Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

No news on car yet, though Red is away looking at a couple just now so 🤞🏼

Two small spends today:

£1.90 on the bus - transport budget
£12.50 sent to a friend who’s booked us all in for a drinks thing tomorrow (to celebrate my birthday and her birthday) - personal fun budget 

I think the bus is quite pricey now as I only live 3/4 mile away from where I was - I only got the bus as it’s all completely uphill and Bambi struggles with that walk. I’d prefer to use public transport more for eco reasons, but it’s frustratingly quite expensive unless you get rid of the car totally and get a four week pass. It’s £5 for a day ticket now! 

Baileys_Babe

I've been away from the boards for a couple of days and I'm only just catching up.

Your car plans seem sensible and you have budgeted the repayments. I bought a car many moons ago having had an interest free loan from my Grandmother, it has enabled me to save up for my subsequent vehicles.

I like how simply that budget is structured.

We rarely use public transport because every journey where it would be feasible the cost is disproportionate to the cost of using a car 😞

Cornish_mum

Hi Bluegreen your plan regarding your car issues sounds great, you really clearly need a reliable vehicle. We had a similar dilemma earlier this year and we are so grateful we bit the bullet and replaced our lemon. Our old car was such a source of stress, and we had so many unexpected repair bills.

Also your budget thoughts and tips from the book are super helpful. 

Thanks CM

kaycastle

I really enjoyed your diary (I've flicked through as can never guarantee how much time there is free from baby and I need to do some bits in the garden!)

Firstly, hope you had a lovely time on your birthday! How was the night out?

I like this new budgeting method you've done from the warren book, I might give that a go when I have time. Sorry to hear about your car woes - we've been through the exact same thing this year plus the last few second hand cars we got we were so unlucky with and they broke after a year The last one broke a couple of days before I was due to give birth!  Luckily have been borrowing one of our in-laws very decent car, we're super lucky they are so generous and its actually helped them to realise they only need one car - car prices should hopefully decrease next year. I've felt so guilty borrowing a car but they really don't want us to waste our money while prices are ridiculous. 

It really frustrates me how expensive a family-sized electric car still is - how do they expect us to transition to them.... we did cheekily test drive a few and they were so so so nice, can't wait until they are the norm!!

I use public transport mostly too - and I've taken to walking everywhere which has helped use the baby weight. The increase cost of the bus and train has certainly helped me stick to walking. I even walk for up to an hour to the next town now as the bus costs £7 return and the baby loves the pram anyways.

Bluegreen143

@kaycastle oh thanks for popping by! I agree re the expense of an electric car. Sadly not an option for us though I would love to swap over. Maybe in a few years.

Bless him, Red is fixated on trying to get the perfect car for our money and is being a touch picky 😆 so I start to doubt we will ever find anything at this rate! I think it’s gone to his head as we’ve never spent anything near this on a car before. He has three specific cars he’s considering but each of them he won’t consider the basic versions. But I keep telling him the basic versions are at the top of our budget and so I just don’t think that what he wants exists in our budget. We’ve seen a couple but the reason they fit our budget is that the mileage is too high or we found one good one but its too far away and they don’t do delivery. I’ve asked him to set a deadline when we will consider other versions/cars and he’s agreed Wed PM. 

Apart from that, nothing major to report financially. 

I’ve swapped to getting up early 3x a week to go to the 6am gym class 😱 it’s actually working very well except I get a mid afternoon fatigue slump. Hoping my body gets used to it as it’s much easier to be consistent with the gym going in the morning, and means it doesn’t interfere with family time. 

Work is simultaneously stressful and dull right now which is nice 🤦‍♀️ 

savingholmes

Good luck with finding the right car. 

Well done on the exercise.

Bluegreen143

We have bought a car! It’s being delivered on Thu 🙌🏼

Cost £8,020 all in, £6,000 of which we’ve borrowed from my mum. The rest has pretty much emptied our savings, but the website which buys all cars has quoted us roughly £1k for our old one which will help kick start our emergency savings (after some going to balance the Sept budget, as my two weeks unpaid leave come out this month). 

Red is being paid tomorrow so will divide his pay as follows

Red’s pay: £2,194 (net) + £177 pension contributions = £2,371 budget amount

Needs: £1,083 (roughly 45%)
……£688 mortgage & council tax 
……£225 utilities
……£170 car loan to mum 

Wants: £711 (roughly 30%)
……£100 holidays
……£100 gifts & celebrations
……£100 home & garden  
……£411 Red spending money 

Savings: £577 (roughly 25%)
……£177 pension 
……£400 emergency fund 

When I get paid mid-month, I’ll budget for groceries/petrol, insurance and the car bills annual pot (there’s enough in all these to last til then. Plus adding to the other pots and my own spending money. 

Current pot amounts (before Red’s pay):

Holidays & adventures £242
Gifts & celebrations £383
Home & garden £45
TV & music £16.75
Car bills £160
Insurances £47

My own savings: £125

savingholmes

Enjoy your new car

Baileys_Babe

Congratulations on finding a car you like, not long to wait until it arrives.

Bluegreen143

Thinking ahead about expenses over the next couple of weeks, til my payday. 

I’m going to need to get both kids new shoes, as they have simultaneously shot up a size at the same time! Luckily I foresaw this and bought Monkey’s school shoes in the next size up compared to the other shoes he has. 

Bambi needs:

- minimum 2x trainers (one pair to leave at nursery as they need indoor shoes there) 
- warm/smartish boots (these could wait a few weeks weather-wise)
- cosy lined wellies (ditto) 

Monkey needs:

- minimum 1x trainers
- warm/smartish boots (again these and the wellies aren’t as urgent)
- cosy lined wellies 

Tbh this summer they’ve had two pairs of trainers each at home (plus Bambi’s nursery pair do she has three) and it’s been great as if one pair gets wet or misplaced then they’ve had back up. But maybe they don’t need a second pair of trainers in the winter if they have boots too 🤔 Monkey uses his normal trainers for PE so don’t need school sand shoes. 

I went into Tesco to pick them up trainers and was disappointed they had none in Monkey’s size and the whole shoe section looked quite empty. Not sure if they are waiting on their autumn/winter stuff or what. I had a quick Google but it’s getting hard to get shoes I like in Monkey’s size, same with clothes, he’s still quite innocent and the stuff I like is more what they sell in the younger sizes. He’s not yet into gaming or Star Wars or superheroes, and I don’t like branded/character stuff which is all you seem to get for boys older than 6!! Or it just looks really old for him where he’d still like dinosaurs and trucks on stuff.

Can’t afford multiple pairs of Clark’s shoes, that’s reserved for school shoes here, I’m ok with cheap trainers for kicking about the garden. 

Do need to sort out where to order from though as Bambi’s trainers are definitely tight.