Together

Kittencat

Doing this together as a family.

We were finally debt free a few months ago. We just had. Small morgage left. It felt really good our past debt had been from renovating our old home. We went without for so long to get it paid off.  

Then........

We bought an electric car £21000 loan.  Now we are back in the land of worrying about money.

So here I am.  Scrimping and saving again.....together.

WinterWarrior

Good luck. Do you have a set car loan? Is the aim to overpay? 

Kittencat

WinterWarrior said:

Good luck. Do you have a set car loan? Is the aim to overpay? 

Hi WinterWarrior yes we can overpay. It's a tesco loan so Apr is lower than car finance.

Kittencat

We have had the electric car for 3 months and as beautiful as it is we are starting to think it's too soon for us.  We worry about the mile range. It does 180ish miles on a charge which is really good but we live semi rural and went for a day out west (lot more rural) and struggled to find charge. This is an added worry and took the enjoyment out of our day. We are now thinking of changing the car to a cheaper one. We then won't have the anxiety of the big debt and it will take away the mile range worry. We love the car it's SO nice. It's something we are going to look at today actually. We are going to see whats out there. 

Kittencat

So we work fast.....together.

Sold electric car for same price that we bought it for and bought a £10grand petrol car instead. Does the same job. We will have an electric car when the infrastructure is better in rural Wales. 

So debt is now £7500. That is so much easier to pay off. Much better for our mental health. 

Back to school for kids tomorrow. Its been a lovely, busy and expensive summer break. Child is looking forward to going back into year 6. We had our first abroad holiday this summer for 11 years. Childs first abroad holiday. She loved it and has grown up so much this summer (slow down please). Looking forward to routine and not having to take child to work with me every so often and her getting bored. 

All uniform is new as she has grown so much. We have struggled with school skirts this year. She didn't want pleated ones but just straight above knee skirts. We looked everywhere. The ones we saw didn't have the waist adjusters. Her waist is tiny. We eventually found some in Marks.  Phew! 

What a lovely summer we have all had weather wise. I think we would have enjoyed it more if the threat of drought and hosepipe bans were not there. I'm ready for autumn though. I love the change of seasons. (Spring is my all time fav).  

Will update later on finances.....that's why I'm here.  Will have a look for the link with the state of affairs to fill in I think. 

Enjoying a cup of tea after a jam packed searching for car day. 

Stay safe

WinterWarrior

Amazing debt reduction, well done! I think it’s too soon for electric too. I live rurally and the low range plus time to charge really freaks me out. My car will do 500 miles on a tank, which would squeak me to my family in an emergency without stopping, anything less than that would make me very insecure. I bought my car on a 5 yr loan with the aim to upgrade once paid off, but since then had a total change of mindset and plan to keep it until I can pay for an equally excellent one with cash. Even when I’ve got to my savings goal I may keep it longer if it’s still going strong. I finally realised that a new car is not a great indicator of wealth and people can look wonderful from the outside, but have nothing behind them and vice versa. It took such a long time for me to learn that lesson 😖
Winter is my favourite season ❄️ ⛄️….I’m all about the boots, jumpers and big coats 😁

foxgloves

@WinterWarrior - We now have a similar strategy where buying cars is concerned. Two cars ago was the last one where we took out a loan to pay for a year- old vehicle. Our current strategy (& admittedly this will depend on us being able to continue putting money away during these difficult economic times), is to buy car outright & decide how long we think we will keep it.....say 6 years, just for example.Then we estimate the total sum we'd expect to pay to replace it & deduct a rough estimate of what we'd hope to get part-ex. The remaining figure is divided by 72 months (6 years) & that sum is transferred each month into a savings account. We started doing this because it occurred to me that with car replacement being both necessary at some point & expensive, the time to start saving needs to be as soon as we've taken delivery of the new one. 
We just wanted to try & break out of the cycle of car finance/loans.
Have to say that's a good debt reduction there, @Kittencat. Agree that EV charging infrastructure isn't yet anywhere near sufficient to change over with confidence.
F

Kittencat

@WinterWarrior& @foxgloves - thanks for popping in and i agree with you both. This is the first time we have ever taking a loan out for a car. We usually buy what we can afford. Old car was starting to have issues and we keep promising us a nice family car. We rushed into the electric. Fuel was going through the roof and we thought the money we would normally spend on petrol would pay most of the loan back but then of course electric is going up!! It is a huge shame as it was a lovely lovely car and Husband was able to charge at work. It was the thought of the big debt that was playing on our minds big time.

First day of term for child. She enjoys school (fingers crossed this continues) and is now very tired watching TV.  I think we all work better with routine.  It's rained today......wow haven't seen that for a while.  Garden needs it - it's watering all the dead plants🤣. 

Can anyone point me in the direction of a SOA link.  

Kittencat

No spend day today. Yeah!!

Myself and husband have been to work today, child been to school. Back to normality and I love it.

We have a plan in place to pay this car loan off within the year. We have opened another savings account and will built it up then pay big lumps off. We have just over a grand in there already. 

Oh my gosh all these bills going up. I wonder what our new prime minister has in store......I hope to god she does her best!  🙏 

Food in oven - very easy fish cakes, chips and beans today.  Quick tidy up needed around house and about half hours ironing.  

What's happening In your world guys? 

doingitanyway

Your new debt is for a good reason. You also have the debt busting skill set down pat.
I have no doubt you will do well!

savingholmes

Well done on resolving the car situation and reducing your debt.