Busting this debt before 42

Cherryfudge

I was neutral about which loan you put the money to, till you said you were thinking of paying off the laptop and part of me suddenly wanted to shout 'reconsider that!' Well, you don't have to, and you may already have made the payment, and it wasn't even a considered response from me, just a gut reaction - but do the sums about how much you could save in interest by paying towards the car loan. That's money you can't avoid paying, other than by reducing the amount owed - and this would be an opportunity to do that, whereas paying off the laptop loan would feel nice, but leave you with a larger than necessary outgoing for the car. It works exactly the same as overpaying a mortgage - and it was a really nice feeling when we paid off our mortgage four years early. 😊

Chocolatefund

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81957486#Comment_81957486

When it comes down to it, it's the Avalanche vs the Snowball method of paying off debt.

Maths wise, I don't think one month of not overpaying the car loan is going to make a dramatic difference. Its more the momentum of keeping the overpayments going that I'd like to keep.

I wont be making the overpayment till I get paid at the end of April, so there's time for it to sit with me before I decide.

Having a look at the NaffWest app, it won't let me make an overpayment online that's less then the direct debit (£460) I'd have to ring to pay a smaller amount.

Another possibility is the ISA that I've got which has £1500 in it. I could pull a small amount from that since I'm not fussed about contributing to it till the loan is gone. But again, need to sit on that thought process for a bit.

Chocolatefund

End of week update.

My total spends for the week; £84 petrol, £28 food, £0 Eating out/Fun and £4 Miscellaneous which was parking in town.

Super happy with the week. Going to keep it up for the next two and a half weeks till payday. The potential of overpaying both loans is giving me motivation to not buy anything except food and transport.

An update to the NaffWest app has given the ability to create 'pots' on the current account. I don't think I'll be using this for general spending but it's good to see the high street bank catch up with the onlines ones.

Still going back and forth about whether to pay off the laptop loan and pull a little from the ISA or emergency fund to chuck off some car loan as well.

Chocolatefund

Third week of April done. Enjoying a nice mild weekend with family.

Lots of good money stuff to talk about, grab popcorn.

Spends for the week; £45 food, £52 petrol, £28 eating out and £28 Miscellaneous which was sorting train tickets in advance for my London trip next month. Pretty happy with the week.

Taking Martin Lewis' advice on this website, I've fixed my energy cost for a year as I'd been on a price cap thingy for a while. I'm switching energy providers as my current one has rubbish tariffs. So in a couple of weeks I'll be switching over to the 'dancing orange blob' company. (If you know, you know)

My new direct debit for my gas and electric will be £124 a month, £1 less for a fix then my current non fixed tariff, so no brainer, super happy with this. £20 cashback as well.

I switched up the address for my car insurance and got a refund of £18. Considering there's only about a month left before my renewal, I'm very hopeful the price won't give me a heat attack since I made a claim last year, fingers crossed.

Work claims and energy refund have come in too. I've done some maths and I'll be able to put about £1600 towards the debt come payday. I'm leaning now towards taking a chunk out of the car loan and leaving the laptop loan alone. Still haven't made my mind up yet on that

Planning my London trip, I've got £1000 saved in the Shiny Fund. The hotel for four nights is £715, train ticket paid for, about £8 a day for the underground, which leaves me £253 for food and shopping. Ill see what the numbers are like come payday to see if I can put an extra £50 or something, but it's feels good to have the money for it there all accounted for.

Should get my car and home insurance renewal quotes next week which will determine my final figures for the end of the month.

Chocolatefund

First Laptop payment came out today, so that's now down to £1375. It's not letting me change the direct debit date yet so will give it a couple of days.

New broadband is all in and set up. That payment won't come out for two weeks which will be after payday. Works for me. Won't be able to change that payment date yet till after that first bill has gone. New SIM is all working and my number transferred over, first bill is on the 22nd and I'll will move that direct debit also.

Love how it's so easy to switch providers. Gone are the days where I remember ringing every company up to do everything.

Stock market has gone back up. Checked the SIPP account and it's now sitting at a pretty £7,600 ish. Very excited for this to hit 8k next month.

Chocolatefund

Yay to Payday!

So I added up my total spends for the month of April;

Food £157

Petrol £302

Eating out £52

Misc £161

Total month spends £672. A smidge over my £650 budget. The bigger Misc spend was due to the birthday present and pre purchase train tickets. I also filled up the petrol tank today which could have waited. It wasn't quite the low spend month I planned as I did buy a couple of books.

In some not so good news on payday, my car insurance renewal is in and it's not pretty. Was £700 last year, now the cheapest quote I can get is £1040. Ouch. I made a total loss claim last year so this was expecting, but still ouchie. My home insurance is due also at £180.

My sinking fund is at £700, so it just means my car loan overpayment will be less then I wanted it to be. I said in a previous post that I planned to overpay by £1600, but realised that my maths was waaaaaaay off and that was waaaay to ambitious. It's looking more like £800 ish overpayment now, which is still a good chunk.

I've decided to leave the laptop loan and focus on the car loan. Tomorrow when all the bills come out (well, nearly all of them) I'll do some final number crunching and finish the money shuffle. Had a rough night's sleep and a long day of work traveling, so don't want to do it while tired.

Now I want to eat some chocolate truffles for the money shuffles.

Chocolatefund

The 'Great Monthly Money Shuffle' has commenced and I'm a very happy bunny.

Sinking Fund topped up to £1250 ready for the car and home insurance debit on the 20th.

Spending CC paid in full ready for May.

I caved into my investor 'itch' and sent £100 over to the S&S ISA. This now sits at £1640.

£300 gone to the SIPP. Balance won't be updated for a few days but once this goes through it will be at £8000! I can't believe how much this is. It only feels like yesterday that I started putting £50 quid in here and there.

And the big one. £800 overpayment sent to the car loan. The total outstanding balance is now £18,757 and this overpayment saved me £279 in interest. Love how the app tells you how much youre saving in interest.

Onwards to May!

Edit: Since I'm overpaying more then my original plan, I've recalculate my payments and estimated that I've got 13 payments left to go.

Dakota_Rose

Cor! That was quite the money shuffle! I haven’t invested anything at all yet but am tempted. I’m trying to streamline my allocations though and have overpayments and renovations to work on first.

Chocolatefund

@Dakota_Rose investing is quite addictive once you get really into it. Good investing is supposed to be 'boring' though, haha. You can always start small like £10 or something to get going.

I told myself I wouldn't put more in the ISA till the loan is gone. Well that failed spectacularly. The hard part is once you get started it's hard stop.

Dakota_Rose

It’s the thought of your money growing rather than being depleted every month that’s the draw isn’t it. Lots to think about!