What Not to do When You Move House

meerkatpie

Hello!

So I am back to it and back here with my tail between my legs… On the one hand, I haven’t fully learned my lesson. On the other hand, I’ve acknowledged there is another problem and I need to fix it; silver linings I suppose!

I was hoping I would never have to write about debt again, alas, here we are. 

Previously I opened this forum:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6177323/home-goals/p1

Home Goals was quite what it sounds and was my plan and path to take me into my first home. The great news is I got there! I completed a few months ago, I am very settled in, but things took a bit of a turn on the build-up. 

A short history:

Back in 2020, I was broken when I found I had £27,100 in debt, which was more than my annual salary with a take-home of about £1,700. I lived with my family, so had no rent or mortgage to pay and I tackled and chipped away at my debt for two long years. This took me down to around a £10,000 car loan and nothing more. 

In 2022 I stumbled upon the house of my dreams. I found somewhere and just knew that I had to have it so I put in an offer and all was accepted with a reasonable £500 mortgage payment. My car payment was there, yes, but it was affordable. I had saved and thought I had enough to move in and all seemed okay. 

The process to completion took significantly longer than I would have liked and I moved in around the end of September. This was before the huge interest rate hike, but they had still risen nonetheless so my mortgage payment had grown to £682 a month. It was still affordable but much tighter, so I went ahead. 

This is where the issues began with my spending. The house is fine, it didn’t need much work at all and the few bits I had done straight away. I had a couple of thousand pounds saved and I planned with all the best intentions to buy little and often and slowly make the house mine. 

Not sure if it is my psychology or my naivety but rather than doing what I should have done and taking my time and saving, I decided I wanted everything now and thought ‘Oh, my Barclaycard has a 0% offer…’. I tell you now I should have closed that account the moment I cleared the final payment!

Ultimately, this grew to a whopping £8,811.94! And I still have my car payment. To make life easier, I decided to take a loan and repay over 5 years from now which also covers my balloon payment, this lowered my monthly outgoing and means I don’t have to find £5,000 from somewhere to keep the car. 

Overall, my short-term debt is now made up of the following:

Barclaycard - £8,811.94

Santander Loan - £8,909.53

So my total debt is £17,721.47.

My priority is to clear the credit card. I have 2 years interest-free at the moment for all the things I have bought so it gives me until around October 2024 to have this cleared. Once this is paid, I shall tackle the loan.

Here’s a breakdown of my SoA:

Net Monthly Income ~£2,100

Standing Orders:

Emergency Fund £50.00

Car Fund £50.00

Instalment Plan £13.00

Window Cleaner £10.00

Total: £123.00

Direct Debits:

Mortgage £682.26

Barclaycard £300.00

Santander Loan £176.90

Council Tax £145.00

Gas and Electricity £135.00

Broadband £30.99

Water £22.71

HomeCare £22.44

Union £14.61

Bin Cleaner £6.33

Pet Insurance £5.28

Total: £1,541.52

Card Payments:

Apple Care £11.49

Netflix £10.99

Phone £10.00

Spotify £9.99

Disney Plus £7.99

Amazon Prime £4.99

Nintendo Online £3.99

Google Drive £1.59

Total: £61.03

Grand Total: £1,725.55

Left to Spend: £374.45

My £374.45 is to include all food shopping, fuel and extras like clothes and eating out. Luckily with the house being new I spend a lot of time at home so I don’t go out that much to restaurants anymore and I enjoy having friends over and cooking together. 

From my SoA I completely appreciate that I can cut back and I will be doing! But I wanted to lay all my cards on the table now and not hide anything so you can come with me on the journey. 

Honestly I was in two minds about doing this at all, but I knew this was the one place I could come back and share my mistake without being judged.

First, my plan is to build up my emergency fund. I have a few hundred put away at the moment (I need to go and check the actual balance but I think it is around £400?), I also have £350 in a ‘Slush’ account and £400 in a car fund which I add to every month for my cars tax, MOT and service which is due in March as these are expected spends. As I live on my own I would like to have around 3 months of bills put away just in case. I know some people advise not to, but I think I would need the cushion as I don’t really have any other fall-back. 

Then I will tackle the debt. Or maybe do 50/50 where possible? I would take advice for that. 

Anyways, welcome to the article of what not to do when you move house! I just about got there once before, I can do it again!

notpropaganda73

Happy new diary

Will be following, I totally appreciate how easy it is to get back into debt just when you think you're in the clear, I've tried to get on top of it before it spirals too much as well! It can be so easy to justify purchases on CC especially at 0% offers and I can only imagine in your case when you've moved in somewhere as well, it's totally understandable to want to have the place as homely and as "yours" as quickly as possible! 

