Road To Financial Recovery

FootyFanDan

Thanks @Lonelygambler

I am finding that routine is 100% something I need and isn't something I have ever really had, I have just tended to do what is needed at the time. I am slowly starting to get into routines for a lot of things and it is making things seem a lot better. I feel that at the moment I am able to not feel like everything is chaotic. There is still areas I need to get sorted but feeling a lot more positive. I do still need to work on the sleeping front as that as always been a struggle. The not feeling like I am constantly working is certainly a contributing factor. On another note how is it nearly July!

Hope everyone is loving the nice weather

alt80

@FootyFanDan you’re doing well mate. Idk how we’re half way through the year either. You and me both re sleep, ha. I agree with what you’re saying about routine, it makes things easier and can sometimes save potential !!!!!! ups from happening.

FootyFanDan

As the month draws to an end, payday has arrived so I will spend evening going through YNAB and allocating and moving stuff around. I set my self a few actions at begining of month and progress is been made

Action Plan (REVIEW)

Don't touch overdraft!

As much as it feels silly to celebrate not going into an £100 overdraft, for the first time in a few months I have finally got to payday without touching it....small victory and a very minor one but a good feeling


Review current balances and put in place a plan to clear these ASAP (Ideally by end of 2024)

I have worked out the actual balances :O but have also worked out a plan to try get this off ASAP

Capital One CC - £1592.44 (27.06.2024)  I had a refund from travel company of £50 so this has been paid to the CC, I am aware the longer this takes to clear the more interest it will incur. The min payment is £115 per month and I have got this setup in YNAB to show how much impact any extra payments I can make. The intention is to clear this ASAP but I am aiming for end of 2024. The balance just isn't shifting as the min payment was about £75 but that barely covered the interest that was then added 4 days after I paid it

Monzo Flex - £2399 (27.06.2024) this was a lot higher last night however I cashed out shares from my old job when i left and this cleared this week, so i used the £400 to get this monthly payment down, it was right up at nearly £300 per month which is scary, I  paid enough to bring this right down to £145 per month. Although this is more manageable I am keen to get this overpaid but that will be work in progress. The card has been removed from my wallet and hidden, also removed from Apple pay. This was mainly car repair and then also alot of stuff when we moved which just never came off. Luckily this already has interest calculated so now won't be increasing. 

Actually taking stock and seeing the actual balances has annoyed me as we worked so hard to get debt free, its clear a lesson not learned really disappointing to be honest ☹️ but we have a plan and a better income to work with.

Discuss our plans / goals for remaining 2024 and then adjust where required in current YNAB

We have sat and had a little chat and we have made a few choices over dropping a few things and also there's a few bits to add in. School offer some extra activities that the little one is very excited to try but of course comes at expense. It has been agreed we would try it for a few months and see how see feels once shes done a few and the re-evaluate. I have set targets in YNAB for next year car insurance renewal as I really want to get off paying this monthly, car service and MOT & Xmas 2024 is now having funds allocated. 


Declutter the house - this has to be a priority, our house isn't the biggest so trying to maximise space is key. We are currently living round boxes. No excuses just pure laziness!

Small progress made with this but not anywhere near as much as I would like, keep working at this

Decorate living room and the two bedrooms

This is more of a long term thing, we know what we want to do and have started looking at this stuff but will take a while

Donate any old toys - we have been meaning to do this for so long. -

We have done a couple of donations one to a charity shop and one to hospital 


This month has been a pretty solid month finance wise and for the first time in a while we had money left before pay day and we managed to overpay on the debt whilst putting some into investment and savings for Xmas. This next month we will really focus on start to build up some of these sinking funds, the targets in YNAB seem reasonable so its about keeping up with them. The plan will be to transfer this lump sum into my lloyds account which isn't used for anything, this will keep it away from rest of budget once sent. I have found that when I leave it in monzo, even in pots its far too easy to move.

I am going to review the food shops spends ( i suspect will be down on previous as was in spain for 1st week of month) and the others spends at weekend but it is quite clear up until this month we really have let the reigns go on the budget front and whilst it hasn't put us in trouble financially we need to get back on track. We have really cut down on the takeaway this month so that is a positive. There has been a few extra payments not budgeted like school trip and drama show tickets for daughters performance.

alt80

A win is a win re overdraft. 

Regarding the cards, those minimum payments seem ridiculous and the interest rate must be mad if as you say it is hardly touching the balance. Do you have any 0% options, even if there’s a BT fee it’d be worth it. 

Good progress re the kids activities / car insurance funds etc.

If the property has not been recently decorated, maybe see if your landlord will paint it for you or you can come to some sort of arrangement? I tend to try to help my tenants where I can, when it’s been a while since the property has been painted I’ll usually go 50-50.

FootyFanDan

alt80 said:

A win is a win re overdraft. 

Regarding the cards, those minimum payments seem ridiculous and the interest rate must be mad if as you say it is hardly touching the balance. Do you have any 0% options, even if there’s a BT fee it’d be worth it. 

Good progress re the kids activities / car insurance funds etc.

If the property has not been recently decorated, maybe see if your landlord will paint it for you or you can come to some sort of arrangement? I tend to try to help my tenants where I can, when it’s been a while since the property has been painted I’ll usually go 50-50.

