Breaking through the debt and life challenges

rumpetroll

Thanks Emma, I've been following your diary for a while, I'll have to delurk and say hi on there.

The news we had last month was that my girlfriends mum has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, she's started treatment and is doing better but it's still very difficult for everyone, the doctors haven't given any timescales so we're hopeful she's still got some good time ahead of her.

We've had our family holiday this month, it was so nice to actually get some sun this summer and we've all had a great time, we even survived the long drives with no real arguments between the kids. Spent a little over £1100, although around half of that was on fuel and evening meals (feeding 7 isn't cheap!), breakfast was included and we mostly just had snacks from home for lunches with a few treats thrown in. This spend will mostly be apparant in next months round up due to the bills being generated mid month on my regular spending credit card.

DD got her GCSE results and did really well considering she only moved to the UK a few months ago and was thrown in at the deep end. She got mostly 5's and 6's as well as a 7 and a 9, I'm so proud of how well she's done and how much she has grown since being here.

rumpetroll

August wasn't as good for paying off the debts as I'd hoped, mostly down to the extra spending on holiday but also the 6 monthly water bill was paid out at £440, in addition my monthly outgoings have gone up due to DD and DS moving back with their mother so I'm now paying her maintenance again (not that I got a penny from her while they lived with me). 

Still managed to pay down £608 from last months figures, I've maxed out the new CC with balance transfers from my regular spending CC and have put the money in to my savings account at 5%, so the amount of debt will stop going up from now on and with the next 0% CC due in a couple of months that will see a big chunk paid off from the savings pot.

CC1 - £2314 / £2463 (6%)
CC2 - £2586 / £3104 (16.7%)
CC3 - £7227 / £7676 (5.8%)
CC4 - £11523 / £12239 (5.8%)
CC5 - £0 / £5751  (Cleared March 23)
CC6 - £9346 (Opened June 23)
Finance - £1684 / £2405 (30%)

Total Debt - £34,680 / £33,642 (-3%)
Savings - £12,748
Total Position - £21,932 / £24,380 (10%)

rumpetroll

It's been a rough month, I've been struggling with motivation which is affecting my work, it's something I've always had trouble with. I procrastinate to the extreme and even though I know I'm doing it and I'll tell myself that today will be different I still end up doing it. The worst part of it is it affects my life outside of work, because I know I should be working I'll sit at my desk the whole time, watching TV shows or playing games, this in turn makes me sit at my desk even longer as I know I should be getting the work done so at the end of my usual work day I'll continue procrastinating as though I'm still working.

I've been like this for as long as I can remember, as a kid I never did any school work, I coasted by but always excelled at exams even if I hadn't done any work, a little bit of revision the day before would see me getting top marks, I did the same through uni and my work life has mostly consisted of short term contract work which would interest me for a while and I'd get stuff done then the interest would wane and I'd slack off again while waiting for the next contract. 

My current role is totally different, I've been there 10 years and have a senior position in the company, I've always managed to get things done as I work great under pressure, but I know this stresses me out while I'm procrastinating which in turn affects everything else going on, I'll put off exercising because I know I should be working etc. Not sure if writing this down will make any difference but I don't think I've ever actually told anyone how bad I do this.

Other than that, I was ill last week, the family all had Covid a couple of weeks ago and I thought I'd managed to excape it but I think I just caught it after everyone else had recovered.

I've been looking at electric cars again and likely going to get one through salary sacrifice, it's time to get rid of my little car that I've had for years, it's been a great car but it's time to replace it and after crunching all the numbers an EV on salary sacrifice makes the most sense.

One of my CCs (CC3) has about 6 weeks left on 0%, I've been pre-approved for another 0% BT card and I'm torn between doing this or just paying off the card from the savings pot, financially it makes sense to balance tranfer it to a new 0% deal with savings rates as they are currently, mentally it would be nice to just tick a card off.

rumpetroll

Another month down and £3438 paid off in September, best month so far due to having a bonus this month although it's skewed a little bit as not enough tax was taken so I'm expecting more tax than usual over the next few months to compensate.

