All change for 2025

jwil

beanielou said:

Happy car shopping~~if there is such a thing?

Thank you   I'm not sure there is   

LzzyIsGod said:

I look forward to the car updates! I'm no expert so can't offer any advice sorry 🤣 although I do know on my loan the minimum overpayment is £10 whereas the CCs are as little as i want them to be. 

Thank you   I've gone the CC route, I like to send over small amounts   

NeverendingDMP said:

Good luck with the car search. I suppose with a credit card you can bounce it around on transfers and pay more or less depending on what else is going on. 

Thank you   That's my thinking, there will be much more flexibility with the CC.

pennywisepoundstupid said:

Sorry to here about the car saga, hope you manage to find another without too much hassle.

Another thought if you only need a car a couple of time a month for work could a hire car be an option?

Thank you   I did consider this, but in reality I'm still shuttling the children around and I like having the ability to go off on my own when DH is away.  I don't think we're ready to be a 1 car family yet.

jwil

PAD (Payment a Day)

Today's PAD - £2

Jan - £129
Feb - £63
Mar - £103
Apr - £149
May - £79
June - £145
July - £157
August - £79

jwil

Well, the deed is done! I (hopefully!) will have a new (to me) car next weekend.  I went for the electric one - we loved it!   We had 3 on our list to look at down there, two petrol and this electric one, and we'd spent last night driving around various local dealers to see what they had, with nothing appealing.  This one was the only one that really stood out for us.

I decided to take the money transfer offer, and have done it over 2 cards, rather than using all of my PBs.  I prefer the flexibility of just being able to pay min payment if it's a tight month and ability to overpay as often as I want, and when the deal runs out I can consider a balance transfer.  If I change my mind I can always withdraw my PBs and pay some of it off.  It was a long low interest deal rather than 0% so no fee.  It was lower interest rate than the loan and the dealer finance so should be the better option.  I feel better about not having no savings left as well for now.

So I need to add everything up that I've spent so that I've got a total PAD target to aim for.  We bought an extended warranty which will cover next year's MOT as well, and I need to buy a 3 pin charging cable so we can charge at home and we can worry about getting a charging point installed at some later time. I'll switch to an ev energy deal as well to get the cheaper rates.  I need to insure it, but the quotes I got yesterday were only around £50 more than my current insurance which I was surprised about, and I need to tax it, and that is the same as the previous car.

So I am simultaneously excited, nervous about changing to automatic, and feeling a bit sick about my new debt level.  But it will be a nice challenge to see it going down quicker with my PADs.  I've long wanted my next car to be an EV but was expecting it to be in a few years time, and I wasn't expecting to be able to afford one now, especially a relatively new one with the battery still under warranty.

In other news, I lost 1.5lb today and got my 1.5 stone award  

joedenise

Congratulations on your new (to you) car.  Don't worry about driving an automatic - it's really easy.  I wouldn't have a manual if you paid me!

Well done on your weight loss and your 1.5 stone award.

Sun_Addict

The new to you car sounds great. Well done on the weight loss award 🥳

Newstartforme

Well done on your new car , you will be on a missions with your pads I am sure . What an amazing week at slimming club again, I can only imagine how thrilled you are , truly well done xx

WinterWarrior

Congratulations on the car and the weight loss! I’ve had an auto for about 15 years now and wouldn’t go back! 

NeverendingDMP

Well done on your successful day!

slm6002

Well done on the weight loss.

I was worried when I bought my last car a little while back as I had never driven an automatic and like others say I would never go back.  I had to drive DD1 home in her manual car the other day as she took ill and it took a lot of concentration with the gears.  I never thought I would forget what I was doing as it was ingrained so much.

beanielou

Happy new car & fantastic news on the award.