It's the final countdown...£10k to go

t2rry

Sarahwithlove said:

Do you have any annual leave you could take? I know it's not ideal time to do so because your limited with what you can do but some times we just need a day where we won't have to juggle quite so much 

We have just booked some in for March so not too long away and we've looked carefully at when we can best get a proper 'rest' rather than what might be the most convenient in terms of managing the juggle.  Hopefully the weather will be at least a little less sharp so we can spend some time out in the fresh air. 

Sarahwithlove

t2rry said:

Sarahwithlove said:

Do you have any annual leave you could take? I know it's not ideal time to do so because your limited with what you can do but some times we just need a day where we won't have to juggle quite so much 

We have just booked some in for March so not too long away and we've looked carefully at when we can best get a proper 'rest' rather than what might be the most convenient in terms of managing the juggle.  Hopefully the weather will be at least a little less sharp so we can spend some time out in the fresh air. 

Fingers crossed that does the trick. I've got a week in Feb and 2 weeks at end of March start of April. Hoping by then we might be able to actually do something. 

mark55man

feeling your pain - this time last year I was visiting my brother in another time zone, and then our usual week in Cornwall at Feb half term - then didn't have a good break all year.  In the new year I was off for a couple of weeks and it was refreshing, but you need to have a few things you can do but plan for some of them to be indulgent and lazy.  give yourself a bit of a mental boost - it is really important.  I'm just waiting a few weeks more, and then I will set myself some gardening and getting outside goals as I've been incubating mainly  

t2rry

Imark55man said:

feeling your pain - this time last year I was visiting my brother in another time zone, and then our usual week in Cornwall at Feb half term - then didn't have a good break all year.  In the new year I was off for a couple of weeks and it was refreshing, but you need to have a few things you can do but plan for some of them to be indulgent and lazy.  give yourself a bit of a mental boost - it is really important.  I'm just waiting a few weeks more, and then I will set myself some gardening and getting outside goals as I've been incubating mainly  

I was reading a couple of days ago about how much more daylight we will have each week moving forwards now, definitely good for the outside goals!!

t2rry

I want to ask another question, if you don't mind....

When we have finally get to credit card debt neutral (in 3 weeks time!!), we do have one more debt I want to tackle that I have kind of been ignoring, but I definitely know that I want it gone...

We have a car loan.  It is PCP, it costs us just under £300 per month and it is due to end in December 2022.  Not too far away, but I know we can get rid of it this year and save the both the interest and then the monthly payment...

EDITED OUT DETAIL...

What I have been trying to work out is how much this costs us in interest each month from now to August, when we should have saved enough to pay it off, in case that is more than the 3-4% fee would cost us if we paid it off with a CC money transfer now and then paid off the CC in that time instead.

EDIT:  I think i've found a crude calculator I can get rough figures from and it works out around £400 interest between now and August anyway, again give or take, so I'm parking these thoughts and continue as I am... 

Sarahwithlove

You need to contact the car finance company for a settlement figure if you settled now as I believe they usually put the interest on up front. I know mine did and I saved on interest by paying it off early. Do you have to make a balloon payment at end? Once you know how much it would be if settled now versus run to end you then work out money transfer fee and add to settlement figure and see which comes out less 

mark55man

I'm not sure if this helpful, but I recall a thread on the motoring forum on MSE where the OP was told that once you were at a certain stage you could return it, and the garage was obliged to take it,.  But (and here's where it may be not that helpful, I can't recall if it was lease or PCP or what), and I can't recall what happened to the finance you just had to of had it for a certain duration (which I also can't recall). 

That said, there were some very knowledgeable people, who were very clear about what was possible, and what the garage would tell you was not possible, and that the two were very different and that there is a list of things you should do and not do (inc some ones that were not intuitive.  SO maybe worth a question on the motoring forum.  Be warned though they are pretty fierce!!.  But if you just ask what are your options you should get some good info

t2rry

Thank you @Sarahwithlove and @mark55man - I shouldn't have edited out the detail, oops!

I do know the settlement figure, if we were to pay it off now we'd save £1600-£1700 interest, but we'd incur the 3-4% fee for a CC money transfer, around £400.  If we settle it in August, when we should have the funds to do so, we'll have incurred the interest between now and then, which also works out around £400 so I'm not going to bother with the CC money transfer as it achieves the same end.

I know we can return the car at the end of the term and not pay the balloon payment, but we'd then have to find the money anyway for a new car, and our car is worth more than the outstanding amount left to pay, so we have always intended to keep it beyond the deal.  I won't get a PCP again, this was our first and only after we had our previously paid off car stolen and wrecked.  I will take a stroll over to the motoring forum in any event, I may learn a thing or two!

mark55man

@t2rry - yes I think my recollection was that there options over and above the end of term hand-back.  But my memory is a bit fuzzy as I haven't gone down that route myself - it was just one of those threads I picked up by doing the "NEW POSTS" button on the home page and remembered as a - "well I didn't know that" !!!! 

t2rry

mark55man said:

@t2rry - yes I think my recollection was that there options over and above the end of term hand-back.  But my memory is a bit fuzzy as I haven't gone down that route myself - it was just one of those threads I picked up by doing the "NEW POSTS" button on the home page and remembered as a - "well I didn't know that" !!!! 

I found a few relevant threads quickly and learnt two things already:
1.  You can return the car after having paid off 50% of the total amount due, I didn't know this, we haven't paid off 50% yet but again the car is worth a few £1000 more than the balance we have left (even if we were to let it run and incur all the iterest), so either way we wouldn't return it.  Useful to know though!
2.  'Fierce' is about right!! Gosh!!