Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

mfmaybe · 22 January 2014 at 9:38PM

So the title will become obvious later, but I figured I need a diary. It's my first. It is mainly to keep me focused but maybe someone will read it too. Here's hoping!

Stealing from another diary, I have decided my debts need paid off by my 40th, which is in 7ish months! It might not be completely achievable but I'm certainly going to try.

First about me. I have a lovely husband, we live in the country with a few cats and a couple of horses. These latter fluffy things are of course the reason for permanent poverty. We certainly don't have a cheap lifestyle, the mortgage is big, we take nice holidays and have nice cars. We can manage it all quite comfortably (both of us have well paid jobs) but I'm not very disciplined about money and have let it get a bit of a bother. That said I'm not a compulsive shopper either, don't buy loads of clothes, don't smoke, Don't go out much etc. My husband isn't in debt and has some savings but neither of us are as comfortable as we should be. On the down side, we've spent a lot of money on IVF in the last year, will be doing so again this year, and our house (old and cold) really needs a few things done. We also got married just over a year ago which cleared out all my savings and that plus the IVF tipped me over the edge. So financial discipline is certainly needed.

The debts:
OD £4100
Family member £5k
Credit card £1600 on 0%

All of the above are my debts, so not my husbands responsibility.

We have assets. My car would cover most of my unsecured debt. I have £3k in an ISA. We have some joint savings. I own a rental flat with a very good LTV. My sister is in no rush for her repayment. So there is no panic stations. But no excuses either. So 7 months it is....

Wish me luck

mfmaybe · 22 January 2014 at 9:49PM

So what's my plan? (I'm getting to the car tax).

Well the 0% card ends relatively soon (2 months I think) so that needs to go first. That will be funded out of extremely tight cost control in the next couple of months. Then it's the overdraft. I may get a bonus that would make a bit of a dent in my family debt, but that's last priority.

So I have done a budget. I realised that due to the house, horses etc, I need to put a lot of money away each month for annual bills. When I did it for the year I realised I wouldn't meet my target of debt repayment. Although I would have good savings I'd also have debt still. So I've decided that I need to defer the savings pot for a bit. A lot of these annual bills are already paid this year, so if I put it off for 6 months I can pay off the debt first then save harder in the second half of the year.

But I licence 3 vehicles a year (due to the aforementioned expensive hobby) and the biggest chunk comes in the middle of the year. My car is nearly £450! So I really need money set aside for that. Hence why it's going to be eBay or (not) the highway!

mfmaybe · 23 January 2014 at 11:02AM

Good morning. It's not raining (yet), yay!

So thought I'd jot down what I'd done so far this year.

Car insurance. This one always catches me out. Because it is due very early in the year, I never get it sorted over the Christmas break. This year I got a handle on it, and got it down from £450 renewal quote to £201. I'm very pleased!

British eventing subscription. I haven't competed for 4 years but I've paid a full membership each year at £115. I've changed this to non competing, which is only £40.

House insurance. This is a fortune, about £1100 for a very comprehensive policy, via a broker. However we have outbuildings full of expensive stuff, a couple of decent pieces of Jewellery, and an old house. The best quote I got was about £500 but it was miles cheaper than all the others on go compare, which made me suspicious. It also only had a 3 star rating. (Bradford and Bingley).I then tried direct line, that was £611, but when I tried to cover my engagement ring it wouldn't cover it. I'm certainly not taking that risk, especially as it gets loose in the cold weather :eek:. So I'm currently sitting on the fence, we only have 2 days to decide. One of the reasons it is so high is we had to make a Storm claim each of the 2 snowy winters. Hopefully with another years no claim we will be in a better position to shop around.

The car tax. I have £46 in the relevant account, but paid one of them yesterday at £123 (all my spend goes on a points credit card but then gets paid off in full). So I have advertised something I remembered about, completely unused. Hoping to get £90. Don't want to resort to eBay as it's heavy and fees get a bit silly, so am going to always try FB and gumtree first I think.

Suppose I better get some paid work done now

.

mfmaybe · 23 January 2014 at 3:25PM

Is this cheating? I've just cleared out my "small change" piggy bank as it was getting very heavy. The good news is I found £50, so tomorrow about £40 is going straight in the bank towards the first road tax. The rest I will either put into the self serve till at MrT, or put it back in the change jar for next year. I also tidied out OHs change tray and have about £15 in small smash for him, but I will leave the bigger stuff as he likes it for emergency train fares. I also found a few bigger coins. Anything over 50p goes in the sealed pot, so added at least £10 to that.

