Life By The Seaside

Catscoffeecake

Good Evening fellow debt busters.

Sadly real life caught up with me and I had to start a new diary with a new username. I had a honest chat with my friend about my concerns and they did say they wouldn't follow my previous diary but its been a bit of a reality check for me. I was easily traced by my username as I have used similar on other social media. So decided to start fresh, new username and new diary.

Bit of background, I have been on here for a few years now, caught in cycle of credit card debt, life and loans. Being single household with a single income is hard work, especially when you aren't expecting it, when my mum passed away I suddenly found myself needing to find my own place to live and having to pay for everything myself. I brought a doer upper as that's what I could afford in my price range and have slowly made changes. Still have work to do but taking it job by job, and trying to save for the next thing along side debt busting.

As many of you probably know its hard to find a good work/life/debt busting balance and this is something I am still learning and having to choose my priorities. Work is hard, its tiring, mentally draining and this makes my time out even more essential and ensuring I have the funds to do things I love and get the chance to relax.

Anyway to why we are here, the debt busting and budgeting. I recently had to buy myself a new car (literally at weekend) and took out a bank loan, have credit card debt on 0% until September and a loan to my dad which I currently don't make payments to and will be written off when he passes. He is due to move soon and has already spoken about gifting me some money from the proceeds for all the help I give him.

Budget & Debts

Loan - Original amount £11,000, current balance £10984.85, interest rate 5.9% and monthly repayments £211.37. This is where I am focusing all my PADS and extra money where possible.

Credit card - £3623.18 - 0% until 09/09/27 and making payments of £50 per month currently.

Dad Loan - £7000 - 0% and currently no repayments, will restart when debt free at £100 per month.

I may post a copy of my budget later, I will think about it, as pretty sure there are places people will tell me I can cut back, but I feel my budget currently suits my work/life/debt balance.

Savings

Home Improvements - £100

Sinking Fund - £1400

Emergency Fund - £0.00

Cash - £500

So plan for the cash (from sale of old car) was to put towards dental care next week, but think it may be needed to top up the home improvements pot aswell to £250.00 for Friday as bathroom ceiling is being replastered. That would then leave £350 for dental care which is going to be £335 looking at NHS prices.

Anyway on to today, took my car out on visits for work, which included a lovely drive through new forest, saw some cows and some ponies, including a foal. I did end up buying myself a meal deal from Mr T as I wasn't very organised this morning. So lesson learnt and packed lunch is ready for office day tomorrow. Which will include avoiding the coffee shop downstairs as well.

Todays PAD is £1.77 to loan

beanielou

Hello. Happy shiny new diary.

DancingInTheRain

Will follow you along, you've made a good start at chipping away at that car loan already.

Catscoffeecake

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82005306#Comment_82005306

thanks I am trying the PAD at the moment, not sure how long will manage that for, but wondering whether I should start including overtime in that. in sense of if I do overtime that day, I don't need to make a PAD. I will see how it goes.

not sure how the interest works for the loan, assume they add it monthly, but will wait and see.

OpalGirl

Happy new diary. Looking forward to continuing to follow your journey.

I agree that your budget needs to suit your work/life/debt balance - no good throwing everything at debts if you don't also include some funds for things that bring you enjoyment, life's too short.

Chocolatefund

Happy New diary fellow debt buster! Will be cheering you on your journey.

elsien

Just curious what your sinking fund is for and what the difference is between this, your emergency fund and your cash?

triple_choc_chip

Happy new diary, looking forward to your onward journey x

TCC

Catscoffeecake

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82005502#Comment_82005502

sinking fund is what you save for regular annual payments or expenses that occur every year that you cant just pay out of your usual budget. so mine is for car insurance, mot, council tax and 2 tyres. i also save for annual football season ticket, home insurance, boiler service & christmas/birthdays pot

Cash - is your day to day spending such as food, personal spending money, travel costs etc.

Emergency fund is for those one off expenses you cant really plan for, such as replacement washing machine, major car repair, major house repair etc. Eventually you'd look to save for these things by having general savings pot once your debt is gone, but generally they say 1k covers most emergencies.

Catscoffeecake

Office day today, so had to pay for parking, but was good and parked in cheaper parking 10 min walk away rather than one downstairs which is twice the price even though it was raining.

My colleague kindly let me have her "free" coffee from her stamps on loyalty card which was nice of her, so I decided to take 50% of cost from my spending pot to add to todays PAD.

I also popped into Mr AS on way home for couple bits I'd ran out of and decided to get a deli pizza from counter as a compromise on not having a takeaway. it was very nice and only £4 so alot better option.

Todays PAD is £4.68 and I did 2.5 hours overtime as well.

jwil

Happy new diary!