A new chapter, An empty nest, Drama school & Last year of Uni

threepenny_bit

@Spendless sounds like a busy but great low spend week - the decluttering is paying off! 

Spendless

It got to around 3pm yesterday and boredom and a sweet tooth kicked in and I went to the shops and spent £1.80. It didn't come from the bank acc as I used money in my purse but I was still annoyed with myself afterwards

I'd not long returned from walking the dog to see my parents and usually would have stayed longer but had forgotten that they were attending a funeral. Whilst I'm still at home  I need a distraction technique for this part of the day when I've had my fill of household jobs but it's too early to start winding down for the evening. 

threepenny bit - I would say this method is slower and  without the 'instant gratification' of doing it but it does seem more thorough. You're also edging forward in other areas as you go along. We cleared about 3 shelves in a cupboard in anticipation of de-cluttering 'school supplies' which meant tidying the medicine area. Yesterday as I stumbled across a couple of bottles of medication (nothing dangerous/serious - indigestion stuff)  in different rooms   I was able to put it away neat and tidy in it's home. 

Today I will continue with the tidying. A charity bag came through the door with pick up tomorrow, so am going to go through my wardrobe to see what I can put in. 

I can't remember if I said but I am accompanying DH on another work trip to the States in late spring. Cost to us is my flight, possibly 1 or 2 nights hotel as we've slightly extended the stay so DH gets free time too and any spends plus meals outside of DHs working time. We have also treated ourselves to an Airport lounge, something we've never done before. We could have flown from a nearer airport but have chosen one near where DD is because her course finishes as we are away and we will be giving her the option of returning by train herself or waiting a few days in her digs and we will pick her up. When we went to this hotel in November, part of the goodie bag DH received was a gift card. There wasn't time to use it, nor did we completely know what it was, how much it was for  or if it had an expiry date, so he contacted the company over the weekend and they've replied that it's value is a 1 hour spa treatment for 2, so looking forward to using that. 

Spendless

Seems charity bags through the door are like buses. Another (for a different charity) turned up yesterday. I am dividing items between the 2 as they accept different items. The one to be collected on Friday will accept bric-a-brac. I have already put outside the one to be collected today and have got rid of a huge winter coat now too big for me that way. This led to a de-clutter of 'winter outwear' (eg scarves, gloves). I have done mine. I will ask DH to do his tonight

Today is the penultimate working day of the month so the day I do a debt roundup. Normally today would be payday but it's all a day later due to leap year. Normally I quite enjoy the 'unusual' aspect of a  Feb with 29 days in, but some years like this it just irritates me. The same happened 24 years ago when I was pregnant with DS and nearing my due date. I desperately didn't want him to be born on 29th Feb as I had believed DH joke that if the baby was born on that day he only intended buying him a birthday present every 4 years. I don't think I was  quite sane at 9 months pregnant to have believed that one! I also recall getting myself into a similar tizwas as DD's due day approached in case she missed the cut -off date for 3+ nursery funding. As it happened in typical  DD style, she  made it just. DS was born in March, though when I later told him the story he said he'd have quite liked the unique-ness of a birthday that was sometimes celebrated in Feb and sometimes in March and I managed to become sane enough again to recognise that these things  paled into insignificance compared to supporting student offspring in HE  for 6 consecutives years and counting! 

Onto the debt. CC2 is currently at £8405 with £4800 of savings in High interest accounts to pay this off, leaving balance at £3605. There are 6 x £80 SO to go out = £480 (money back into savings for CC debt that wasn't be able to BT to 0% CC). There are also 6 payments to go back into savings because DH paid his clothing account off from them as it was attracting interest. I can't quite remember how much it was set up for, the first payment goes out on Fri but I'm going to guesstimate it at £67 p.m which means £402 currently to be paid back.

Meaning current overall debt is 3605 + 480 + 402 = £4487.

I would prefer not to have 3 debts running concurrently even if they are all at 0% but seeing if they can be changed is on hold for now

For a long time I have wondered what my starting point was as I never wrote it down. I think this was like when you're aware your clothes don't fit and you need to diet but you'd rather not know your starting weight. When me and DH do the monthly  CB CC, he reads the amounts out and puts them onto a spreadsheet and we agree which account the item is to come out of. I initially jot down the old fashioned way with pen and paper, before creating my own s/sheet, then we compare notes and if we are even pennies out, we look through it to find the error before transferring from various accounts and paying. The notebook I grabbed this week to do my jottings, I saw listed some CC debt from April 2021 which is 5 months before I start this diary  

It lists a CC  that is is £7300 but then projects a year into the future  when it would stand at £4300 having made £3,000 worth of payments which would equal £250 per month. I am pretty sure this is CC1 (now paid off) as it was at 0% interest and would mean at the point I start the diary in late Sept 21 the balance would have been £5800. CC2 (the one still being paid off but now on a 0% deal) though I don't have precise figures I'm aware it had either or was about to  hit   £10,000  because a 5 figure sum frightened me. I'm sure it didn't get as high as £11k before we started actually dealing with it.

