... 250

Emergency fund.......................... 170

Holiday……………………………………..170

Total monthly expenses.................. 7711

Feel a bit sick looking at this tbh can’t seem to get beyond just balancing things. Seems like all I can do is pay down the cards as they are, BT onto 0% and then refinance the balloon on the RR. It’s late so thinking about going to bed but all hope from earlier about paying off by April 2024 just fading feels like a pipe dream. Think I’m going to be 50 before I’m free of the cards/ Range Rover payments if income doesn’t improve drastically. Appreciate a lot of this is first world problems to many literally seems like I’m going to be skint forever and should actually be ok with the income i have but not.

ryanm8655

It looks reasonable to me. Obviously there are places you could cut back further. As long as you can stick to those budgets then your books are balanced and you’re clearing the debt, happy days!

One thing I did was map out different debt clearing scenarios. So looked at how my debt would look paying different amounts each month but also in terms of beating the 0% deals. Can you stay ahead of them at £1k a month plus the sales? 

Really impressed with your change in attitude/mindset. You’ve gone from Aston Martin to replace the BMW to thinking about putting a car through your company, which makes far more sense. It’s great to see and also great to see you and the wife being more open.

You will still have tough days on the journey but, like most things in life, it is the general trend that’s important and things certainly to be on the up, while the debt is on the down.

alt80

I only see the following as variable costs -

Groceries etc £650
Clothing £85 (this is very low compared to what we’re used to)
Petrol £300
Parking £10 (often £0)
Medical £15 (often £0)
Presents £85 (this is low compared to what we’re used to but just thinking £500 birthday / £500 Christmas for son. Wife and I will just have to forget about it didn’t really want son to grow up not seeing his parents getting any presents but can’t see how to change that tbh)
Entertainment £250
Emergency fund £170 (Completely new expense but ridiculous I’m currently putting any household repairs / servicing / emergencies on credit and this would go somewhere to addressing the lack of a sinking fund)
Holiday £170 (low compared to what we’re used to but could be less if we just visit parents in Greece and forget about any other type of hol)

Total variable £1735/m / £20820/a

Need to go to bed now forget about finances until morning.

alt80

@ryanm8655 thanks mate. Don’t know re 0%s right now need to try to force myself to sleep and work out tomorrow not getting enough sleep still think a nightcap is in order lol.

RelievedSheff

A good night's sleep is important. It will come as your stress levels reduce.

Alcohol won't help you sleep though! 

Keep working at the work life relationship. You are making great progress. 

PassElephant

We have only given each other a token present for Christmas since just after we married. The children didn't really notice/care. Just something to unwrap and share in the opening present  thing/ceremony.
You really are doing well. 

curtains174

Your building and contents insurance looks on the high side, I’ve just renewed at a cost of £190 on a house of similar value.
Water is also high, I pay £35/40 per month for 3 people.
You know this but worth saying again, groceries are very high. I spend around £350 per month and that also covers the cost of sending food parcels to my son at uni. We eat very well on that budget, I’m vegetarian so it will be less meat than most which will impact the cost but we certainly don’t suffer or buy poor quality - when I do buy meat for the family I’m a little obsessive about the quality!

It really is about working out your priorities, your diary seems to suggest that you are still switching between maintaining your current lifestyle regardless of cost, to being determined to pay off the credit cards, this will come in time and with a little work. Keep focused on your goal and things will improve.