£2,576.79 to clear by March

Humdinger1

@DD265 it makes sense to recharge your batteries! If all inclusive abroad goes it, then go you.  Self management is key to clearing debt and you don't want to burnout and go into a spending frenzy.  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

joedenise

Going forward if you plan on having a regular holiday each year or even every other year then I would suggest that you add a category for it to your YNAB and maybe use a regular saver to save up for it throughout the year.  It's how I manage our holidays and it really works.

DD265

@joedenise that is the ultimate aim, but at the moment any monthly leftover cash is put towards other things, hence relying on my bonuses. In the past I would simply book the holiday on an interest free credit card and pay it off after the fact. This is the first time it'll be paid off before we fly, so definitely a step in the right direction.

We've both been paid, so I've done the budget today and it was quite comfortable. I am getting my largest expenses reimbursement to date and 2/3 goes to the credit card for hotel bookings, but the rest went into the main budget pot because it was either food that I'd already paid out or for mileage. I do feel as though I'm missing something because the budget was a little too comfortable, but we'll see on Sunday when the targets reset in YNAB - any issues will become glaringly obvious at that point!

January was a bit of an overspending month in the first half to two-thirds, but is feeling much more settled now. I'm aiming for a low buy in February, for a few reasons. The first being financial, and the second is time/wellbeing related; I have much more time to do things if I'm not mindlessly shopping, and when I do things I feel productive and when I feel productive I feel more positive.

The plan for this weekend is allotment, food shopping, batch cooking and some jobs at home. I also have the big Lego set I bought before Christmas; the light kit arrived this week so I will take my time building that. Husband is working tomorrow but off Sunday so that's our only day together as I'm back at work on Monday. It's a fairly busy week; on Thursday when the glaziers are coming to replace two blown window panes, and on Friday the cats are going to the vet for their jabs/checkups.

DD265

I was doing well; getting things done at the allotment and a freezer full of batch cooked meals. Still not started the big Lego set as we had some difficulty getting the instructions with the light kit, but I might start that this weekend. The windows got sorted and the cats were jabbed.

8th February I was having a good day, starting with a swim first thing. There was a local crafter's table top sale so I got a few hobby bits there for my needlefelting and what I thought was cross stitch but turned out to be tapestry, then I went to the garden centre for some allotment soil and houseplant pots. Unfortunately when I arrived at the allotment, my plan disintegrated because all the glass in my greenhouse had been smashed to bits. It was definitely vandalism and it's had a really negative impact on my mental health which I was already struggling with.

I am back on Sertraline and back in therapy - at £70 a session which is adding up very quickly but is absolutely necessary. Things were very much touch and go for a while there; thankfully I'm through the worst of it and I think the medication has kicked in already because I feel a lot more level. I've started trying to reclaim my allotment - it's supposed to be my happy place !!!!!! - and today my husband and a lovely chap from FB marketplace re-glazed the greenhouse. It's cost about £220 for the glass and the chap's time, plus an additional £100 and £4 per month ongoing for the CCTV camera I'm installing tomorrow.

My spending this month had actually been much more reasonable. Husband got paid today so I've used some of that to cover the costs of the greenhouse repair/security, but that has a knock on effect to March's budget so I may end up pulling from our emergency fund. Not what we needed in any way, shape or form.

In happier news, Mum and I had an afternoon in the city last week which was great; we went round all the craft shops and found a houseplant shop plus an amazing independent chocolatier, so whilst I spent a bit it was all within budget. I've also been running, bit less swimming particularly as there's a local road closure which means getting to/back from the pool in a morning is a pain; mostly that's a convenient excuse to have a lie in though. I'm talking to people at work including HR who are checking on me daily and I've arranged to meet a friend in a couple of weeks, so I'm doing all I can.

I'm currently taking things one day/moment at a time. Right now I'm catching up on some admin and will do some jobs at home. I think we might get a takeaway for tea - no risk over the weekend as husband is working shifts. Tomorrow I'll do the food shopping and I think we'll need the butchers this week. I need to get a bracket for the allotment shed gutter (the vandals ripped that off too… I think they wanted to beat the greenhouse withthe gutter but were too thick to realise it's actually flimsy plastic) and I need a houseplant pot. I've got a couple of fruit trees at the allotment to move and the "new" greenhouse glass is very dirty so I'm going to hose it off whilst everything is so wet anyway. Mostly I'm trying to maintain a balance between productive, so I don't spiral, and rest, so I don't burn out completely.

honeybee1234

Hi @DD265 ,have you reported it to the police? I was thinking depending on where your allotment and plot is, is there any possibility that any nearby houses may have CCTV?

Humdinger1

Sending love @DD265. Sad to hear about the allotment and agree with @honeybee1234. Really, some people. Is this an issue across the allotments? You're doing brilliantly Humdinger xx

DD265

@honeybee1234 @Humdinger1 I've been there four years, had a greenhouse for 3, and it's the first time anything like this has happened. There was a break in 3-4 years ago, but someone had left a valuable tool on show and that was all they came in for (they weren't successful in the end). I did report it, but no CCTV - however I now have my own solar powered, 4G enabled CCTV! I've also since bought a couple of wooden posts and some mesh/fittings to make a fence between the greenhouse and the football pitch as despite a very tall fence, balls do come flying over and I've lost a few panes of glass that way. Unfortunately acrylic is about £20 a pane and I can't justify that - the second hand glass alone at £2-3 a go was over £100! Even with the unexpected costs, we finished the month within budget and March was fully funded with a bit into the holiday pot.

