Debt and mortgage free wannabe

enthusiasticsaver

Once you adjust your soa for the car insurance ( £32 a month rather than the £380) then you would have a surplus of £860.  I would up the credit card repayment to £300 to clear it within the 12 months then distribute the remaining £660 between savings/emergency fund , initially a small mortgage overpayment to start the ball rolling and maybe upping the car maintenance to £75 to allow for the car being older. 

strandedinaber

Evening all, I am feeling very much on top of my budget again and am reminded why clearcheckbook is worth every penny of the £4 I pay a month for it. Plans are as follows:

- £400 a month to the credit card for the next 12 months to clear that. If I do that comfortably, then I will be redirecting as much of that as I possibly can to the mortgage while staying under my repayment threshold.

- £100 a month to car maintenance/insurance/replacement fund. That will increase when the cc is paid off to see if I can avoid a loan for the replacement car. That isn't planned for a while yet but my current car is ten years old.

- £100 a month to Christmas and holidays combined. Thankfully I stopped buying my friends' kids presents last Christmas.

Part of me is looking at my budget and wondering what on earth I have been spending things on if I feel I can find £600 a month. However, up until last year it all went on savings for my house move and since then it has mostly gone on house and garden things (I've needed to buy a lot of garden equipment although I regularly borrow from friends). I've also redecorated two rooms since moving in. The house is feeling livable now though, so anything else I want to do to it, I'll be doing on the cheap. I want some large pebbles for an area of the garden so will be looking out for people wanting people to come in and remove theirs for them!

Cheery_Daff

Hello 😊 Thanks for popping into my diary, thought I'd come over and see what you're up to 😊

Do tell us more about your DIY escapades! 😊 Nice to find a fellow Library of Things user too 😊 Ours is very new, doesn't have loads of stuff and I mostly don't need what it does have, but I'm experimenting with a steam cleaner this week as you know! 

Have subscribed and will follow along, don't give up posting! 😊

Cheery x

redofromstart

I came to say 'hello' after I read your post on Cheerys diary. I found it was very easy to spend without particular intention after we moved, and always the case with diy and garden. The cost of materials has shot up in the last few years.

anyway, welcome to diary land and good luck with your efforts.

strandedinaber

Thank you for the welcomes and subscriptions, @Cheery_Daff and @redofromstart - it's much appreciated! I'm working my way through your diary at the moment, @redofromstart - it's really motivating to read about the journey from MFW to early retirement and what we actually need. It's making me think about what it is that's important to me. I have to admit that my retirement plans will probably be pricier because I've always regretted never taking a travelling gap year before uni, so would like to do that at some point.

It's been a good weekend with only planned spends, and one freebie - some paving slabs someone was getting rid of on marketplace. I bought a water butt with a birthday voucher which will be here tomorrow, and as it's going on gravel, I wanted something a bit steadier for it to rest on. Installing a water butt on my own will be a bit of an adventure but the reviews assure me it's easy. That's about as far as my DIY goes at the moment!

I also repainted and repaired the rose trellises today as they were very faded and falling off the wall, but they've got a few more years in them. That's three out of seven trellises painted, but the rest can wait until the next sunny weekend - I'm knackered.

Off to go book train travel for work next week - I'm now commuting by train into the office but only one day a week, but I'm still getting used to being a train commuter as opposed to a car commuter. Thankfully there are no restrictions on the day I choose, so I'll just go for the cheapest day.

enthusiasticsaver

Good luck on installing the water butt.  Never tried that myself but I should imagine a flat level base is pretty important.  I have a plan to use our old dustbin as one if I can get DH on board as we all now have new bins in Cornwall and I don't fancy just checking the old dustbin away. 

redofromstart

Just remember that you need access to the tap with your watering can to stand and fill form the tap at the bottom or you have to stand and hold a water can on a slant till it half fills (don't ask me how I know this!)

Cheery_Daff

redofromstart said:

Just remember that you need access to the tap with your watering can to stand and fill form the tap at the bottom or you have to stand and hold a water can on a slant till it half fills (don't ask me how I know this!)

Sadly I also know this from experience 🙄😂 I ordered an IBC (big square container) to sit next to the greenhouse. Unfortunately, siting it low enough that it could collect water from the greenhouse meant that I couldn't actually get a watering can under the tap, and have had to dig a trench to put the watering can in (a pain, but much easier than raising the height of the greenhouse 😂)

redofromstart

Better than me Cheery, I didn't think about a trench. Thank you!

strandedinaber

enthusiasticsaver said:

Good luck on installing the water butt.  Never tried that myself but I should imagine a flat level base is pretty important.  I have a plan to use our old dustbin as one if I can get DH on board as we all now have new bins in Cornwall and I don't fancy just checking the old dustbin away. 

Good luck with getting DH on board - hopefully it works!

Thank you for the reminders, @redofromstart and @Cheery_Daff - I've had the same experience previously at an old house but that was nearly ten years ago, and I'd forgotten how much of a faff it was! I think it will end up being relatively tall with the stand and the slabs but will also test before installation. I need to be careful anyway because I'm doing to have to cut away a decent chunk of hedge to install it, sadly.

@redofromstart are you now planning on digging a trench in your garden?

This month's budget got thrown out at the final hour, and now there is an additional 'vets fees' envelope. Yes, those two things are connected. The cat's lucky he's cute! (He's fine, but asthmatic and the vet and I have been having a several-month-long disagreement on how to treat. After five asthma attacks in four days, I've finally won the argument and a £65 bill besides).