It has been a long time – particularly in blogland – since my last post. To the small but dedicated readership I had built up in the couple of months I was posting in the beginning, I offer my humble apologies for my abrupt disappearance. In mitigation, I had a lot going on in my life, and there just wasn’t enough mental powe left to blog as well.

But now things are coming back to a sense of normality, and I am extremely pleased to be able to share this with you all.

My job is safe

At least, as safe as it can be in the current economic climate. I am not ashamed to have made the preparations I did, as I think they provided an amazing insight into how a financial disaster can be handled, even when it seems hopeless to even try. I’ve even had a small pay rise since my last post, courtesy of a 3 year pay deal agreed before the credit crunch hit.

I am debt free*

On the 19th November 2009, I sent in the last debt payments to my remaining two creditors. £7,858.63 to Barclays Bank for the consolidation loan I had taken out to combine the debts left to me by my ex-wife, and a whopping 11p to my credit card provider BarclayCard.

This settled the loan 2 years early, and cost me £80 to pay it off, than if I had just let it run. But it was worth it.

*I am now using the credit card again, but sensibly. It is paid off in full every month, and as it is a cashback credit card, I now put all my spending on it. That way I technically get a 1% discount on everything I buy! I have no debt that I cannot repay instantly if required with cash savings.

I am divorced*

The judge stamped my Decree Nisi and the Financial Consent Order I applied for at the beginning of January 2010. This means that I’m all but divorced now. The Decree Absolute (the final part of the divorce procedure in the UK) was due to be signed by the judge last week. This will hopefully bring to a close a very bitter and expensive part of my life.

*I am waiting for my solicitor to forward the Absolute to me. Until I have it in my hand, I won’t actually believe it is over! I still need to pay my solicitor for his work, and the bill should be arriving some time this month. I can’t say I’m particularly looking forward to it.

I have found new love

It’s funny how life works. I was on a residential training course for 16 alternate weekends as part of my profession. After 3 or 4 weekends, I was finding myself drawn to a particular girl who was also on the course. We got on so well, liked the same things, laughed at the same things and loved spending time together when we had finished for the day.

Towards the end of the course we acknowledged that we were ‘in a relationship’ (thank you Facebook for making the lines so clear cut!), and we’ve been spending a lot of time with each other ever since. Each of us has done the ‘meet the parents and family’, We’re going on holiday together in July, and we are looking for places to move into together eventually. Although she still lives at home with her mother, her mother is happy for me to stay, and so I have done just that countless times since January.

Some people were concerned the age gap would be our undoing (I’m 26, she’s 19), but there is no sign of it being an issue, and long may that continue.

I have savings

Being single is considerably cheaper. Being in a new relationship has put pressure on my preset targets for 2010/11, but can you put a price on happiness? I don’t think you can. I am saving at a minimum 50% of my income each month still, and sometimes way in excess of that, but doing things as a couple (dinners out, clothes shopping etc) isn’t something I’d budgeted for when I originally wrote my plan!

All said though, I’d rather be happy than rich. I am debt free, I am all but divorced, my life plan will happen (just a few months delayed thanks to extra expenditure), I am blogging again, and I am 110% in love with someone very, very special.

Life doesn’t get much better than that. I love you Catherine.

• The Credit Crunch Has Positives
• A Fundamental Question
• Is Debt Worth It? Does It Matter?
• Patience is a Virtue
• Beware The Balance Transfer Cheque

My regular readers (or those who have delved into the archives) may recall an earlier post about my recent employment insecurity. The concern was imminent redundancies were afoot, and although we are an organisation of over 5,000, my “doom and gloom” tendencies took over and I assumed the worst.

I began preparing for redundancy as if it were going to happen the very next month. This is not a bad idea even if you are not at risk; Fully identifying your financial position, and preparing a plan in advance of such a disaster can mitigate its affects. Identify all your actual and potential sources of income. What are your obligations in terms of mortgages and other debt payments? Do you have savings? How quickly could you obtain government assistance, and what kind would it be?

I am in the fortunate position of living at home with my parents again, following my marriage breakup. The government, if I were made involuntarily redundant, would pay me £64.30 a week as Job Seeker’s Allowance, or £257.20 a month. As it stands, this would be of no material use whatsoever. My loan repayment alone is £413 a month, and that doesn’t even begin to take into account essentials such as food. The loan is insured against such an event, so it wouldn’t be a total disaster for me – but what about you?

My goal was to be debt free by New Years Day 2010. The employment panic set in around August, which gave 4 months until my target – and I was not convinced, in the slightest (courtesy of my “doom and gloom” attitude!) that I would make it. So, I began a frenzied attack on my already pared down budget, and began working myself into the ground grabbing all overtime possible.

How am I doing? … tired.

I have taken a step back now, and calculated my legal position. By virtue of UK employment law I am entitled to a weeks pay (a statutory minimum of £380 a week, if no higher is paid at the discretion of the employer), for every full year of employment. I am also entitled to a minimum of a weeks notice for every full year employed, or pay in lieu.

The interesting point from this little mental arithmetic is that I would be due either 4 weeks full pay and 4 weeks statutory minimum pay (if not more), or 8 weeks notice and 8 weeks statutory minimum pay (again, if not more) depending on my choice to work the notice period or not.

Bottom line, if I had bothered to look back in August, is my target would have been met no matter what. What my little journey to exhaustion lane has done though, is bring forward my debt freedom date somewhat, and I know that I can go into next year without any major concerns of sudden instability.

I have also read the Head Cheese’s budget report for the next financial year, and my department appears unaffected. So it appears things are good until April 2011 if nothing else!

Good times!

• Personal Recessions
• 6 Mistakes That Doubled The Price of My Car
• Dig Yourself Out of Debt: Spend Less Than You Earn
• A Formal Complaint to my Bank
• Beware The Balance Transfer Cheque