Good on you for recognising where you're at and trying to get ahead. I know it will be the obvious one to point out but in terms of your subscriptions, do you use Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime regularly? I'm thinking of cancelling all of them as even though I like the idea of the access (especially Disney... Star Wars and Marvel nerd over here!), I realised recently that I barely use any of them. 

meerkatpie

notpropaganda73 said:

Happy new diary

Will be following, I totally appreciate how easy it is to get back into debt just when you think you're in the clear, I've tried to get on top of it before it spirals too much as well! It can be so easy to justify purchases on CC especially at 0% offers and I can only imagine in your case when you've moved in somewhere as well, it's totally understandable to want to have the place as homely and as "yours" as quickly as possible! 

Good on you for recognising where you're at and trying to get ahead. I know it will be the obvious one to point out but in terms of your subscriptions, do you use Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime regularly? I'm thinking of cancelling all of them as even though I like the idea of the access (especially Disney... Star Wars and Marvel nerd over here!), I realised recently that I barely use any of them. 

Thank you very much! It isn't great being back but at least I know this is a safe space! 

And this was the trap I fell into, I had a plan that just went completely out the window, but I have turned off marketing emails from my credit card companies, especially this month when I noticed Barclaycard keep throwing more offers at me because I have racked up so much more usage! They are temperamental tools but it is off my Apple Pay and the card has been destroyed. Need to pay the balance then close the account I think as I can't risk it again! 

And you're exactly right, the same for me with Star Wars especially! I don't understand why I pay for it just for the convenience of streaming it when I have it on DVD! Laziness on my part of not being bothered to put a disc into my TV. I do use Netflix and I don't mind Prime too much as I'm still benefiting from student prices, but I think it'll be one to go once that perk ends. I don't think it would be worth any more than the few pounds I currently pay!

astrocytic_kitten

Well done on coming back! And I’m so glad you did - I think most of us have had at least one major backslide in our debt free journeys (I know I’ve had several). You’ve got a plan and you’ve been here before, so you know you can do it.

Totally appreciate debt building when buying a house too, there’s so many things you need and so many little jobs to do even if there’s nothing major wrong, and it’s so easy to say well it’s a one off and after this everything will be sorted so I might as well just put it on credit. The nesting/settling in instinct is strong! 

diystarter7

Hi OP

I've skimmed through your posts.

All I can say is thank you for sharing and a big congrats for doing well and being aware of where you are financially and keep close tabs on it

Four_Seasons

Have subscribed, looking forward to cheering you on x

theoretica

The two things which jumped out at me are £120 a year on a window cleaner (I clean mine when I am annoyed enough to do so, which isn't often) and £76 a year on bin cleaning (could more care in bagging waste remove that need?)

meerkatpie

astrocytic_kitten said:

Well done on coming back! And I’m so glad you did - I think most of us have had at least one major backslide in our debt free journeys (I know I’ve had several). You’ve got a plan and you’ve been here before, so you know you can do it.

Totally appreciate debt building when buying a house too, there’s so many things you need and so many little jobs to do even if there’s nothing major wrong, and it’s so easy to say well it’s a one off and after this everything will be sorted so I might as well just put it on credit. The nesting/settling in instinct is strong! 

Thank you! I certainly needed to to make sure reality hit sooner rather than later! And I am hoping so, I need to make sure I stay accountable but it is doable, albeit a little harder now so I need to be strict with myself. 

It is so tough isn't it! And I don't know where the mentality of needing 'everything now' came from but it seemed the temptation was too strong. The handbrake has been firmly applied and some damage control will take place before I buy anything else I can promise haha! 

meerkatpie

diystarter7 said:

Hi OP

I've skimmed through your posts.

All I can say is thank you for sharing and a big congrats for doing well and being aware of where you are financially and keep close tabs on it

Thank you very much! 

Will be going through everything with a fine tooth comb from here and will do my best to get back in the black!

meerkatpie

Four_Seasons said:

Have subscribed, looking forward to cheering you on x

Thank you so much! 

I will do my best to be proud in my posts so I hope to say watch this space and I shall get there! (Fingers Crossed!)

meerkatpie

theoretica said:

The two things which jumped out at me are £120 a year on a window cleaner (I clean mine when I am annoyed enough to do so, which isn't often) and £76 a year on bin cleaning (could more care in bagging waste remove that need?)

Absolutely I could not agree more! The worst thing is... I already bag my rubbish! The bins aren't even dirty I do not know why I pay for it. 

And yes the upstairs windows may be a pain but I would much rather have £120 in my back pocket at the end of the year. 

It's all things like this that doing my SoA has helped me see! Will be chopping a few bits off that list soon so just watch this space!