Sass' 2008 DFW ramble thread

Sassamac

Forgot to mention anotehr £4 Tesco spend yesterday. I realised I didnt have any bread flour, then there was a couple of things I had forgotten from Fridays shop, and a couple of things that were reduced.

Im going to be seriously struggling to stay on budget if I dont stop. I keep thinking we dont need much, then find something else we have / will run out of before the end of the month.

Still the freezer is rammed again so there is hope. Didnt do too many homecooked meals last week because of DH working, and those that I did do, often lasted an extra day.

Chicken for dinner tonight, courtesy of Mum bringing a couple of spare quarters down yesterday. So pretty much a free dinner tonight, what with the 7p parsnips, last nights leftover veg, only really paying for the leeks and spuds.

Sassamac

Ok I have come to a decision about the gym membership which I think is a suitable comprimise. Instead of taking out the membership, I will just 'pay as you play'.
So Im going to budget £26 per month for swimming, which allows me to go twice a week. No gym, no sauna etc. no being committed to a DD. If I go I pay, if I dont I save! That means if DH is working lots of overtime, or we're busy so I cant go, I havent paid for nothing.
Im also going to budget £14 per month for DD to spend 2 hours a week in the creche. Apart from allowing me to swim, I think it will do her good to be left.

Sassamac

I feel like Im wasting my afternoon. Dont want to start anything because is 3 hours into her nap so is already overdue to wake up.
Im waiting for Barclaycard to phone me back, and phoned the water company to arrange to spread my payments and their system is down so I have to phone back later.
Managed to get quite a bit of h/w done in the meantime, and started dinner, but made no progress on my finances.

Im contemplating whether to try and book the creche for tomorrow so I can get back on the exercise wagon. But then I think it might be best to wait a week til we get a full pay packet to live off. I already have to pay back £150 out of this weeks pay to compensate for what I transfered over this morning. So its still going to be tight budgetwise next week. DH is earning an extra £20 odd working late tonight though.

Keeping_Positive

Its frustrating when you just want to clear everything isnt it? Just think you have made lots of progress and and you've done well with the h/w and dinner.

Sassamac

Thanks Wendy, I did have a sparkling kitchen which is a rareity mid-week.
Got to try ringing them all again today!

DH's final part for his motorbike is now ready for collection. Will cost about £20, then we have to get it MOT'd soon which is another £27 I think, plus a bit extra on petrol as I will have to take him to work when his MB is in the garage. I also need to do a 40 mile round trip to collect the part, as he cant get it while hes at work. Expensive business, this MB! Still hopefully that will be it for a while.

Had the child benefiit payment through today which was a ncie surprise as I had forgotten. I have transfered three quarters of it to the savings acc ad set up transfers to drip feed it into the current acc weekly, as per the TC's. So now every week we will have £30 CB + £96 TC + £225+ DH's pay, so at least £350 to live off each week. That doesnt sound so bad.

Sassamac

Just playing with my snowball, having double cheacked the budgets. For the next 4 months (til we remortgage) we have £250+ spare, on top of minimum debt repayments. I plugged into the snowball, an extra £220 per month (which is the difference between the IO and capital repayment, so effectively were using the mortgage money to overpay the debts) and it brought the DFD from Mar 2013 - 61 payments to go (well some 60, some 61) to May 2010, 26 payments away. Unfortunately we wont be able to repay that every month, but even if we only manage that rate for another 4 months, thats almost an extra £1k paid off in that time, on top of the almost £1k from the minimum payments. If only it actually went down that much every month - damn interest charges.

Sassamac

Hoorah! I've brought my DFD closer by doing a LOB BT!
Ive transfered £1850 from my HSBC CC to my Barclaycard, which takes it almost up to the limit (you can only BT upto 90% of the limit so I cant actually max the card unless I spend on it). So there is just shy of £4k on there and just under £550 left on the HSBC. Theres no BT fee either which is a bonus!

