Turning Straw into Gold: Creating Long Term Security & A Solid Home

jwil

I like the idea of the courgette boats, thank you!

MillQueen

@Chocolatefund, I have a SOA that I look at obsessively every day, but there isn't anything to cut. The only things that aren't fixed expenses are food, over payments and the gym membership that I had for a month and have cancelled because I can't afford it. I've been paying £100 extra per month on both loans and they should be gone after 3 years. I'd like it to be sooner, as I think about them all the time as I find debt stressful.

@jwil, it works well as a cheap meal with all sorts of veg like a red pepper or an aubergine as the boat if you don't have courgettes. Then it's easy to add a side with any sort of cheap carb whatever you have or veg.

I have been able to work at home today, which has saved about £7 on petrol.

ellenvan

If there is nothing to cut you need to concentrate on extra income.

You probably have thought about all of these, but I will mention anyway.

Bank switch - MSE weekly email list

Cashback - groceries gift card?

Survey income

Utility switch? Cashback

Cashback - insurance etc.

Good luck

Chocolatefund

It might be worth looking at not overpaying the personal loan for now, and taking that £100 plus the £100 from the ISA payment and throwing them both at that postgraduate loan. If you did that would that potential £300 per month overpayment knock out that post grad loan in a year and a half ish?

Im sure you've run some debt payoff calculators for this, but just thinking psychologically it might be a more achievable milestone to reach for then trying to do everything and slogging it out for three years.

Just food for thought.

ellenvan

Interesting post by Chocolate fund.

Depends on the interest rates also.

ArtyJ931

my student loans are not a matter that concern me. I have loans on 3 different plans and pay over £400 per month out of my salary towards them. Every year the amount I owe increases by hundreds of pounds despite the monthly repayments. The terms and interest rates have changed constantly. I’ll never pay them off.

The absolute grift that is student loans is beyond shocking.

MillQueen

Thank you for the suggestions, @ellenvan and @Chocolatefund. I will have a look at bank switches as that could be lucrative in the short term. I saw a post on social media the other day about keeping a burner account that you can use for bank switches, to avoid disrupting your main accounts too much, which I think is the way to go, as I work with so many organisations it would risk me not getting paid if I had to change it all. I have been doing cashback and made a couple of quid, but I'm tied in for a while with utilities.

The main way I'll be able to earn more is by being able to go back to self-employment, as that has supplemented my full time income well, but I'm currently unable to do any additional work due to a health issue. There would be an element of safety risk involved where it wouldn't be feasible to do if I'm not 100%, so I am prioritising recovery in order to be able to get back to it before the end of the year.

The interest rates for the personal loan that I got for the roof is 6.4% and the postgraduate loan will be 6% from September (for the coming year, no idea what it will be after that - it's currently been 6.4% as well this past year, though has previously been almost 9%). The student loan is my most hated debt as I've been paying it for years and will have repaid back much more than I borrowed. My reason for paying both off together is that although the student loan is horrible, the interest on the other is higher, and the roof loan is what would remain if anything were to happen with my job, where I would stop repaying the student loan. I do like the idea of getting rid of it faster though. I could just pay both £100s off it for the next year and find another £50 from somewhere, to make it £250 and see where that gets me (can't touch the investments).

MillQueen

Today I am working at home and saving £7 in petrol. I need to go to a place for work for the next 2 days that involves paying £12 a day to park. Normally at this point I'd have decided to park miles away and walk there to avoid paying that, but my leg hasn't healed yet and it would mean walking back through some dodgy areas at night. I've compensated for it by delaying my grocery shop for a few days and eating leftovers.

MillQueen

In other news I am going to need a new front door, as the existing one is rotten through and had been painted over to hide it, but it's now breaking apart. In a few weeks when things have settled at work I am going to get some wood filler and paint over it to try and make it last through the winter and then get a new one next year. The quotes for a new one have been £4000 to £6000 (let's all laugh-cry together for a moment at how much that is) because it will need to be custom built due to the size and shape. I don't think I had fully comprehended how ridiculous the repairs would be when I bought an old house in a conservation area.

I'll do a patch up for now and I am trusting that 2027 me will have a solution for this 😊.

MillQueen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82069929#Comment_82069929

They are a disgrace, @ArtyJ931, I am so sorry you are paying so much, it's absolute robbery. It's hard for people to afford a family and save into a pension because of such huge payments. I had loans for my first degree and first postgraduate degree (under the introduction of the system where it was about 3k a year) and managed to pay them off when I was younger with my obsessive working and never having a life outside of working, as they worried me so much. I had paid about 20k by the time I was 30. Then since then I had to do another undergraduate degree and two more postgrad degrees for my job at the higher prices, and I ended up paying for all of them myself (aside from the most recent postgrad course, which I had to get the loan for). I just couldn't face going back into the loans system again, as it's gotten successively more punishing. I've scrimped and saved for decades and never spent on anything other than education to be able to pay for it all, as the only other option was a lifetime of debt being taken from my pay which is happening to so many where they don't even get to see the full benefits of the wages they are working so hard for. Such a grift. I could hate on student loans all day!! I feel like I have done nothing with my life except work and pay all the time for housing and education and can still never get ahead of where I am. All of the money people spend on the loans could have been spent on paying off a mortgage, but even that's out of reach as the house prices are so crazy. Ok, rant over. I am sorry you are paying £400, it is beyond awful ❤️