March's first (hopefully only but who am I kidding…) big unexpected expense is my car. I filled it up with diesel then walking back from the kiosk, I realised it was leaking! Got the AA out, who couldn't confirm where it was leaking from, so it's been into my local garage. They've ordered a seal that goes by the pump on the tank, but they won't know until they take everything out to fit it whether that's the actual/only issue. It's a couple of hours labour to take the tank out so not worthwhile purely for investigation, and they were too busy to fix it there and then last week. Expecting a bill between £400-1000 depending on what it ends up being. Have £413 in car pot, because I spent it all on the tyres at Christmas. Fun times.

Husband and I had talked about going away this weekend but given that impending-unknown-bill, we've decided against it. We have a difficult anniversary on Tuesday so we will do a day trip, though. I'm meeting a friend on Friday for an outing, then we have lunch with another friend on Saturday; it's good to keep busy through the rough days.

I've dropped my therapy to fortnightly, and got a prescription prepayment certificate to save there; I would've been having a monthly prescription plus a quarterly prescription, so I've had the latter changed to monthly and got the PPC. I've spent a reasonable amount so far in March because I was sorting my seed sowing for the county show in May; with the damage to the greenhouse, I didn't get the seeds sown and it put me behind a bit, but I'm pretty much sorted now. I'm expecting spending to settle down after the next week.

Humdinger1

Gosh @DD265 it never rains but it pours! Hope you have a stretch of colourless routine coming up! Love Humdinger xx

DD265

It's not good news about the car: rodents have chewed an important bit of plastic where a pipe joins the fuel tank. That important bit of plastic is bonded to the fuel tank and VW do not supply it separately. Not only would a brand new fuel tank have to ship from Germany and take 10 working days, the cost of said fuel tank, excluding fitting, is £1200. Currently waiting for prices from breakers yards…

In the mean time I have the car back; it cost £195 to have the fuel tank taken out, assessed, and put back in. I've put 10 litres of diesel in, because I can drive it, I just shouldn't fill it beyond half a tank, but also when they get it back to swap the tank out, they want it to have as little fuel in as possible. Still cost £15.99 because of course diesel prices are going up right now and I needed to go to our closest petrol station. 🙄

My thinking at the moment is to use a credit card - I haven't spent on my Barclaycard in a year and I like to make sure they don't close due to inactivity - because it'd go on April's statement for payment in May, pay off using the car maintenance pot/emergency fund and then my bonus at the end of May could replenish the emergency fund so we wouldn't be without for long. The car is also due it's MOT in May, and whilst I had it serviced in November for my own peace of mind, I'd usually have that done alongside MOT. I would be very surprised if it doesn't need suspension work by then given the state of the roads, although I do drive carefully.

It is very rare that I wish I had a brand new car (on finance) but those thoughts are crossing my mind tonight, although I'm reminding myself that rodent damage could happen to a car of any age.

DD265

Ended up with a tank from a breakers yard, so the total cost (including the original £195) was around £780 all in. I also ended up with too much fuel in the tank before it went back to the garage the second time, so we had a day out to burn through some of that. I ended up paying cash for it all and didn't have to dip into the emergency fund, but as a result of that and paying for the holiday we do have a couple of (unimportant) underfunded budget categories in April.

The holiday I have paid for on a credit card, but I have the cash set aside to pay it off in full. I might let it earn a meagre amount of interest in my bank account whilst waiting for the statement and direct debit to take care of it. It'll go on the April statement for payment in May. Chances are I'll make the payment manually just to clear it.

Husband's birthday is coming up, so we have a meal out and a separate theatre trip but otherwise April should be fairly light on doing things. My focus is mainly on plants - both my show vegetables and for the allotment generally which I aim to start sowing this week - and tidying up the garage/gardens/allotment.

I have just had confirmation of a 4.1% pay rise which is always nice, both on basic and variable pay. It should be an extra £125ish a month I think, but I could increase my pension contributions by 3% to 8% (employer matching is capped at 5%) and not take home any less than I do today. I could not increase my pension contributions and put the extra into paying off debt or the emergency fund. I will stay comfortably under £100k even with the variable pay so that's not a consideration in the 2026/27 tax year.

Credit card wise, if we ignore the holiday I have two outstanding balances:

£8800 0% into July 2027 paying £500 a month

£800 0% into July 2026 paying £200 a month (so I need to throw an extra £200 at it)

Once I've paid off the smaller card I plan to increase the amount I pay to the bigger card, so that extra would help for sure. The emergency fund is sitting at £1200 so again, if I could increase payments into that it would be helpful. Husband has also had a pay rise but to keep him just above minimum wage, so not sure what impact that'll have. Plus his pay is quite variable due to overtime and unsocial hour uplift.

Playing around in a spreadsheet and assuming I only use £100 of the extra, I could pay the Lloyds credit card off 3 months earlier, and by July 2027, have an extra £1400 in savings compared to if I put that £100 in the pension. That assumes nothing needs paying out of our emergency fund which feels highly unlikely! But the extra in the pension might be around £150k over my retirement? It's hard to figure out this stuff so I've decided to reach out to my financial advisor (a freebie through work) and see what she thinks.