Moving on with things

carolbee

Been reading your diary since the beginning and following.

what fabulous changes you and your wife have made. You sound very strong now

Merry Christmas to you all and all the very best for 2024

MatyMoo

‘I don’t have to like who I was to work on being more kind to myself now and for the future’

This line makes my heart sing! You may have a long way to go to sort out the stress but learning to like the new and improved you is a big start. I didn’t dislike the old you, I was worried and frightened about where you were heading, that fear has gone!

Have a very happy Christmas with your little family Alt, you have alll you need 🌲🎅🏻❤️

savingmore

I haven’t posted for a long time, but happy Christmas Alt.  You have made such brilliant changes, I am so impressed.  

RelievedSheff

Merry Christmas Alt. 

alt80

Thank you all and I hope everyone had a good Christmas. The past few days have ran away with me, 100% been in a Christmas bubble these past couple of days can't sleep tonight of course. Hardly touched my phone/ iPad or computer on Christmas, plenty of cooking and eating with my family and with my in-laws yesterday. Today has been a lot quieter, managed to have a little look at some forward planning for the business and setting up a few systems to keep us up to date with technology. Could be easy to fall behind, for a while we were a little in terms of technology but been back on the ball a while with that now. 

Personal finances wise, we've spent the grand total of £0 over the past three days. We did get a little bit of money from the in-laws which was nice and we have spent it on a few bits for the house but that's not out of our budget so I'm calling that three no spend days. After the past few months we really needed to get back Into the habit of not spending. I have scheduled some time to have a detailed look at the 2024 plan personal finances wise.

I have started to consider how I can build financial security into my family's future - broad plan forms the following steps with some overlapping:
1 Spending within budget every month (managing this when not moving house fml)
2 Clear the remaining card balances (and close the accounts as I go bar two which will have the Direct Debits adjusted to clear the balance in full), not opposed to a bit of cheeky 0% as and when but only if fully costed out and / or for the purpose of messing about making money for nothing out of the banks. Not going to be a lot but it is free cash.
3 Six month emergency fund covering essential expenses - yep, still don't have any personal cash.
4 Commercial into SSAS - should be wrapped up soon that one, then get it fully paid for and/or look at getting the pot working. Have the pros on that, property I'm good with but anything else I need a bit of guidance to make informed choices.
5 BTL portfolio reduce to 50LTV - this is a longer term goal. All profit is now being used to reduce the capital and I have put a self imposed hold on buying, although my Mrs would go !!!!!! mad if I bought another unit without getting a bit more equity in this lot first. Fml how life moves on after explaining it all to her (!!!!!! multiple times ha). She's my rock but we really would be !!!!!! if we relied on her to make money.
6 Home mortgage, reduce owned capital on i/o and review deals when repayment part comes up for renewal. Not 100% sure what will be right for us going forward whether the whole lot goes onto a repayment basis or potentially an i/o basis and hammer the capital. Idk, will review later with the mortgage pro depending on deals/ rates etc. What I do know is I want to get it paid for, own it outright. I never thought owning my home outright would be possible for me, know I used to throw around every excuse about wanting to be mortgaged up to my eyeballs until the end on here when I was questioned. It really !!!!!! triggered me that did. I know if I'm honest with myself, it's because I didn't have the confidence I could pay my debts off and/or get to a position where the personal guarantees where also eliminated which would have made any effort to pay my home mortgage off somewhat irrelevant from a long term security point of view if the worst did ever happen. I'm glad we've moved, it was a difficult decision but leaving the old house behind with the less than happy memories and frequent unwelcome visitor, I'm glad we took the leap even with the additional borrowing. I've always wanted to live in the area we live in now, it hasn't disappointed so far. I was somewhat concerned it might.
7 Maximise pension contributions

RelievedSheff

Some sensible financial goals there Alt. 

Willowtree222

Lots of good thoughts and plans there. Sounds like the house was a good move as well. 

alt80

Thank you both. Managed another no spending day today. Time split between work/ family today, wasn't meant to be working at all but I get a bit fed up without work after a few days so keeping a balance. 

Edited last post, it's SSAS not SASS lol idk good job I've trusted someone to sort that out for me ha.

@Willowtree222 yes, I think so too. Wasn't an easy decision but I do think it's been the right one.

MatyMoo

Who stole Alt and replaced him with one that talks about NSD’s 😂

Seriously, glad to see the changes in you - be proud of how far you have come in so many different areas 😃

Glad you and your family had a good Christmas in your new home.

Your financial plans all seem to be good too 😉

alt80

Happy New Year everyone!

We stayed in this evening. The weather is awful and tbh I'm done with going out for NYE, no desire to be around a load of drunk people. My resolution is the usual sort my !!!!!! sleep schedule out but will start tomorrow ha.