CC1 - £2289 / £2463 (7%)
CC2 - £2508 / £3104 (19%)
CC3 - £7155 / £7676 (6.8%)
CC4 - £11408 / £12239 (6.8%)
CC5 - £0 / £5751  (Cleared March 23)
CC6 - £9253 (2.6%)
Finance - £1564 / £2405 (35%)

Total Debt - £34,176 / £33,642 (-1.6%)
Savings - £15,682
Total Position - £18,494 / £24,380 (24%)

I've applied for and been approved for a new balance transfer CC, so that's another 22 months at 0% for CC3, keeping the cash in a savings pot should be worth a few hundred £, although I think it'll push me in to paying tax on my savings. This is something that I need to be wary of as my income is going to be in the region of the 45% tax band which will remove my £500 tax free allowance for savings, I should be able to avoid this with additional pension contributions and the salary sacrifice from an EV.

Sarahwithlove

What about an ISA or premium bonds? Both are tax free I believe and there's some reasonable rates out there 

rumpetroll

Sarahwithlove said:

What about an ISA or premium bonds? Both are tax free I believe and there's some reasonable rates out there 

Thanks for the comment Sarah, putting some in to an ISA is an idea, I'm confident that this financial year we won't need it but maybe next year we will. Premium bonds isn't something I'm interested in, I'd rather put the money in to my S&S ISA than premium bonds. But before we go down the ISA route I think I'd look at putting money in to a savings account in my partners name as she isn't a higher rate tax payer and so have the full £1000 allowance to use up. Something to think about when it becomes an issue.

rumpetroll

There's going to be a bit of a change to paying down the CCs, I finally proposed so there is now a wedding (and honeymoon) to pay for. The difference is likely to be that some of the money I've got in the savings pots will now be going towards the wedding instead of directly to the CCs, my plan is to not take on any more debt.

We've also ordered our new car so while our monthly outgoings will be slightly higher, we should get somewhere in the region of £6k for the car we're replacing, so this can go straight to the wedding fund.

I've also got back in to a regular routine at the gym, I've been guilty of overcomplicating things before and then not sticking to it, so I've just got a basic 4 day routine I found online and not letting any excuses get in the way of going.

the_end_of_the_rainbow

Congratulations 💍

rumpetroll

Thank you the_end_of_the_rainbow

Wedding
Wedding plans are progressing well, we've got a date and venue booked, chosen the entertainment we're having and what photographer we're going to use. Still feels like there's lots to do though, and it's not cheap! We're not going crazy and are wary of the costs but at the same time we're not doing a it on the cheap, I've roughly worked it out to around £20k for everything, which when you write it down seems mad to spend that much money on a single day, but it's our day and it's only going to happen once.

Money
This month has been good and aside from wedding costs our spending has been pretty low. There's a few small bits I'll need to get over the next couple of weeks for work I'm doing on the house but trying to keep the costs down on that as much as possible. A couple of my savings accounts mature this week so that should be a couple of hundred £ interest coming in.

Health
I've been sticking with going to the gym regularly and happy with the routine I've got in place now, I've also managed a couple of short runs but struggling with niggles which are probably down to the new gym routine putting extra stress on my legs.

rumpetroll

I'm a little late in updating the October numbers, I had to have a think about how I was going to log things going forward as our overall position will be getting worse over the next few months with wedding spends. So I think I'm now going to list the total debt by itself and the money in savings pots as the wedding fund.

Debt

The overall debt has gone up, but this is due to a 0% balance transfer where the money that would have been used to pay the CC has been moved to the wedding fund.

CC1 - £2264 / £2463 (8%)
CC2 - £2433 / £3104 (22%)
CC3 - £9850 / £7676 (-28%)
CC4 - £11294 / £12239 (7.7%)
CC6 - £9160 (3.6%)
Finance - £11443 / £2405 (40%)

Total Debt - £36,445 / £33,642 (-8.3%)

Wedding

A lot of progress has been made on the wedding arrangements with around £5k spent already

We've now booked the venue, catering, photographer, band and registrar, the dress has been chosen and I think we're nearly sorted with the florist. Looking at my spreadsheet the total cost is going to be around the £22k region, not including honeymoon. Speaking of which, there's a couple of honeymoon options that we're weighing up, we'll hopefully have that agreed and booked soon.

Target Fund - £22,000
Already Paid - £4925
Savings - £14,706
Total - £19,631 / £22,000 (89%)

We have almost all the funds we need in place already, roughly £2400 left to make up, we're also getting a chunky gift to go towards the wedding and the new car should be arriving soon so another £5k (ish) from the sale of my current car at some point. This will put us well over the £22k we need, so all the excess will sit in the savings pots and after the wedding will be used to pay off the credit cards.