Captain Cuddlepuss’s time to get off the couch diary

Captain_Cuddlepuss · 3 January 2009 at 2:48PM

Hello,
Sorry to burden you all with yet another new diary, but I have read so many over the last few years of lurking and having just gotten off the scales to discover that I have put on a stone in weight in 6 months I realise that I need to set myself some financial, dietary and fitness goals for 2009 and would like to keep track of it on this board. This will be an epic first post so be warned.

As alluded I have been a lurker on MSE since about Sept 06, when DH and I had our LBM. We had just gotten married and were £7k into our overdraft. Despite our parents forking out for most of the wedding costs, the ‘little things’ we purchased added up to this sum, I don’t regret this however, it was truly great day. What was more scary was the fact that the January before we had consolidated our debts to the tune of £32k with another £7k PPI added on top (why didn’t I realise MSE existed before??). This was mostly paying off OD’s and CC’s but also a car loan, computer finance and a Career Development Loan. Even scarier was the fact that in 2004 we took out 125% mortgage in order to fund our house purchase and pay off debts existing at that time. I think we borrowed about £20k more than the purchase price at the time. I am not sure exactly what all this was spent on as I was in Ostrich mode at the time.

When we had our LBM we realised why if not how we had gotten into the mess we had. Put simply we had had a rocky few years and our answer to solving our problems was to patch them up by spending money. We bought our house, cars, holidays and then the wedding all to tie us inextricably together financially, not a great way to solve your problems but all came good in the end and we are very happily married. We also didn’t communicate that well at the time so our financial situation was not transparent to each other. Our answer to reduce our monthly outgoings when the payments became too much was to consolidate. Not the best idea I have ever had especially having the PPI as well.

So on went the light bulb and in addition to cutting back and becoming a savvy DFW and Old Styler, I set about claiming the PPI back, which I was successful in, so that was about £9k back to us. Then unfortunately one of my grandparents died but as a result I inherited another £19K. This meant that I could pay off the secured loan and transfer the remainder to an unsecured loan with better APR.

Cutting to the present day, we are debt free on paper but not in reality as I would rather have savings for the time being than paying off the remainder of debt. Our main goal is to save a big deposit for our next house move in Jan 2010, as I don’t envisage we will make much if anything (but hopefully not in negative equity just yet) from our current property. Our current debt is mostly at 0% in any case and what isn’t will be moved in the next few months. My DH is currently working abroad so that is enabling us to save quite a lot each month which is good. On the down side I will start a new job soon which will mean a very slight pay reduction for the first few months, but will then exceed my current salary after that. We also have a bit of work to do on our property in order to make it more saleable.

I will post up a SOA very soon which I hope you will be able to help with but in summary my goals for 2009 are:

1.Have £40k in savings by Jan 2010. This will be a stretch but I am aiming high.
2.Have lost at least a stone in weight by May 15th 09 (when DH comes home)
3.Have completed a 10k race by May 15th
I will be posting in relation to my efforts to achieve these aims and might even join a few challenges, all of which will hopefully help me stay on track.

Wish me luck,
The big purple lazy one

mooomin · 3 January 2009 at 2:56PM

Good luck with it all :T

I love that you're called Captain Cuddlepuss

bank_of_slate · 3 January 2009 at 3:06PM

Hi CC!
So what debts are now outstanding?

Can you save some and pay off some?

Do you now have equity in your property or are you not sure?
...Linda xx

Damita · 3 January 2009 at 3:29PM

Good luck on the savings

Captain_Cuddlepuss · 3 January 2009 at 4:25PM

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2200 (This is an approx average and is variable but does not fall below £1800 pcm)
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2800 (Again an approx average and only until May when it will drop slightly)
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 5000

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 990.3
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0 (We should pay something for this but our freeholder is useless and refuses to get accounts sorted, I expect a bill at some point and to have to pay for some urgent maintenance)
Council tax............................. 127
Electricity............................. 39 (I think this is an underestimate so will submit my readings and get a more accurate DD set up, will also try and cut usage)
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 13
Telephone (land line)................... 0 (covered in Virgin package)
Mobile phone............................ 52.5 (this is an average over last 12 mths and just me as DH's contract is suspended at the moment. Again I need to cut this down)
TV Licence.............................. 11.61
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 50 (have Virgin tv/phone/internet bundle but need to reduce call charges)
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 250 (again this is an average of last 12 mths and has and will come down drastically with just me and cat at home)
Clothing................................ 180 (a monthly average but far too high as I have no clothes to show for it!)
Petrol/diesel........................... 186 (this is mostly reimbursed by employers)
Road tax................................ 3
Car Insurance........................... 28 (shopped around so best price)
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 35
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 211 (train travel to work although this will go with new job)
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 32.75 (contact lenses and dentists)
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 28
Buildings insurance..................... 0 (again we should be paying something so must get on to freeholder)
Contents insurance...................... 8.85 (bought through quidco so cashback as well!)
Life assurance ......................... 18.4
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 135 (I do save vouchers and points etc but could be more organised and frugal on this front)
Haircuts................................ 30
Entertainment........................... 150 (I budget for £150 cash withdrawal to cover all personal expenses but will look to reduce this)
Holiday................................. 0 (I don't plan on having any holidays this year)
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2579.41

