Diary of a 30-something idiot

foxandflowers

Morning. 

I am in £225 less debt than I was yesterday. £180 worth of bills have been paid, another £350 worth to go out tomorrow.... and many many more to go. Food shop is done for the week, fuel is in the car. I have £8 worth of roundup savings put into my EF, and £13 left in my 'Week One' pot. There is £50 in my Premium Bonds. Child maintenance is due in later today, and then I will do the numberplate swap on the car. 

Have looked into my Direct Debit dates, and nearly everything comes out between the 27th and 1st, with only my home insurance and the two mobile phones coming out at random points in the month. So only three I really ought to change to make sure that by the time the 1st comes around, everything is paid up.

All sounding very positive, but I did order a £25 takeaway last night. It's my first one of 2024, and it was mostly because I was absolutely exhausted, didn't really have any food in the house, and didn't want to tackle the Asda shop on an empty stomach. Still, was naughty. It came from my 'General' pot for March. I think in the grand scheme of payday treats, it could have been a lot worse though. At least this was sort of budgeted for. 

Started some colouring in last night, going to have some more to do tonight on the Game of Loans page, which is very exciting. Whatever works, right? 



PS. I've nearly paid £9,000 worth of debt since starting this diary. So if I had managed to pay that off without adding to it, imagine where I would be... Instead, I've had a LBM at £47k, got it down, borrowed and got it back up, and generally screwed my life up. My Stepchange has crept higher, and so has my borrowing off friends. No More. I will be under 40k by June. I absolutely will not let this debt continue to control my entire life. ✌️

MeandO

I'm loving the positivity Fox, keep it going lovely! xx

foxandflowers

Mr Fox has just rung me to suggest we sell the van and the car, and buy one smaller campervan that would cover all bases and uses using the £2k from the car sale, and the proceeds of selling the big van. My jaw is on the floor. Perhaps all your tellings off have psychically reached him. Hmm.

Either way, it's something to consider, as then we would only be running one vehicle, reducing the monthly tax/insurance spends considerably. Only running on vehicle does make sense from a standpoint of that he can only drive one vehicle at a time. Wouldn't be able to drive it myself, but that isn't the end of the world.

Wondering if he's secretly been reading my diary!  

Petal88

foxandflowers said:

Wondering if he's secretly been reading my diary!  

You know - I've wondered the same before! Selling the van would be amazing but I can't help but think a campervan as your main car still sounds like it would cost a lot in fuel and insurance compared to a regular car. Sounds cheaper to just rent a campervan whenever you need one! 

Now Mr F and F if you're reading this - don't forget to sign up for job seekers allowance too! 

stymied

Would a small campervan be cheaper than your big one? Could you still enjoy your summer hols in it?

I haven't quite grasped how much running around Mr F&F does in the current vehicles i.e. if this would add to or save on the fuel costs?

foxandflowers

Current running around: It's 60 miles each way to get the kids. So weekends we have the kiddies = 360 miles, and weekends we don't is 120 miles because boy 2 plays sports in home city every Saturday. Aside from that, it's more pottering to the local country park / down the harbour to watch the world go by type thing. And then on the weekends we can go away, that's additional mileage, along with the popping to Argoose occasionally etc. 

Kim_13

Something to think about.

Advantages as you mentioned in lower insurance/maintenance costs, but as regards to tax if you find the right car you can be paying less per year than you do per month currently. You need to hold a full licence for 3 years before you can supervise a learner yourself, so perhaps a timeline to work towards if Mini Fox might want to learn as soon as she's old enough. Only you can answer how you'd feel if her friends were all able to go out driving with their parents and it wasn't an option for her. 

Not starting lessons at least until the non-Stepchange debts were cleared and savings built up would help to remove the risk of having to stop through lack of funds - it's not a cheap business. But a part of me wonders if maybe Mr Fox might be worrying about you learning because once you pass, he wouldn't be able to do anything that you couldn't do yourself. I'm regularly called a cynic, so it may be that Mr F has finally reached his LBM; I sincerely hope that that is the case.

enthusiasticsaver

I think going down to one vehicle makes sense. Hopefully lower running costs.  Given you still have a lot of debt I wonder how realistic it is to think you could do driving lessons let alone pay insurance for a new driver. 

Kim_13

enthusiasticsaver said:

I think going down to one vehicle makes sense. Hopefully lower running costs.  Given you still have a lot of debt I wonder how realistic it is to think you could do driving lessons let alone pay insurance for a new driver. 

I think to start reasonably soon a lot of the driving will need to be with Mr Fox rather than an instructor, but it won't be possible to pass without any professional lessons. 

Passing and then sitting on the licence for a few years does lower premiums if funds don't allow for a car right away, but starting and then having to stop before passing is the worst of all worlds. 

I would set a target of say passing before you're 40 - it's generally harder to learn when you're older.

Purplelady65

The main issue with moving to a smaller campervan instead of your existing van and car is that they tend not to be economical for fuel and as they have more components than cars then there are more things that can go wrong with them than cars leading to increased maintenance costs. I still think you would be better moving to one car that will fit your camping gear in the boot.