The £46 I already had was a mix of a TCB payout, and a small dividend. So have decided any more of those also go into the car tax fund.

Unfortunately there aren't any more hidden pots of cash that I'm aware of! But I did learn I found 20ps the most lucrative. They seem too small in your wallet to be worth spending, yet added up very quickly from my change jar. So I will make a point of siphoning those off.

cazmanian_minx · 23 January 2014 at 7:50PM

*waves hello*

I spotted you mentioning the horses on ScattySkewbald's thread, so beetled over to be nosey

I've got two as well and yes, they've pushed my DFD back quite a way between them, but I wouldn't be without them.

*subscribes*

mfmaybe · 23 January 2014 at 8:05PM

Hi Caz (is it ok if I call you that :rotfl:)

Thanks for dropping in. :beer: Yes I would be officially loaded without them. Even now if I sold them, by the time I'd sold the lorry, tack, rugs etc I'd be instantly wealthy. But oh so bored!

Do you have a diary too? I'll go and have a look.

debtfreeoneday · 23 January 2014 at 9:15PM

Hello,

POpping in to say hello back to you!

One of the reasons our debt was where it was, was due to IVF.. problem was, time wasn't on our side and it was one thing that we thought stuff it (rightly or wrongly), we wanted a family and figured we could sort the money later.

Good luck with it, it's sooo worth it in the end.. x

roxy7699 · 24 January 2014 at 9:27AM

Good luck with your journey

Subscribing

mfmaybe · 24 January 2014 at 12:37PM

debtfreeoneday wrote: »

Hello,

POpping in to say hello back to you!

One of the reasons our debt was where it was, was due to IVF.. problem was, time wasn't on our side and it was one thing that we thought stuff it (rightly or wrongly), we wanted a family and figured we could sort the money later.

Good luck with it, it's sooo worth it in the end.. x

It will be worth it if it works for sure! We're really on the last hurrah now though. But I don't resent the money at all (well, I resent that I needed IVF at all of course). Even I it doesn't work I will know we've given it our all.

Hi Roxy :hello: Thanks for subscribing.

So I paid the change into the bank. RBS have this amazing machine that you just tip the whole lot in. Wish I'd known that before I counted it! So £47 going into the tax fund, and my OH said just to put his £15 into our joint savings

mfmaybe · 24 January 2014 at 8:52PM

A bit more good news today. Well sort of!

We put all our spend on a points credit card, and then pay it off in full each month. This basically works, but it does mean that there is a month's delay in seeing any genuine debt reduction as I'm already committed to the next payment. To this end, I was expecting next pay day to just manage to hold my overdraft flat, not bad as I had some quite big bills this month. However I discovered that a spend that I thought was on this months bill is actually due next month. It now means that next pay day (18th) I will be £70 down on my overdraft. Obviously it's just a timing thing but it should help with the motivation.

I also turned down going out for lunch today. I knew it would mean spending a few pounds more than I'd planned so bravely declined :T

Given how easy the cash machine was for my coins, I'm going to take all the rest in on Monday (the bits that didn't amount to a full bags worth) as I now don't need to worry about that.

On the down side I'm going to need to order some more haynets for my mini pony so I can soak her hay for longer. And I've just remembered I have a vets bill to pay. It's either £170 or £130. Not great but just means more motivation to fund it in other ways.

I was giving thought today about opening one of the bank accounts that give you an incentive to switch. But I have to have my salary paid into the account I currently have, so suspect that exempts me from most of these offers.

No interest in my £90 item via FB as yet so will try a couple of other sale pages, and gumtree too.

Scampi for tea tonight, yum! And maybe a glass of wine too. Well the bottle is open so it would be rude not too :beer:

cazmanian_minx · 24 January 2014 at 10:17PM

mfmaybe wrote: »

I was giving thought today about opening one of the bank accounts that give you an incentive to switch. But I have to have my salary paid into the account I currently have, so suspect that exempts me from most of these offers.

First Direct were happy enough to give me the dosh for switching and my 'salary' is simply a transfer from my business account. How early in the month does your first bill go out compared to when your salary goes in? All you'd need to do is set up a standing order to transfer your salary from the account you currently have to the new account after it's been paid.

Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free