Assets
Cash.................................... 17050.25
House value (Gross)..................... 162000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 181550.2

Secured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 160240...(990.3)....5.34
Total secured debts........... 160240....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Halifax CC.....................8774.82...87.74.....0
Sainsburys Loan................3704......157.......6.55
Total unsecured debts..........12478.82..244.74....-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 5,000
Expenses (including secured debts)...... 2,579.41
Available for debt repayments........... 2,420.59
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 244.74
Amount left after debt repayments....... 2,175.85

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 181,550.2
Total Secured debt...................... -160,240
Total Unsecured debt.................... -12,478.82
Net Assets.............................. 8,831.38

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission.

Captain_Cuddlepuss · 3 January 2009 at 4:32PM

bank_of_slate wrote: »

Hi CC!
So what debts are now outstanding?

Can you save some and pay off some?

Do you now have equity in your property or are you not sure?
...Linda xx

Thanks for all the warm welcomes.

As you can see I have posted my SOA which seems about right as I am currently saving approx £2-2.5k a month. I am paying off the minimum against my debt as it is at 0% and the remainder will be moved to 0% soon hopefully. I think in my situation it is better for me to have as large a deposit as possible. The monthly payments on my debt don't cause me any bother and I don't think we will be up against it in terms of borrowing multiples being reduced by existing debt. This way my savings can go towards a deposit or if applicable towards bridging the negative equity gap. The house value I have put down is a guestimate and hopefully I am underestimating but it's pretty even at the moment I would guess.

Please correct me if I am wrong in this thinking?

Jenna · 3 January 2009 at 4:45PM

Hi there,

I would just quickly comment re interest rates. Fine if you can move all to 0% but if not then it's costing you £'s to save. I'm not a property owner so make your own decision but if it was me I'd save for the year & at the point where you've sold the house, signed papers etc THEN make the decision re what to use the savings for. That way if you're in negative equity you're hopefully covered & if not you can use some to pay off your debts & rest towards bigger mortgage. Can I ask why you're moving now specifically? xx

Captain_Cuddlepuss · 3 January 2009 at 5:43PM

Jenna wrote: »

Hi there,

I would just quickly comment re interest rates. Fine if you can move all to 0% but if not then it's costing you £'s to save. I'm not a property owner so make your own decision but if it was me I'd save for the year & at the point where you've sold the house, signed papers etc THEN make the decision re what to use the savings for. That way if you're in negative equity you're hopefully covered & if not you can use some to pay off your debts & rest towards bigger mortgage. Can I ask why you're moving now specifically? xx

Hello,

I agree if I can't move the remainder on to a 0% deal I will pay the amount off so as to save on the interest. Hopefully it will be fine though. We have been in our current property for nearly 5 years so will be 6 by the time we move, it is only a one bedroom flat and it has always been our intention to move somewhere bigger eventually in order to start a family and be closer to family and friends. I feel in a years time we will have the money we need and the flat in the right state in order to sell and we will hopefully get more bang for our buck so to speak, appreciating that we may lose some on our current property. I would consider staying put for a further 12 months if really necessary but we simply do not have enough room. Which reminds me that I forgot to add monthly rental of £75 for a storage unit to my SOA although I do pay for as much of this as I can with Tesco vouchers.

Thanks

Jenna · 3 January 2009 at 5:46PM

Fair enough on all counts

I guess the only thing you can do is wait to see what the market is like towards the end of this year & how much negative equity (if any) you're likely to have to deal with & decide from there whether you're best to move or hold off. On the plus side if you do have negative equity it's likely other people will too e.g. the place you're moving TO might be cheaper as well.

Good luck!

paybacktime2008 · 3 January 2009 at 5:48PM

welcome. Love the name.

I suppose the main thing to ask yourself is do you feel like you have a spare £2k a month knocking around? If not...your SOA suggests you should......you need to be brutal with yourself and find out where its going????

Captain_Cuddlepuss · 3 January 2009 at 5:55PM

paybacktime2008 wrote: »

welcome. Love the name.

I suppose the main thing to ask yourself is do you feel like you have a spare £2k a month knocking around? If not...your SOA suggests you should......you need to be brutal with yourself and find out where its going????

It does vary and is obviously dependent on income so on a very basic month it is more like £1800 but last month I transferred £3k to the savings pot, so yes it is definitely there and with a buffer of about £500 left in the current account. I know though that I can make bigger savings on some items in our SOA and more so whilst DH is not here to distract me. Come May I will have to reassess and see what is more realistic. I take your point though and will start a spending diary from 1 Jan. Easy so far as I have not spent anything yet apart from the usual bills! See this is working already!

Captain Cuddlepuss’s time to get off the couch diary

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