My 5 year plan

fatrab · 19 February 2018 at 9:47AM

Thanks SS, yeah if I could recover every penny frittered on cars over the years I'd be living in a mansion!

My downfall was a particular high performance Japanese brand which I have been fascinated with since Colin McRae won a few rally championships back in the early 90's. Although expensive to run they were pretty much reliable cars, I've had 10 of them, but one car in particular let me down, catastrophically! It was a global problem with the car - not anything to do with my modifications - but as per every other car manufacturer as soon as you modify a car they won't entertain any warranty work. So the car had to be transported back to the specialist to be un-modified and then transported back to the dealer for repair. I hate to think how much I lost on that car, and how different my current situation might be if I hadn't bought it.

Apparently, you learn from your mistakes!

fatrab · 19 February 2018 at 10:27AM

Another Monday, another week closer to the big day (payday, debt-free day, weight goal, retirement etc etc.....)

The weekend was a bit of a mixed bag of affairs.

Good points:
Started decorating the kitchen, conservatory and touching up a few bits in the living room
Broke the 1 and a half stone weight loss barrier
No alcohol
Advertised Wife's car

Not so good points:
Went shopping on Saturday morning and didn't buy anything for breakfast, ended up buying a few rolls from local sandwich shop

Went out for a meal yesterday, it was my Mum's birthday last week and my oldest Son's birthday is this week so killed two birds with one stone.

Mrs fatrab paid for the meal and for the decorating items, and we have only advertised her car on free car pages so far, so my spending for the week doesn't look too bad:

Weekly stats:
Fuel - 56%
Shopping - 37%
Eating out - 7%

This week I'm not eating out. It needs to stop. It's only due to bad planning and I need to give myself a shake. Even though I lost another 3 pounds this week, there was a part of me that was disappointed that I hadn't broken into the 15's. It's going to happen this week!

On Sunday, at the meal, I almost caved in. I ordered a pint of lager. It sat in front of me for 10 minutes before I decided not to drink it. I gave it to my son (the older one who's 22, not the baby!). That was hard.

I was also on the brink of ordering a replacement credit card for the one I cut up. I'm going to struggle this month as the payment due to clear it is going to leave me with no surplus. But I haven't and I won't. However I think there's a very high chance that the emergency fund might get dipped into this coming month. I am going to try as best I can for that not to happen but I'm about £100 short by my calculations.

That tax bill last month really did do a bit of damage.

Drawingaline · 19 February 2018 at 8:30PM

Your willpower is so much better than mine. Well on the food front anyway! Well done.

savingholmes · 19 February 2018 at 9:20PM

That's the biggest challenge isn't it - not creating new debt when things go wrong. Stick with it.

Storm89 · 20 February 2018 at 9:33AM

You are doing fantastic with weight loss, we have lost all motivation in this house. It's annoying about the tax bill but dipping into emergency fund won't be the end of the world , it is an emergency of sorts as you don't want to add to the debt. You're doing really well

fatrab · 20 February 2018 at 12:16PM

Storm89 wrote: »

we have lost all motivation in this house.

Well give yourselves a good talking to! Lol, it's so easy to let things slip. I've had numerous conversations with Mrs fatrab when I notice things are slipping. I seem to be more aware of them, or at least more willing to try and prevent them happening, than she is.

It feels like you're fighting too many battles at once sometimes!

fatrab · 20 February 2018 at 12:29PM

I'd forgotten how many utter space cadets you need to deal with when you're selling a car.

Honestly, people don't read adverts. When you clearly say "No swaps" and the first person who contacts you asks if you want to swap for their hunk of junk you start to ask yourself if it's worth the hassle.

Then you have people who tell you "it's not worth it" even though they've not seen it, obviously haven't looked at the price similar models are advertised at, let alone the book price. One chap offered me £2000 less than the asking price! How can you make an offer on a car that you haven't seen, or even asked any questions about?

I've even had one person ask me if I'd like to sell the floor mats separately!!!

I've only advertised on free pages so far, so maybe the audience reached so far isn't exactly my ideal demographic.

deux_x_m · 20 February 2018 at 11:29PM

Hi fatrab - just caught up with your diary. Looks like you are going great guns on both the debt and the weight. NIce!

fatrab · 21 February 2018 at 9:11AM

Morning all!

Not a great deal to report in the past 24 hours. Nothing much has changed financially and my next weigh in will be Saturday morning.

I'm doing really well at not snacking and not impulse buying. Looking back, it used to be normal that I'd go to the shop/bakery/cafe/snack van twice a day, probably spending between £4-£8 each time. It's horrific to think how much money I must have spent.

I think the benefit of this saving will take a few months to show itself properly, as the amount of "stupid" debt takes a little bit of time to clear. Hopefully by March's payday things will be looking rosier.

Payday this month falls on Sunday the 25th so won't be in my bank until the 26th. DD for CC1 comes out on the 27th, clearing the balance "IN FULL" and then it'll be cancelled.

There will be a big smiley face that day, I can assure you!

fatrab · 21 February 2018 at 9:54AM

The car I use for business is very competent over the winter months, driving around the Scottish Highlands, on building sites with mud, snow, gravel etc etc. It has permanent all wheel drive and currently has it's winter boots on. But it's not economical. 36mpg at the very best. 30-32mpg in the real world. And it needs 98RON fuel. Shell V-Power or Tesco Momentum. Not cheap.

In the winter I wouldn't be without it. It's the right tool for the job. But summer is coming and the mud/snow element won't apply soon. So here's a quandary....

Would it make sense to run something more economical over the summer if it was cost neutral? By cost neutral, I mean if the savings paid for the whole running costs. We've already agreed that my wife needs a smaller car than what she's currently got. But with the low mileage she expects to actually drive (I've argued that she's be cheaper getting a taxi than running a car but she's having none of it) she could use my car over the summer and I could run something cheaper - at little or no cost.

For example:

Current car - 1600 miles per month @ 32 mpg = 50 gallons of fuel at £1.30/l = £295/month
Small diesel - 1600 miles per month @ 70mpg = 23 gallons of fuel at £1.19/l = £123/month

That's £172/month saving over the summer months. £1200 over the summer period on fuel alone. There's also the reduced tyre wear on my car, cheaper tyres on the small car, cheaper servicing on the small car and less frequent servicing of mine and reduced depreciation/less mileage of my car to take into consideration. And I will have an asset to show for it.

I would also do most of the maintenance of the small car myself, routine servicing and minor repairs which I can't do on my current car (I part qualified as a mechanic before switching to the construction industry and have been fixing cars since I was 16).

Insurance for business use <£200 and £30/year road tax. Cost of vehicle would be around £4500.

Any thoughts?

My 5 year plan

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