We are council tenants so will be a slow progress to try spruce up abit, although they have just started looking at solar panel installation

The person in before us was an old lady and then she spent a lot of time in care prior to us moving in I would suspect property was empty a while. 

I need to explore card options, I have kind of took my eye of ball with them to be honest but fully focused now, although not having a huge impact it still needs fixing. Although I am quite happy to have hit that overpayment on the monzo as that brings us right down to 145 a month and that 145 is fully off the balance so with a few extra over payments could be off pretty quickly.

alt80

@FootyFanDan I don’t know much about council tenancies apart from I believe they are of the old assured type and you’ll get a !!!!!! massive discount after you have been there a while to buy it. Surprised they didn’t decorate it for you prior to moving in though. 

The solar panels should be good for keeping your bills low especially if they have a battery.

Can you transfer the other card onto the Monzo with it being 0%? (Think I’ve read that right).

MFWannabe

FootyFanDan said:

alt80 said:

A win is a win re overdraft. 

Regarding the cards, those minimum payments seem ridiculous and the interest rate must be mad if as you say it is hardly touching the balance. Do you have any 0% options, even if there’s a BT fee it’d be worth it. 

Good progress re the kids activities / car insurance funds etc.

If the property has not been recently decorated, maybe see if your landlord will paint it for you or you can come to some sort of arrangement? I tend to try to help my tenants where I can, when it’s been a while since the property has been painted I’ll usually go 50-50.

We are council tenants so will be a slow progress to try spruce up abit, although they have just started looking at solar panel installation

The person in before us was an old lady and then she spent a lot of time in care prior to us moving in I would suspect property was empty a while. 

I need to explore card options, I have kind of took my eye of ball with them to be honest but fully focused now, although not having a huge impact it still needs fixing. Although I am quite happy to have hit that overpayment on the monzo as that brings us right down to 145 a month and that 145 is fully off the balance so with a few extra over payments could be off pretty quickly.

Check the eligibility calculator on here to see if you can get a 0% balance transfer card, no point paying interest if you don’t have to. 

Some even have no balance transfer fee 

FootyFanDan

alt80 said:

@FootyFanDan I don’t know much about council tenancies apart from I believe they are of the old assured type and you’ll get a !!!!!! massive discount after you have been there a while to buy it. Surprised they didn’t decorate it for you prior to moving in though. 

The solar panels should be good for keeping your bills low especially if they have a battery.

Can you transfer the other card onto the Monzo with it being 0%? (Think I’ve read that right).

The Monzo isn't technically 0% however the balance includes interest as this is added at point of purchase. I have no intentions to be using cards anymore so need to just build up my finds.

They did a little decoration and they also gave us £500 to help towards cost, but we put it to carpets .

FootyFanDan

MFWannabe said:

FootyFanDan said:

alt80 said:

A win is a win re overdraft. 

Regarding the cards, those minimum payments seem ridiculous and the interest rate must be mad if as you say it is hardly touching the balance. Do you have any 0% options, even if there’s a BT fee it’d be worth it. 

Good progress re the kids activities / car insurance funds etc.

If the property has not been recently decorated, maybe see if your landlord will paint it for you or you can come to some sort of arrangement? I tend to try to help my tenants where I can, when it’s been a while since the property has been painted I’ll usually go 50-50.

We are council tenants so will be a slow progress to try spruce up abit, although they have just started looking at solar panel installation

The person in before us was an old lady and then she spent a lot of time in care prior to us moving in I would suspect property was empty a while. 

I need to explore card options, I have kind of took my eye of ball with them to be honest but fully focused now, although not having a huge impact it still needs fixing. Although I am quite happy to have hit that overpayment on the monzo as that brings us right down to 145 a month and that 145 is fully off the balance so with a few extra over payments could be off pretty quickly.

Check the eligibility calculator on here to see if you can get a 0% balance transfer card, no point paying interest if you don’t have to. 

Some even have no balance transfer fee 

Unfortunately not in position for 0%, I am in a better place money wise I just need to really focus my efforts. I am determined to get it gone.

FootyFanDan

Another Monday rolls round, I hope you all had a good weekend. 

The majority of Direct Debits have now come out except Council Tax & Broadband which is a little later into the month. 1st week of month grocery shop done and under budget (although its a higher budget). I have filled car up and this should hopefully cover two weeks use and accounted for two weeks of school meals and school travel. 

I will add to pots as we go through the month and also will plan to try and get some over payments in. We get paid again in two weeks, so I have allocated a little buffer for owt unexpected and realistically this leaves a fair amount to make an over payment now but fear prevents me doing it and then been short if it is needed. I think I need a little work on just getting over that hurdle, realistically we should be covered fine, everything is accounted for.

Pots

Car Maintenance - £57.15 -  only added to this pot this month
Xmas 24 - £100 - allocated 57 last month, 43 this - although some will likely get spent on deals early I think.
EF - £0 - will be added to mid month

Savings

Added £100 to investment account - this comes out automatically and is obviously a very long term thing, which I will increase contributions to as things even out with debt.

One thing I noticed on wage is that I am yet to be paying any contributions to pension, I had email so that start from my next wage, just something I need to factor in for my wage been lower than my previous two months. The extra flexibility in an higher salary, but job wise I am still to be convinced tbh.

Hope everyone has a great week ahead...PS where is our sun gone!!! 😆