Kezzy's debt journey 2024

kezzygirl

Savings pots set up, and money transferred to each:
Car insurance and tax
Home insurance 
Pet insurance
Mot and repair costs
Christmas
 Any yearly expenses I'm missing? 

enthusiasticsaver

kezzygirl said:

enthusiasticsaver said:

Starling do savings pots.  We have five attached to our joint current account. Monthly Bills,  Christmas, Holidays, Car and House. 

Moving away from using credit cards gets you into a mindful habit of spending as you have to think about whether you can really afford something before buying.  Spending on credit is generally easier as dealing with it is at some point in the future hence why it is much easier to get into debt and then worry about repaying it later. 

There is the option to pay into a savings pot, do I just set one up for each yearly expense? It says to set up payment, would this be direct from my wage? Guess il need to work out insurances, tax, home insurance etc cost and set a pot for each. I think this would defo be better than having a lump sum in an account every month which usually gets spent!

You can set up pots for each expense although I have car insurances, tax, services and mot/repairs coming from just one car pot.  I do an automatic transfer just after payday to each pot  and worked out how much by taking the annual spends (the app adds that up in each category) and adding 10% and divide by 12 for a monthly amount.  Home insurance comes from the house pot as  well as boiler service, window cleaning, white good replacement, oven cleaning and garden waste subscription. 

enthusiasticsaver

kezzygirl said:

Savings pots set up, and money transferred to each:
Car insurance and tax
Home insurance 
Pet insurance
Mot and repair costs
Christmas
 Any yearly expenses I'm missing? 

Holidays/travel insurance or are you saving separately for those? Vet bills assuming pet insurance doesn't cover it all? 

kezzygirl

enthusiasticsaver said:

kezzygirl said:

Savings pots set up, and money transferred to each:
Car insurance and tax
Home insurance 
Pet insurance
Mot and repair costs
Christmas
 Any yearly expenses I'm missing? 

Holidays/travel insurance or are you saving separately for those? Vet bills assuming pet insurance doesn't cover it all? 

I haven't allocated for holidays, usually I put these on a 0% card. Think I need to add a pot for this if I'm going to do it properly!vet bills, our pet insurance covers both doggies a good amount, plus we pay monthly to the vet plan company for worming, flea treatment, yearly vaccines and it gives a discount if, heaven forbid, treatment is needed.

kezzygirl

Evening, happy Saturday! 
Things are going well on the money front, though resources are running low. We were paid on 25th and now have only £230 remaining for food (£94 left of budget) and fuel (118 left of budget)until the 25th. 
Hubby went to sainsburys for shopping yesterday and spent £130 on food
Irritated me somewhat as he could have gone to lidl which may have been a lot cheaper. I also popped in tesco today and spent £10 on a few cheap frozen readymeals, smoked salmon and fizzy pop- own brand. Guess we are going to be living skint for next few weeks. 

I am due bank money next Friday and the Friday after but I do not want to use this as we should be able to budget properly given our income. We have had a couple of birthdays this month which has entailed a meal put both times for the four of us, totalling about £230- gulp. 

Over the next few weeks I am working a lot of shifts. Feeling pretty tired but I'm keen to get the bank money in to add to the savings so we have an emergency fund. We have sufficient money for our holiday, £3200, which £1300 will pay for our accommodation and meals for the week. We only pay for drinks at the resort and it is in a very cheap country so I anticipate we will not spend all of that cash. 

Positively, I heard from student loans company that I am due a refund of an unknown amount. I had finished paying plan 2 loan earlier last Yr, but they continued to allocate my monthly payment to the account, causing a credit. For some reason I can't access my account online currently and when contacting them they said it is being reviewed and there is a credit, querying if I would like a refund or to pay off plan 1- ummmm REFUND PLEASE! So that will be a bit extra when it arrives. Hubby is also due a taxable end of year bonus this month of £650, so again I am going to be strict and base the budget off of his usual pay and pay the excess of the sainsburys card. 

Anyway, I'm rambling now. An update of current owing: 
Natwest credit card £6800 
Barclaycard £7150 (2830 of this is our daughters)
Virgin money £382 
Sainsburys bank £ 3347 
Mbna loan £9601- I thought the interets was added as a lump sum at the start of the loan, but it isn't, it is added monthly. 

Nice to keep up to date with finances, I am working tomorrow so have a good weekend! 

kezzygirl

Update for March payday. Here we are again, another month, another payday. I enjoy payday as it means I can pay some more off of the debt and this month is even better as for the first time we have not needed to dip into the monthly household savings account! 
I created some pots on starling as follows:
Pet insurance for both dogs £18 a month 
Home insurance £14 a month
Car and bike insurances £100 a month 
Mot's/repairs/servicing £40 a month
Christmas £80 a month 
Holidays £100 a month 

Obviously I'm a little late to the party with saving for the yearlys and my car is going in for a service next week. I know for sure it needs a new tyre and also the bonnet cable is broken as it is not opening so that's going to be costly. I wonder if i should increase my monthly payment for each category for the next 9 months so that come December/Jan I am starting afresh with a new year? Difficulty is that I have some upcoming yearlys but insufficient funds saved to pay for them, so this will eat into my ability to overpay the debts. 