This means our starting point (roughly) was £15,800 in CC debt. In addition we were always into both overdrafts at 1,000 + 500 so  £17,300 in debt. Plus mortgage still running and constantly paying for student rent out of rapidly dwindling savings.

Since then both overdrafts are cleared and are not being used - £1500 paid off

 CC1 has gone  - £5800 paid off
CC2 (inc savings destined to pay it)  is currently £3605 from (approx) £10,000 - £6395 paid off

1500 + 5800 + 6395  =  13,695 paid off so far

In addition £2500 was saved to pay DD's rent last Easter
A further £3920 for her Oct rent plus £3920 for Jan minus the £2,000 that came from her student loan that I put towards these costs.

2500 + 3920 + 3920 = 10,340 - 2000 = 8340

Making 13,695 + 8,340 = £22,035

The mortgage has also been paid off during this time

Wow! If you'd asked me at the beginning if this was achievable, I'd have said no. Roll on the next 6 months. 

Spendless

An extra day in Feb confused DD too. She only had cash on her for lunch not realising it was card only for one of the college's eateries. Staff member told her she could pay back the following day and she said ok, thinking her monthly living costs would have been sent to her and then realised late at night they would be a day late and had to sort it out with the canteen.

She also went to speak to student services about managing her money better. There's bursaries available but she doesn't qualify due to our household income (even with me not working). The irony being that if our income was low enough for the bursary she'd have a larger student loan in the first place. I do wonder at times  how much even Uni staff understand how the  student maintenance loan works. I encountered the same when looking round Unis with DS and querying the price of their halls (as we'd be paying) and them not grasping that without us doing so DS wouldn't be able to afford to attend. DD had same last year when a tutor in class wanted to know why one of the students had decided to commute from home instead of moving into halls as he (tutor) felt this was a mistake and student  should reconsider. Ahhhh no wonder Martin Lewis has campaigned for this to be more transparent. Student Services have told her to look into DSA (disabled student allowance) should she get her ADHD diagnosis. Though this wouldn't give her extra cash it could help her in other ways. 


Enjoyed the freebie cinema trip with my friend. We watched Wicked Little Letters. The o/seas trip DH did earlier this month his terminally ill relative has now moved into a hospice, so sounds like DH went out at the right time.

DH payday today. Moved all surplus money from Feb into savings late last night. Today's plans are grocery shopping, buy Easter eggs for family, fill the 2nd charity bag and tidy bedroom at same time, then later visit friend with DD's 21st birthday present so she can wrap it. 

Spendless

Exactly 5 months today, we should wake up debt free! I think by the end of this month I should  feel this is real. I accurately guessed at £67 SO p.m to pay off the clothing account. What I forgot to include in my paying off total was the amount of £80s that have gone back into my savings so far. I'll do another more accurate round up another time. 

Yesterday was nowhere near the productive day I'd thought it was going to be. Family issues going on - for once not my kids nor anyone directly related to me! I did go buy some Easter eggs though, currently some are on offer for £2 with a Tesco clubcard. Left them at my Mums to stop any temptation. 

I asked DD to send me her timetable over the next couple of weeks (it's to do with some logistics of getting her to places, which I'll explain at a later point) This is a sample of them 10am-5pm plus return for 7pm to put on your own play  10am-9pm, 2pm-9pm, 10.30- 4.30pm. This isn't scattered occasional days but all through the week In addition you still have to learn your lines and do your written  assignments outside of class time and are encouraged to watch other professional/other courses  productions.  

Later today we see the FA. Pension with my name change on hasn't turned up, so next week will make an official complaint about it as it's the only way I can think of to get the situation looked at, the initial request was made in Jan. Ironically the same place asked me to do a survey which I did and said they'd send me £10 Amazon vouchers as a thank you - which I've also seen nothing about! 

KxMx

I think you are doing really well, have you made any plans beyond Debt Free Day, as in what to spend the money on currently paying debts, and how to remain debt free?

Spendless

KxMx said:

I think you are doing really well, have you made any plans beyond Debt Free Day, as in what to spend the money on currently paying debts, and how to remain debt free?

Thank you. Yes I have some ideas in my head which include doing re-decorating/re-furbishing/renovation  of our house  . DD will spend part of her degree doing a foreign exchange term as part of her course  for which they will be a  (currently unknown!) cost. I want to change the way we fund DD through Uni. I wish to build our savings up more (I have an idea in my head about this but am waiting till after DFD to consider how we implement it). Me and DH are under 10 years away from SPA and need to take steps towards that life change.

