Time to clear the remnants of my old life

leftatthetrafficlights

Thanks @castlelough 😊 

Yes, I have a separate savings account set up and it's boosted every month so no issues with that. Being tempted to dip into the debt account isn't a problem - I'm good now at keeping money very separate (finally learnt my lesson after the disaster I found myself in all those years ago! ) 

The reason I won't do debt repayments as and when I can is due to the age of the debts - I've been paying the current amounts for years so if I make any additional payments it would trigger income/expenditure forms/reviews of accounts etc. Not worth the hassle and if I don't pay them off in my lifetime there's more than enough equity in the house to cover them 😉 However, the smaller of the debts I will look at paying off with full & finals when the debt account has a reasonable amount in it 😊

castlelough

Ah I see! That makes sense *leftatthetrafficlights* (with regard to not drawing attention to yourself/the debts) and it sounds like you have a lovely balance between enjoying life and clearing debt!

leftatthetrafficlights

Checked the figures and had £51 left from scrapping the car! 🙌 It's now safely tucked into my debt account 😊

leftatthetrafficlights

Starting on the healthy lifestyle has definitely got off to a slow start 🙈

However, I've done the menu plan for this week which fits in with both the money saving (so that we have grocery money left at the end of the month to put in the debt fund) and eating less rubbish! 😉

The plan is:

Chickpeas with red pepper and coriander; chargrilled butternut squash slices; fennel & orange salad

Roasted red onions; bloomed wild rice; mango & papaya salsa; leaves

Butternut squash sauté; quinoa; beetroot and apple salad 

Bloomed wild rice with lemon and mint; steamed broccoli and walnuts 

Sweet potato and butternut squash soup; salad

Blackbean & jackfruit chilli; shortgrain brown rice; winter slaw

Warm winter salad with dijon; quinoa with tarragon; date, walnut & chard salad

The majority of the food is from stores/garden - we've had to spend £6 on onions, fennel, garlic, coriander, butternut squash and sweet potatoes. 

I'll probably have leftovers for lunches - dh takes salad every day and has either salmon/chicken or lean pork with that (I'm vegan, he isn't). Breakfasts are fruit for him and a smoothie for me. We'll need more fruit - I'm going to try frozen berries as I've been advised that it will work out cheaper- but not much as we still have some. Hopefully, we can spend less than £10 on that 😉 

savingholmes

Great you can partly feed yourself from the garden

leftatthetrafficlights

savingholmes said:

Great you can partly feed yourself from the garden

It really is @savingholmes! 😊 It's great for me as I buy organic where possible which is expensive 🙈 having my own organic stuff is a lot better, plus I tend to make stuff based on what is ready in the garden so it takes the 'what shall we eat?' query off the table a lot of the time! 😉 It also allows me to help out dd and stock the freezer! 🙌

savingholmes

Very disciplined. 

leftatthetrafficlights

Just came across a great idea from @savingholmes - being debt neutral! 😊 

As I'm saving a debt repayment fund, actually having a target of getting to the point where that savings pot would clear all the debts makes sense - once it does, I can approach the companies concerned with f&f settlement proposals - if they go for it, I'll have some unexpected savings, if not I'll be able to clear them all at once 😉 

So, my estimated guess is £45000!! 🙈 That is spread over 4 debts, 2 large and 2 much, much smaller. As I don't have a time frame to clear them in, I can just build the fund up slowly - having no pressure puts me the good position of being able to maintain a balance of living happily, building my normal savings but still addressing the debts 😊

leftatthetrafficlights

Just a week or so to go before my final October savings go into the fund! 🙌 I've had a good look at the budgets and intend to squeeze out what I can. 

Dh had to get a new car as the old one died - despite it being a bigger outlay initially and decimating our remaining savings, it's cheaper on fuel and car tax so in the long term it's a positive move. 

I've decided I'll do tilly tidies on my persie account weekly too - it all adds up 😉

savingholmes

Good to have a plan. At least once you know your numbers you can hatch a plan to sort them out.

Commiserations on the car expense but hopefully it's behind you now.