An update on student loans: my payments have automatically been taken off of plan 1 loan when initially paid to plan 2, which has been paid off. I'm not due a refund as according to them, the amount taken from my wages was correct for plan 1. So, just going to have to accept that one I guess..  

Disappointingly I have had notification from sky that broadband, phone and TV monthly payment will be increasing by £10 to £54. Mobile bills are also going up by a few percent. Seems like its all about paying out at the min. 

On the plus side, we go on holiday this week, which is very exciting and very needed. Our family have had a couple of deaths in recent weeks and so having this opportunity to have time out and reflect on what is important is so valued. 

On to the debts: I have been paying oddments and rounding down my bank balance to the nearest ten and paying small amounts into savings. My focus is building a £1000 emergency fund and I suspect we will have some money leftover from our holiday spends to put towards this. Hubby received a small bonus from his employer this month, subject to tax, so I am going to deduct his usual wage from the amount and transfer whatever is left into the savings. If we can survive without it, then we can forget it was ever given to him!! 

Current owing
Barclays £6900 (4070 is ours, 2830 is our daughters debt) 
Sainsburys £3200
Natwest £6700
Virgin £930- you will notice this has increased. We purchased a new mattress as ours is causing great discomfort and pain for our backs and hips. 
Mbna loan- £9601.

I have overpaid all of them and rounded up to the nearest £100 to try and get them all to a 0 on the end. 

So, all seems OK on the kezzy front currently. Il update once we've had our hol!!

fatbelly

A bonnet cable on the car should not be expensive, nor a new tyre if you shop around

MFWannabe

Look on black circles.com for tyres, order online and get fitted at local garage of your choice

kezzygirl

fatbelly said:

A bonnet cable on the car should not be expensive, nor a new tyre if you shop around

We have a local tyre place carrying out the service and they're usually reasonable. I'm going to ask them to call me once they've looked at the bonnet and established if it is indeed the cable, and how much it will be. My hands are pretty much tied with that one as we can't check the oil because the bonnet won't open, but I'm hopeful it won't be too expensive. It annoying we don't have the cash saved already as it will eat into our surplus for debts

kezzygirl

Good morning. Not sure how many people are reading my diary but I guess it's helpful for me to write down my thoughts. On holiday disaster struck, and my husband had a heart attack, requiring angioplasty and stent in a thai hospital. I am soo glad I took the 0% spending credit card with me that I had obtained a couple of months ago, as they would not treat him until a 5k deposit was given and a further 2k on discharge. It has incurred a just shy of £200 non sterling transaction fee, which I am hopeful will be repaid by insurance. Yes, we had insurance thankfully- it was purchased in February and I almost did not take it out! I am waiting on travel insurance confirming they will refund us, which I hope will be soon. 

As hubby is now off sick for about 6 weeks he will be paid statutory sick pay. Luckily the resort we stayed at refunded us some activities we booked, and also mistakenly took the full payment on our arrival, not accounting for the deposit we had paid on booking! We are due about £900 refund from this so again I am hopeful this will be paid in a timely manner so that I can stow it away for this month's pay. 

We didn't end up spending all of our savings on holiday and have £1100 remaining. This will stay in savings as an emergency fund and I am hesitant to pay excess off of debts when the refund comes through. I think the sensible option would be to keep it to the side and use it for food and fuel for the month. 

My car had its service and my clutch has been a bit funny. They highlighted a few things they advise need doing- the slave cylinder, mid and end exhaust replacement, cv boot split etc. The only thing I'm getting done is the slave cylinder, which will cost about £135 fitted. The kicker is that I had a new clutch fitted last year and its made me wonder if the garage I used did install a new clutch. I will wait for the mot in September to do the rest!

Feels like one thing after another at the minute! 

Positively,My daughter paid a good chunk off of her debt this month, £430! As my sainsburys card 0% expires in August I have paid this off that instead of barclaycard. When I receive the refund for the surgery costs I am going to clear the sainsburys card and pay the remainder off of virgin. Current tallies as follows:

Sainsburys bank 0% until August 24: £2758 owed
Natwest 0% until March 25: £6700 owed
Barclaycard 0% until Dec 24: £6900 total- daughter owes£2400 of this.
Virgin 0% until Jan 25: £7123 owed- ouch. 
MBNA LOAN: £9425 owed

Gulp. Better start again with the overtime