Remaining debt free I would say we already do as of early last year, because we have not added to it (I can't say that we def didn't between starting this diary and beg of 2023 though) and the huge majority of the time have money left over each month. I would say the things that helped are - DH has a company CC to put work expenses on (he has had it for years now but the initial building up of debt due to not having one and not getting expenses re-imbursed in a timely manner  is something we're still dealing with). The FA we saw made us realise that some of our savings were for 'us to spend'. I think that changed our mind set, before DH would tip money into the current account cos we were exceeding our overdraft a few days before payday and then I'd get cross because the money wasn't put back, or we'd have known  big expenses coming up and not have saved for them out of wages - this is my biggest regret. I returned to f-time working the week after DS last GCSE and remained working f-time until he finished his last term in his first year at Uni. At which point I stop working as the place closes down because DD is ill and I feel I'm needed at home to support her.  I honestly can't tell you what I did with my wages during this time beyond having a hol in Florida, what I should have done was save as much of my wages as possible for Uni costs, then there'd have been no need to dip elsewhere for them, but I have only come to this conclusion during the span of this diary. Nowadays we use an allocated amount of savings for something  'big ticket' and important to us eg We contributed to DS wedding, paid for DH flight last month to see his relatives and will pay for my flight when I accompany DH on his works trip. I save as much as I'm able to for known costs (currently need £900 towards DD's rent next month, so need a job soon) .Money I inherited from my Grandmother last year will eventually replace my car. Each month we go through our CB CC and pay the bill on time so it attracts no interest. I recently stopped DH putting mini amazon spends on it because I felt this was going back to the days of 'sending the bill to the future' rather than it was advantageous for us to do so.  

Spendless

Saw FA she liked and commented on my diligence in tracking down my pensions and that I'd given her a chronological  timeline of them. Signed letters of authority giving her permission to ask on my behalf about them and see what she recommends is done.  Some have gone down in value over the last few years so may need moving elsewhere. DH realised since our last visit he  had misheard/misunderstood and had opened 2 same type ISAs in the same tax year which is against the rules, so after the visit closed one. Means we've lost out on interest, but we would have done anyway once discovered and I'd rather we discovered the error and acted than got a letter about it. Never mind.

Once home, I heard from my parents just after lunch that my 98yo Nan had had a fall. She ended up being taken to hospital by ambulance and was admitted to a ward late last night. Parents took turns staying with her and we had the other back here. As I'd not been grocery shopping we had little in, so ordered a take-away and saved some for when Mum and Dad swapped shifts. Nan was fine on Christmas day. DH ran her home and she was telling him all about how she did her own ironing and didn't have carers. That altered on Boxing day when she had a fall and has had failing health since, remained as feisty as ever though refusing all suggestions of help or even to see a Dr. DH also took a call from his Dad last night, who has recently gone into a care home. He had also had a fall. He also believed DH was taking him  his usual Saturday burger lunch today, whereas DH hadn't committed to that and gave the more vague 'will see you sometime over the weekend'. I've suggested DH gives more concise details to his Dad, otherwise his Dad will 'decide' what DH means. I'm thinking it's a bit like when kids say 'buuutt you said' and put their own spin on whatever it was. We encountered the same the other day when we called to see him one lunchtime (also with his burger meal - which was why DH wasn't taking one today)  and he believed DH was taking him out that afternoon - only DH couldn't as he was returning to work! 

Upshot is DH will be taking his Dad a burger today as he doesn't wish to disappoint him and I'll  stay at home await news re my Nan. I doubt we'll manage to get done  any jobs we intended as  there's now bigger fish to fry. Tomorrow we intend to visit DS with a birthday card and cake (thankfully we'd  already suggested postponing any celebrations till next weekend) and then DH is setting  off to work away.for most of the week.  

Honeysucklelou2

Hope your Nan recovers quickly from the fall. 

Student funding is bizarre isn’t it. My DD1 got the full student loan for living costs as I had her siblings to fund but am expecting a different scenario when DD4 goes to uni, as she intends.

Spendless

Honeysucklelou2 said:

Hope your Nan recovers quickly from the fall. 

Student funding is bizarre isn’t it. My DD1 got the full student loan for living costs as I had her siblings to fund but am expecting a different scenario when DD4 goes to uni, as she intends.

Thank you. There was once a time when I was going to have an overlap of a year of both DS and DD doing a degree. So many people said they take that into account and split the household income for maintenance loan purposes. Once you get to a certain household income that isn't true.  Both of mine were still only entitled to the minimum. I find that bizarre, surely at the point you reach one receiving min loan then income should be doubled before both only receive minimum. As it happens it didn't work that way anyway as DD took an unfunded course instead. .

Is there a calculator where you could look it up in advance?  Forewarned is forearmed.