Those eagle eyed reader will notice that Monday Money arrives on Tuesday this week. I try to share at least three posts every week. This week I had committed to the rail delivery group to share a post for them this Monday. Read all about a big shake up to rail industry and the complex fare system we put up, and how its going to change! I am all for cheaper rail fares, a subject that I often share my top tips on how I save on my train journeys.
The January Spending Diary is published
I shared one of my favourite ever posts this week, my spending diary challenge with Faith from Much More with Less. How did our January spending compare? One of the big things that is still resonating with me is the difference to Faiths finances compared to our and debt. We have a mortgage (as do most people!), 2 car leases and debt repayments. Each month £1600 of our monthly spending goes on this repayment of debt.
Operation debt repayment is in full flow, just the 4.6k left to repay. February should be another month where I can clear another £1k. Fingers crossed that invoices clear when they should within the 30 days payment terms!
Go read the post for more learnings about how we spent well and not so well. And what can be learned from looking through another persons spending diary.
Selling one of the lease cars
As part of the spending diary and debt realisation I am doing the sums on one of our leased cars. We have a small Toyota Hybrid Yaris with only 7k miles on it. It is one year service time and I was chatting to our neighbour Adam Henderson, a great mechanic about doing the service. A few months into the lease hubby was given a company car so we no longer need this lease car.
Basic sums tell me bought car for £15,345 ( we negotiated a huge £2.5k off the list price). We paid a deposit of £2,500. We have so far made 12 payments of £160 = £1920. so that leaves roughly £10,925 left to repay on the lease. And we think we can get around 14k selling the car! Leaving us with around £3,000 after selling the car and repaying the lease. This means I get my deposit back. Result!
Cancelling my Barclays Business Account
I can be pretty bad at getting my own admin done. There are certain things that I do without fail, car insurance, gas & electricity, mortgage but I often let some things carry on for longer than they should costing me money. My Barclays Business account was one of those things. I have just closed it, thus stopping the £6.50 monthly charge. This should have been done one year ago but I was nervous about the account receiving payments and me not getting them.
In the past year I have had three payments go to the old Barclays account at the client hasn’t changed my bank details in their system. So I know who those clients are and have ensured they have changed my bank details and have changed the details on everything else that goes near this Barclays account. It is now safe to close. Annoying if I had done the switching service from Barclays to Starling all transactions would automatically transfer over. Live and learn.
Starling is my new (opened a year ago!) business banking account, and its fab. I would not switch for the world. I love the simplicity, the notifications of payments (I woke up today to a message that £800 had been paid into my account..hurrah!). Read my full review here.
Half Term Activities
Half term isn’t going to cost the earth this time. We have a lot of football, to which I always take a packed lunch and a coffee from home. A lot of football means every day! The plan is to go watch the Lego movie at some point where I will use my Kidspass 40% discount. And this time we will sneak in goodies bought from the supermarket beforehand. Here is Josh on a visit to St. Albans at the weekend, we went to review a restaurant.
Losing the plot with exercise
You might remember from last week that I twisted my ankle when out running and the ripped open both of my heels wearing inappropriate shoes walking around London. I went back to personal training last week and struggled to do lots due to painful ankle. We focused on upper body instead. But this has meant no running for what feels like ages and no HIIT. And along with a rubbish diet any good work I did in Janaury with my fitness has now unravelled. So frustrating.