The effect of transfering that amount from 15.9% to 6.9% interest rate has shaved 3 months off my DFD from 61 to 58 months (Jan 2013).
Its also a smaller minimum payment percentage (2.25% for the BC and 2.5% for the HSBC CC) which has the effect of saving about £4 every month, which is just something else to go towards the overpayments on the others.
So bearing in mind the spare money we have for overpayments (£220 I've allocated) the remainder of my HSBC CC will be gone in 3 months, 2 if we really push it.
In fact TBH its worth going more OD just to pay it off, what with the bargaining power that having an empty CC gives, and the fact that I have an (3.9% for 6 months with 2.5% BT fee) offer waiting for that CC, which has to be used by the end of April (26th springs to mind).
I have over £400 worth of space left on the secondary OD, so I might see if I can syphon £150 off the current acc before the end of this month (should be able to find a spare £50 every Friday), to give me £550 worth of space on that OD, then use that debit card to pay off the HSBC CC balance.
I love having one small debt (small meaning just 3 figures LOL!) as you can really see the light at the end of the tunnel and it gives you the added incentive to really go for it.

Sassamac

Oh and I have a plan for the 3.9% deal too. I dont want to be lumbered with paying massive BT fees, only for the offer period to end, and the whole lot to shoot up to full whack. This is where we got caught out with our CC shuffles pre LBM. We rapidly ran out of places to transfer the money to when the offer ended.
So the plan is;
- transfer a token amount, Im thinking £300 from the BC to the empty HSBC CC, COST = £7.50.
- transfer the same amount from DH's HSBC CC to my BC (the reason being that we cant BT from one HSBC CC to the other directly). COST = £0.
- pay the minimum payment on the small cheap debt for 5 months. minpay = £6 to £7 over the period. Remaining balance at end of offer period = apx £270.
- simultaneously overpay DH's HSBC CC by £220+ each month for 5 months.
- for the last month of the offer, use the £220+ overpayment amount, and scrape together the extra £50 from somewhere (OD) to clear the balance.
- hope that another offer has been granted by then!

The effect on DH's CC will be;
month 1; £3700 - £300 (BT) = £3400
month 2; £3400 - £85 (minpay) - £220 (overpay) + £55 (interest) = £3140
month 3; £3140 - £78 (minpay decreasing) - £227 (overpay up as minpay down) + £50 (int down) = £2885
month 4; £2885 - £72 - £233 + £45 = £2625
month 5; £2625 - £65 - £240 + £40 = £2360
month 6; £2360 - £59 (no OP this month) + £40 = £2341

Total paid off in those 6 months = £1359!!

Ive had to guess at the interest charges but its currently £60 on £3700 with a £92 minpay, so I think the estimate is as accurate as its going to get.
Meanwhile the TC rebate will arrive and abolish the OD's (which are the only other expensive debts) which actually would free up £25 each month for OP's, and the minpay will be chipping away at the BC, knocking about £450 off that to bring it to apx £3.5k.
So by Sep / Oct 08 we should have reduced the total debt to £5.8k, ooh a nice round £5k would be good. Trouble is re,ortgaging half way through that time period would use up most of our overpayment money. Its almost tempting to stick with an IO mortgage for another year or two, just to see us debt free, which will leave us an extra £445 worth of debt payments free to throw at the mortgage.

Keeping_Positive

There was you saying you hadnt got anywhere yesterday, I go to work and come back to all this. Sub £6k by Oct08!!!!

Well done fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

Sassamac

Sounds good when you put it like that, thank Wendy. The whole thing is dependant on our mortgage not going up though.
I spoke to DH about it last night and we have come to a decision to remortgage on IO for a 2 year term, which should see us debt free, and then we'll have a spare £450 per month to throw at the mortgage. The way we see it its a choice between;
be in debt for 5 years and pay the capital on the mortgage (finish in 23 years time), and have absolutely no spare cash for that entire time, or;
be in debt for 2 yrs, overpay lots, have no spare cash for living, but spare cash for emergencies (i.e. dont overpay if an emergency happens or something annual is due for renewal), remortgage after another 2 yrs and probably have to add another year to the mortgage to compensate for the IO period (finish in 24 yrs time).
Im just not sure I can cope with the stress of being in debt and living on such a tight budget for another 5 yrs, even 4 years which is a more likely figure. I cant cope another 4 winters with no heating. I think with the DFD being within reach, the light is that much nearer the end of the tunnel, which is much healthier psychologically. Having an IO mortgage is nowhere near as stressful as being in debt. So unless when we do the maths IO is not viable, thats the route we're going down.