@MatyMoo
I remember someone on here a long time ago questioning why I'd changed from someone who made relatively considered purchases to reckless spending after I'd gone into some detail of how I'd spent months considering the purchase of my watch before I bought it many years ago. It took a lot of therapy for me to see what happened and I'm still on the journey to forgiving myself for the choices I made in life thereafter. Getting clean and living in recovery has had an effect on my outlook, appetite for risk and aims for the future. I have also come to terms with the fact I almost lost everything over a few dumb moves that were undoubtedly driven by pure greed and addiction.

My business grew very quickly over the first 8 or so years and rather than seeing it as a mechanism to set my family up for life, I became obsessed with buying as much property as possible and projecting an image to the rest of the world. Back then I convinced myself I'd continue to keep levelling up until I didn't even need to think about money. Going broke to look rich I believe the term is. 

I'm really fortunate to have been left with my family and business but I do also have a load of leveraged assets. It's just time for me to pivot my approach and reduce the risk. I want to get debt free, it's a !!!!!! long road but I have a goal to focus on. I far too much of my life spending recklessly and leading my family into continual debt, not working on my marriage and making myself ill. 

On that note...I had a look at the SOA sheet again, after inputting my personal budget into it as a quick check. 
Debated whether or not to post it since and have decided to, so here we go -
 

[font=courier new][b]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet[/b][b]

Household Information[/b]

Number of adults in household........... 2

Number of children in household......... 1

Number of cars owned.................... 1[b] - EQC & EQE are leased and maintained by my business so are not included.

Monthly Income Details[/b]

Monthly income after tax................ 8500

Total monthly income.................... 8500[/b][b]

Monthly Expense Details[/b]

Mortgage (ported)................................ 1134

Mortgage (additional i/o borrowing).............. 1238

Council tax............................. 318.63 - yep, it's over 12 months

Electricity............................. 200 - estimated as we've just moved

Gas..................................... 150 - estimated, see above

Water rates............................. 40 - on a meter, so possibly won't quite be this high

Telephone (land line)................... 0 - business pays for this

Mobile phone............................ 0 - business pays for this

TV Licence.............................. 0 - we don't watch live TV / BBC

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 11 - Netflix

Internet Services....................... 0 - business pays for this

Groceries etc. ......................... 500

Clothing................................ 300 - Budgeted for this but most months it goes into additional overpayments on the cards

Petrol/diesel........................... 50 - 6 months per year (for the MG). EQC / EQE charged at my office

Road tax................................ 0 - MG is so old it's free

Car Insurance........................... 13 - MG only, others are insured through the business

Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50 - MG est., reality is this goes into additional overpayments

Car parking............................. 5 - odd time we park the MG, reality is this goes into additional overpayments 9/10

Other travel............................ 0

School fees plus school related expenses............ 1400

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0 - health insurance including dental/ optical is through my business and I try not to spend additional amounts on my health now over and above what this provides

Pet insurance/vet bills................. 30 - dog insurance

Buildings insurance..................... 38 - actual

Contents insurance...................... 21 - £75k cover plus some individually insured items

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 85

Haircuts................................ 250 - including hair, beauty, massages

Entertainment........................... 250 - some of this often goes into additional overpayments, usually 50-50 most months

Holidays................................. 425 

Total monthly expenses.................. 6508.63[/b]

[b]

Assets[/b]

Cash.................................... 0 

House value (Gross)..................... 850000

Shares and bonds........................ 0

Car(s).................................. 8000 - 1960s MG. 

Other assets............................ 45000[b] - watches/ jewellery at second hand value

Total Assets............................ 903000[/b]

[b]

Secured & HP Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Mortgage...................... 247500...(1134).....1.4

Mortgage.................. 275000...(1238).....5.4[b] i/o borrowing

Total secured & HP debts...... 522500....-.........-   [/b]

[b]Unsecured Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

CC1 ...........................16500.....415.......0 (17 months)

CC2 ...........................3880......135.......10.9 - plan to get this gone before the end of the first quarter.

CC3............................650.......650.......22.9 - day to day card, doesn't usually carry a balance over. Will be paid off during the coming month.

CC4 ...........................1200......30........0[b] (8 months)

Total unsecured debts..........22230.....1230......-  [/b]

[b]

Monthly Budget Summary[/b]

Total monthly income.................... 8,500

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 6,508.63

Available for debt repayments........... 1,991.37

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 1,230[b]

Amount left after debt repayments....... 761.37[/b]

[b]Personal Balance Sheet Summary[/b]

Total assets (things you own)........... 903,000

Total HP & Secured debt................. -522,500

Total Unsecured debt.................... -22,230[b]

Net Assets.............................. 358,270[/b]

[i]Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com. 

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/i][/font]