Busting this debt before 40

Chocolatefund

Two weeks have gone.  And it’s lovely weather on this Mothering Sunday.

Quite a bit of money stuff to talk about.

The upcoming April bill increases have come in.  An additional £2 for broadband, and just £1 for my phone.  The worst offender is the council tax going up by an extra £8 a month, and that’s with single person’s discount.  Total an extra £11 per month going forward, which I’ve factored into my outgoings going forwards.  I’ve checked my water bill online and that doesn’t seem to have changed. (Yet). But I am on a meter, so we shall see!

Payday tomorrow, so my end of month spends are as follows.
Food £181
Petrol £131
Eating Out/Fun £52 
Misc. £68

Total £432.  Felt like I just squeezed it.  Wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it as I went over in the petrol budget due to lots more then usual travelling.  Also went over slightly in the miscellaneous category due to purchasing a birthday and mothers day presents this month.  Thankfully I came in under the food budget which balanced it out.

Part of me did think about sending extra in the spending budget to cover the extra present cost,  but then thought to myself, if I did that then I would just be more tempted to spend any spare money on rubbish, so I’m pleased I managed it.

Been busting my butt the last couple of weeks on extra shifts.  Some of that money isn’t going to come in till later, so I’ll roll it over on the May overpayment.

Cant wait till the 1st when all my bills come out, as It’s going to be another big overpayment. £2400 if my maths brain isn’t fried.  I’m throwing all my V1nted sales, backdated pay and extra hours at this!

Interest rebate saga continues.  It didn’t come in till three days ago.   Very later than usual.  Gave Te$co bank a call and they say because I’ve done so many overpayments, they have to be calculated manually, and there’s a backlog….I mean really??

£303 rebate.  So my loan amount is now £6739.  This next overpayment will put me beyond the 75% mark.  

Tuesday 1st couldn’t come soon enough.

enthusiasticsaver

You are  doing brilliantly at getting that loan paid down. 

Chocolatefund

Thanks @enthusiasticsaver . I took out this loan over seven years.  What was I thinking taking this loan out to run for seven years!?!  Fell into the deceptive ‘monthly payment’ trap clearly.

Chocolatefund

O’hail the ‘Great Monthly Money Shuffle’ !

Overpayment of £2400 sent.  Loan is now down to £4054.  

79% of the way there!

Arrrrggghhhh I can see the finish line!!11!  These next two months are going to KILL MEEEEEeeeee……

Chocolatefund

Feel like I need a financial brain dump.

Sent off paperwork yesterday to purchase added pension.  Makes sense for me to pension off the 40% tax part of my salary.  Should kick in at the end of Aprils pay.  

I’ve started the process of preparing for a bank switch for the incentives.  Well…technically it won’t be a bank switch at all, as I can open up another Ch@se current account.  Started up a couple of direct debits on it and once they’ve come out, I can switch it to my already existing Naffwest rewards for the £150 offer they’ve got going.  Never grabbed bank switching money before, so there’s potential for a fair bit for me to make.

Booked car service plus MOT in a couple of weeks for £320.  Fingers crossed nothing major comes up.

Not really getting on with the paid surveys.  Pr0lific always seems to not be available, needs a desktop or laptop.  YouGov I quite like so might try and keep on top of it.  Just can’t seem to be bothered to do them.

My Te$co savings account has spat out another £21 interest.  It’s the account that keeps on giving!

After rewards and interest, my savings accounts are now £1807 in the sinking fund and £2786 in the emergency fund.

Ooooo…that’s £4593 total.  More then my debt.  Debt neutral?  Naaaahh.  That’s false economy.

“YoU dOnT hAvE sAvInGs If YoU hAvE dEbT”.   I’ll keep telling myself.

Tempting though…

Chocolatefund

A lovely weekend with sunny weather.  Ventured out into the jungle I call my back garden for the first time this year.  Had to manhandle a couple of fence panels back together after the storms destroyed them.  Did make the days effort in the garden a no spend day as a result.

Money wise, I’ve spent SO MUCH already, and it’s still only the first week of the month.  Did a big food shop yesterday of £118.  Needed a lot of household items this time around.  My main offence was the lure of the Te$co club card offers.  All my usual buys and favourites were on offer, so bought way more than I needed and doubled up on a lot of things such as toothpaste.  That’s clearly how they get you.

Other spends this week are £11 eating out.  That was a coffee out and forgetting to bring in lunch AGAIN on Friday.  £5 for postage and £5 for Lottery.  Topped up my national lottery account before I realised I didn’t need to in order to set up the direct debit for the bank switch.  Oops.

Filled up petrol tank for £33.  Might have gotten away with another week, but decided to fill up anyway.

Total spend this week £172.  

I’ll have to order a birthday present next week, but other then that, going to aim for a no spend week next week to try a make up for this weeks spend.  Reckon I can do it.

