Large renovation, tiny budget... lets go!

rdone

So we spent £1071 on holiday which includes a few nights hotels so I think we've done alright overall.  Bought a few birthday presents for family too which is included in that cost and didn't feel like we went without at all so happy days!

We have decided to balance transfer that to a 0% card to keep the cash that we had saved for it.  Cash is what we need at the moment to pay (not cash physically but money available to transfer to people) trades people and it shouldn't take us long to pay it off over the next few months.

DH mother is also giving us some money, she has said she's happy to gift it but we'll pay it back in instalments.  Or at least via wine/paying for dinner if she won't accept the money itself.  Everything has happened a bit quicker than we expected with the trades so didn't have the cash flow needed right now.

Doing very well on spending though (admittedly we have been away for a week) and our spending cards are down so should mean a good chunk saved at the end of the month.  Amazing what you can do when you focus on saving!

rdone

Just been to buy doors for downstairs as had a text this morning about a deal in a well known kitchen trade shop.  Don't need them yet but saved £400 so thought it was worth getting them now.  My parents have some room to store them for us so that's even better!

They also phoned to say they have a lawn mower that we can have - ours packed in lately and it's been a nightmare!  Happy days.

Happy Friday everyone!

rdone

Had a nightmare with the doors - they ordered the wrong ones.  Then couldn't do us the correct doors at the same price, even though it was their mistake.  We were in the shop nearly an hour trying to sort it and in the end we decided to leave it as we don't need them yet and it got very confusing!  I knew I should have insisted that they order the codes I had written down.  But there you go.

Managed to get 20% off the kitchen tiles yesterday through a mix of cash back, a work loyalty scheme and discount the shop gave anyway so that was good.  The tiles I want for the utility and had waited until jubilee weekend to order in hope of a discount code (that didn't happen) now has a discount code so ordering them before tomorrow, can get 1.8% cash back on them too.

Have had to book a hotel and airport car parking for a wedding we're going to next month, usually we'd book a more expensive hotel for convenience but this time we went with the money saving option and saved ourselves £22.  Might not seem much but as I said to DH - every time we do that it adds up to something big.  I am very excited for the wedding though.

Added up all savings this morning have had more than I thought so that's good.  Still not enough to finish though I don't think but we can put off borrowing for a bit longer.

Our washing machine is leaking, I might have mentioned this before.  It got switched off mid cycle a few times (for electrics going off and once because DH needed the plug even though there was one about a metre away!) and since then it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.  Going to give it another go now otherwise I hope someone is going to pop out tonight to look at it.  Really hoping we don't have to replace that!

rdone

Hello!

It's been quite a while since I was last here and our debt has grown quite substantially to get the reno finished off.  But the house is absolutely beautiful (well downstairs is) and we're totally in love with it and it's made such a difference to our lives.

So current debt stands at:
Natwest CC - £5,826.67 (£2,188.57 promotional rate ends 01/07/23 and £3,435.76 promotional rate ends 01/10/2023)
Virgin CC - £3,197.61 (09/09/2023 promotional rate ends)
Bank of mum and dad - £5,500
Total - £14,524.28

So we're pretty much back where we were when we started trying to pay off our debt.  But knowing we almost did it before makes me confident we can do it again.  Plus we're much better at eating in now (our beautiful kitchen helping with that) and that was where most of our spend went before.

We currently have £4,759.40 in savings and we're putting more each month into these than into the debt as we've got pretty good rates on these and all debt is 0%.  We might transfer a substantial amount to the CC when a promo rate ends so we pay less on the BT fee, but we'll see where we're at come July.

Only just above minimum payment is going towards them at the moment so we can right ourselves and get going again, but we're okay with this.

Work have offered me a 5.5% cost of living increase.  Which is obviously a joke.  But we're a charity so I'm not sure there's a lot we can do about it, it's better than nothing I suppose!  I'm thinking that all of that amount will go into one of the savings accounts and can then be transferred to a card when we need to.

Lots to do but confident we can do this, we have added nothing but house reno to the CC since April 2020 and are much better at saving and living within our means now.  A good few months between now and summer of trying really hard to save and we'll be on track.  My mum and dad are amazing, they lent to us when they found out we'd put some money on a CC and told them we can repay when we remortgage if we want, we're going to pay them sooner and hopefully take nothing out when we remortgage but it's nice to know that they're so helpful.

Does anyone know how the promotional rates work on the NW card?  Is the sooner one being paid off first or do they split the payment proportionally?

rdone

We have had some very high spend months!  All on holidays which were fabulous and we went to inexpensive places but it still all mounts up.  We had all the money for them in savings so none of it are going on CC or anything but it's still sad to see the savings pots dwindle.  But isn't that why we save?

Our next holiday isn't until October (pray for a sunny summer in Wales!) and apart from holidays we don't spend money on anything.  I can't tell you the last time either of us bought new clothes or anything other than food (I went through our statements yesterday to confirm my thoughts), so it'll be nice to rebuild the pots and to clear down some debt over the summer.

My DH works for the NHS and we're still waiting to find out what last years (2022/23) pay rise will be let alone this years.  He gets a random sum of money every now and then that they unions have agreed too, we're hoping something good will be agreed soon.

We'll be looking to BT some of a card next month so I'm hoping one of the cards we already have (I keep them open even if they have a 0 balance on) will have a good rate so I don't have to open a new card.  Much easier this way!

I hope it's sunny with you reader.

rdone

So current debt stands at:
Natwest CC - £2,641.48 (promotional rate ends 01/01/2025)
Barclays CC - £4,048.04 (promotional rate ends 05/12/2025)
Bank of mum and dad - £5,500 (£2,390 saved to give them but they refuse to have it in case we have an emergency)
Total - £12,189.52 (£9,799.52)