Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

MissRikkiC

Like you I have a number of things I want to sort out and no energy to do them and I have a ticking time bomb in place for some of those!  

Glad your work are being okay about the car trouble, however after everyone has been working from home for so long now, I think they’d struggle to be cross about it anyway. 

Bluegreen143

You would have a good excuse for just putting your feet up @MissRikkiC! Resting for two 🙂

Car is terminal… mechanic says there are so many faults it would cost way more than it’s worth to fix it 🤦‍♀️ 

Red is arranged to get it scrapped which will give us £300 towards the new one.

To be fair, at a cost of £2k five years ago and minimal work needed til this point (maybe about £1.5k all in MOT/services and the odd repair over the five years), I still reckon it was a really good buy and has served us very well. Especially if you compare to how much interest we’d have paid on a loan for a “better” car.

Red is now looking for something new, budget around £3k which will basically wipe out our savings, but we are in a good position to rebuild these straight away. We’ll need to as we are paying for the wood burning stove for the conservatory and the furniture ourselves - we only borrowed enough to actually build it.

Red has a weird salary thing due to the recent changeover of companies and he’s got extra pay this month and rather than repaying it they’ve told him he will just get that amount less next month. So will need to keep that aside - it’s £500 so I dread to think that some of the guys will just spend it and then be short next month…

Bluegreen143

Last night I went to the gym! As in my first class now I’ve finished my PT induction sessions. Feel a little sore today but good. Because of the lack of car, I’ve been walking WAY more than normal too.

Dinner time was a bit chaotic yesterday as I stupidly was making an ambitious meal with lots of parts (butter chicken, rice, salad, HM naans which I was still cooking at 5.30pm… and a plum crumble for pud). Note to self, simple or preprepared meals on gym nights. It was unfair on Red, as I basically used every dish in the kitchen and then swanned off to the gym leaving him with the clean up and doing kids’ stories and bedtime 😱 bless him, he didn’t complain once, but Monkey told me today “it was 8 o’clock when daddy put us to bed and I’m tired this morning!!” (Normally they go to bed at 7.30pm) 🤣 

Will be doing an end of month budget summary today so will post it later.

Red is arranging to go see two cars, one is just under £3k and the other £1,650. I like the price tag of the second but think the first is the more likely option.

Bluegreen143

Monthly round-up time! 

As ever, this doesn’t include the 20% of his income Red keeps, or what he buys with that money.

INCOME £4,294.13 includes £500 of Red’s next month salary, and £250 back pay; April income will be low then all should be normal

EXPENSES £3,015.25

JOINT £2,758.47

Home bills £808.13
Car bills/maintenance £30 mechanic fee to diagnose car
TV & subs £122.34 YNAB annual fee was majority of this 

Petrol & public transport £124.30
Food £385.68 Eek!
Treats £45.70
Cleaning & toiletries £31.45
Misc household £68.15
Pets £209.73 Mainly vet bill 
Family & fun £65.36
Eating out & takeaways £81.89 Eek!
Misc other £32.15

Birthdays £41.10
Holiday £224 Paying up the caravan we’re going to in June
Home & garden £296.81 Mainly wood for making raised beds and a fence 
Kids clothes £166.95 Monkey went up a size!
Kids other £1.99

Reconciliation adjustment £22.74

ME £246.78

Bills, subs, PT & gym £198.41 this will go down now as I’ve finished my PT sessions, and in another month I’ll stop paying for the online course I did 
Socialising £42.07
Hobbies & stuff £16.30

Ok, so it’s been a PRICY and emotional month. We’ve said goodbye to a cat 💔 , a chicken 💔 and a car, and Monkey has had Covid. 

All of our savings will be wiped out buying a new car as I think we literally have £3k (not counting Help to Save which I won’t touch), and April will be a leaner income month so harder to save. But we need to rebuild the savings in the next 3-4 months for our conservatory costs (not the build, which we’ve borrowed for, but decorating/furniture and the wood burning stove). Not to mention in case of further emergencies! 

So it’s a case of tighter belts and being strict about food, treats, takeaways and those random miscellaneous expenses which seem to add up each month. Red has sent over an extra £100 of his salary this time instead of keeping 20% which will help too. I know that Bambi needs warm weather clothes but we have a bag of hand me downs so I’ll check that first. I also desperately need new clothes but will get the minimum I can. 

On the positive side, even if I totally take out that £500 extra income, we spent £778 less than we earned this month. We CAN rebuild our savings quickly.

Bluegreen143

Ooops I’ve been slightly absent!

But two pieces of news:

1. We bought a car!!! £3,300 so it totally wiped out our savings, but it seems a great car, and we avoided having to borrow for it at least. It’s a very old BMW, so looks very fancy 🙈 but more practical than our old car as much bigger, as a family we were starting to outgrow the old one (Red is very tall, so whichever child was stuck behind him always complained about legroom 😂).

2. My poor wee Monkey has chicken pox and is all spotty! Bless him, he’s timed it well as won’t miss any school and we aren’t going away these holidays. Would be handy if Bambi gets it too and it’s done with 🙈 Only thing is they were meant to go to my mum’s Mon-Wed for childcare, and my stepdad has never had it! But my mum says she will come here to stay instead which is really kind of her. Bit of a shame as they’d planned various outings with them and now she’ll be stuck in with them and not even in her own house. 

Bluegreen143

Today I wanted to order a couple of A6 notebooks (pocket sized for carrying about and jotting down random stuff). So I looked online on how to make simple stapled notebooks and made two for myself and one for Monkey 🙂 love a free solution! Had all the supplies lying about.

Baileys_Babe

I hope Monkey makes a speedy recovery and Bambi could conveniently catch chickenpox at the same time.

I hope neither of them is very ill with it, mine both were and so was I when I was a child 🤞

MissRikkiC

Sorry to hear about it monkey. Don’t be concerned about it people have had the pox before or not, I had it as a child well over a handful of times so I’m sure it’s a myth that you can only have it once! Hope he makes a speedy recovery.

Love the note book, I really need to get myself one although I know I have a couple lay around already! 

Bluegreen143

@MissRikkiC really? I know some kids do get it twice, the NHS website states it’s really unusual to catch it more than once though. Regardless it can be quite bad for adult men to catch it in particular (according my friend who’s a doctor, it’s riskier for men than women) so I’m keeping him well clear of my stepdad! Apparently 90% of people who’ve not caught it before will get it if exposed because it’s so infectious.

Monkey has been very tired, he’s brighter now but still spotty bless him! 

Budget is going ok but need to do a proper round up. 

To try and be healthier, I’ve resolved to eat more satisfying, healthy but filling breakfasts as a quick bowl of cereal (while cheap) has me endlessly snacking all morning. So today I had scrambled egg on wholemeal toast and some rocket & tomato. Only thing is cooked breakfasts are less budget friendly as I won’t want to eat eggs every day (they aren’t my favourite). Can alternate with porridge and was thinking things like mushrooms or beans on toast too.

My energy supplier said I should increase my DD from £159 (which it only went up to a few weeks ago) to £224 a month!!!! I’ve compromised on £200 as I really think they’ve overestimated, a year ago we were paying £100 a month. We’re getting a smart meter next week so I’ll start paying more attention to our usage.

MissRikkiC

The guidance is probably more accurate than my option. My mum caught shingles really bad so can imagine for adults generally it’s much worse. 

Our energy bill went up too, although I’d already increased it a little preempting but was still surprised by how much they wanted it to be! Bare in mind it’s likely to go up again in October so might be prudent to go with their suggestion even if you think it’s high in order to forward plan/get used to the cost per month prior to October