The two direct debits I’ve set up on my other Ch@se account are now showing up as pending, so tomorrow, I’ll initiate the bank switch.

Fingers crossed!

Chocolatefund

Enjoying the sunny week.  Till today.  Rain??  Noooo…

Interest rebate came through within a week this time around.  Maybe they remembered me and made a note.   . Rebate of £200.  This takes my loan down to £3,854.  Yay!

I was able to stick to my goal this week and only spend money on ordering a birthday present for £67.  Other than this, I’ve managed to not spend anything else. 

Away next week visiting lots of family and cat sitting.  Won’t need to do a food shop next week, but will definitely need the petrol tank filling once if not twice.  Going to have to resist lots of temptation eating out…

I’ve shifted some money from my sinking fund into my current account for the switch.  Need to have £1,250 in there for the switch bonus.  I’m not sure if this will count already having that in there by the time the switch completes, or If I need to transfer it in from another bank?  Will wait and find out.  If not, will just wait till payday as I’m in no hurry for it.  Could transfer from Naffwest to Ch@se and back again, but not sure If I want to faff with that.

Soooo,

My small SIPP and S&S ISA are down due to current tariff battle going on in the world at the moment.  I ran some numbers and put an extra £100 into my ISA to take wee advantage while it was down a lot.  There’s only £500 in there, but if the stock market continues to go down thanks to Mr USA president then it will be a good opportunity to really put more in my ISA once my overpayments on my loan are done.

There’s me thinking to far ahead again…

Chocolatefund

Life has decided to throw a financial freight train at me.

Car service and MOT came to a whopping £1240.  All my disk brakes and pads needed replacing, plus other bits.  Damn.

Thats not the worst part.  The engines cambelt needs replacing.  £1700.  Plus £500 worth of amber repairs that can wait, but will still need doing at some point.  Did some research on my cars make and model.  And unfortunately, that cambelt pricing is right….bummer.

I’ve had my car 8 years now.  I’ve replaced a wiper blade, a broken light, and tires.  That’s it.  Thinking back I consider myself lucky to go all these years without anything major need doing.  Now it’s decided to hit me all at once.  Still, I could’ve done without the mechanic ringing me and telling me that it’s gonna need £3200+ worth of work.  The financial dread and wave of anxiety that hit me when he said that was very real.  I was thinking at the time “there goes my emergency fund”

Thankfully, it’s not critical.  They need a couple of days to do the cambelt, so I’m booked back in early June to get it done.  That gives me time and a couple of paychecks to come up with a plan for the £1700, plus the additional £500 if I want to sort that too.  The dealership can do interest fee instalments for this if I want it, so that option is there.

Soooo…my sinking fund has been decimated, but my emergency fund is untouched.  For now.  

Problem.  My car tax, car insurance, home insurance are all due next month.  *grumbles*

My loan overpayments are going to have to take a back seat now for the time being. *cry*

Just started cat sitting duties for my parents as they are away on a trip for a few days.  To top this all off, I am nursing a nasty cold.  Going to have a couple of days rest in the countryside to let this all sink in and let my fog head clear a bit before I make any financial decisions and think carefully on how I want to go about this.

Cherryfudge

Cars can be so expensive! Sorry to hear yours is following the trend... you do have a bit of time, though, and I'm sure you'll come up with a plan. The good news is that you had money set aside to cushion the blow and you are wise to let it sink in before you make any big decisions.

I hope you're feeling better soon.

Chocolatefund

Thanks @Cherryfudge

It’s quite a blow to my debt busting journey to say the least.  I’m so glad I had a decent sinking fund to soften the initial blow.

So I’ve a bit of time to think, and here’s what I do NOT want to do;

Don’t want to pay my car insurance renewal in monthly instalments.

Decided against using the dealership instalments, as tempting as it is to use it and keep going with my debt overpayments.  If my debt was on high interest generating credit cards then It would make more mathematical sense to use this option.

My emergency fund is building up nicely and don’t want to touch it if I can help it.  Emptying it for the sake of being able to continue loan overpayments?  Meh.  I know some say that £1000 is enough for a starter emergency fund but I don’t think that’s enough.  Especially when you own a car as mine has just proved. 

Since starting this financial journey my mind set is slowly shifting.  Payments??  Ewww…

So I’m going to save from the next couple of payslips to pay for it.

Earlier in the week I got some extra shift money paid in and my bank switch from Ch@se to Naffwest worked which has given me the £150 switch bonus, good timing.

Checked my pay for the end of this month and it looks like the added pension paperwork that I sent off earlier didn’t hit the payroll cutoff date in time.  It will probably start coming off in Mays pay, but that does mean I’ll have extra then I thought to work with.

Going to sit down with some more number crunching tonight, and tomorrow and post some figures.