TOTAL budget, not just household???

Katgoddess

Yorkielass wrote:

So how does this ING account work? Do I open 1 account and then have these 'pots' in it or do I set up different accounts with different account numbers etc for each?

You set up the one account, then you can add new accounts and use the same sign in for all of them.

kiwichick

I dont know how similar, or not, the nationwide is.

I have a current acc there and when I access that online I can open e-savings accs. At the moment i have 3 e-savings accs.

1-PMS money goes in there.
2-DH's redundancy money, for house deposit when moving.
3-Money to cover estate agent/solicitor/stamp duty/moving fees.

I transfermoney from oneto another and current acc as needed. They have a great interest rate too (4.75%) which is calculated daily and paid annually.

I am working on my annual and monthly budget now so will be opening more accs in the next few days.

HTH,
Allison

zar

kiwichick wrote:

We are moving in the new year, not till around March but when wedo we will be closer to DH's work. He currently commutes 150 miles per day but after moving it will be 3 miles :j Thismeans he will be home by 5.45pm rather than 7.45pm and I can get some evening work at Tescos."Every little helps" after all.

That will be lovely. :xmassmile Our petrol costs are high too - DH does 36 miles e/w unless he is picking me up (I usually get a lift that I contribute some petrol money to), when it is more. As we live in the country we do a lot of driving at weekends, e.g. the nearest supermarket is 8 miles, church is 5 miles or 8 miles (depending how early I wake up!). It all adds up - on average petrol is £240 a month, car insurance is £800 a year and we bought a new car earlier this year for £5500 (which we didn't need to borrow for so don't have loan repayments thank goodness). DH's take home pay is £990 a month so basically a third of his wages goes on getting him to and from work. :eek: And we're both fairly green in outlook so don't want to think about the CO2 and pollution. We love the house we're in at the moment though so don't want to move. We'll be moving in another 2 years anyway so hopefully we'll use the car less then!

HOLsale

Spendless wrote:

When are the 2 year olds 3? There is non means tested funding available in pre-schools in term-time term after their 3rd birthday.

i know that if you have them going 5 days a week you'll get £406 per term towards the cost unfortunately our nursery won't allow us to just have dd in for the 2.5 hours a day that they supposedly cover (actually that doesn't cover half my nursery fees anyway) so she goes half time and we pay the extra but the money they pay certainly helps

appearantly what they pay will pay for half days at a council run nursery

it's really a shame that i can't choose to take the full amount and get 2 full days and a half day it doesn't work like that, if you cut down the days the money goes down too but i think we should have more flexibility

since dh is going to uni full time we don't get the tax credit money for nursery anymore since i'm not a student full time as well the uni won't give us money for childcare :mad:

anyway if i could reschedule that into 2.5 days and then pay the extra half day i'd happily take 3 full days a week for her nursery... i could get a lot more work done (self employed) that way...

sorry, off on a tangent

yes you will get more money the term after they turn three so it will ease things a bit

HOLsale

black-saturn wrote:

The best thing I ever did to help with my finances was get rid of the car. I got rid of it to help me pay the debt off. I paid it all off in about a year and then realised I didnt really need or miss a car. So I never got another one. Before that I was forever forking out for petrol, MOT's, Tax and repairs. That takes a serious chunk out of your money.

i can agree with you on that one! when we moved from skye (where we really needed a car) to glasgow (where we really didn't need one) we sold the car. frankly, we'd never have made it there with the car because the insurance goes up, petrol is more expensive and parking fees are outrageous and where we lived there simply was no parking that you didn't pay out the nose for

we live in edinburgh now and i find the public transport even better here than it is in glasgow. and, you can get a monthly or yearly pass so you can get your bus fares down to as low as £31 a month direct debit for UNLIMITED travel! there is no way in hades i could ever do that with a car. dh is a student so he'd only be £26 a month even with those two combined it's still way cheaper. even with the occasional taxi its cheaper

i've learned to shop differently but that saves me money too because i don't bring home more than i can carry ! (i do confess to having a granny bag as dh calls my shopping trolly )

squeaky

Yep. Agreed here too.

The bus fare into town from my village is cheaper than the car park fees.

A car, according to the last time I looked at the AA site, costs more than fifteen hundred a year to run. Since I only go into town once a month - bus in, but due to incapacity then need a taxi hom e'cos I,m knackered - that's a total of around twelve quid.

So... £1500 for a car... or £144 on taxi's?

It looks odd to some people being on benefits but paying for a taxi, but honest, for me, in my circumstances, where I live; it's cheaper.

Go figure.

pavlovs_dog

so us, the car (one car between the two of us) is our independence, and also a necessary evil. i go to uni in swansea, but live in cardiff - a distance of 40 miles. whilst its cheaper to go by coach (£4.80 return) it isnt always feasible.

Spendless

HOLsale wrote:

i know that if you have them going 5 days a week you'll get £406 per term towards the cost unfortunately our nursery won't allow us to just have dd in for the 2.5 hours a day that they supposedly cover (actually that doesn't cover half my nursery fees anyway) so she goes half time and we pay the extra but the money they pay certainly helps

appearantly what they pay will pay for half days at a council run nursery

it's really a shame that i can't choose to take the full amount and get 2 full days and a half day it doesn't work like that, if you cut down the days the money goes down too but i think we should have more flexibility

since dh is going to uni full time we don't get the tax credit money for nursery anymore since i'm not a student full time as well the uni won't give us money for childcare :mad:

anyway if i could reschedule that into 2.5 days and then pay the extra half day i'd happily take 3 full days a week for her nursery... i could get a lot more work done (self employed) that way...

sorry, off on a tangent

yes you will get more money the term after they turn three so it will ease things a bit

Our local private nurserys will let you use the 12.5 hours per week by counting 2.5 hours in the morning, 2.5 hours in the afternoon and you paying the difference for these sessions.So the 12.5 hours can be used over 2.5 days. I will be in this position myself next year as I am starting college 3 days a week and my 2 year old will be attending nursery on these days. She will get the funding from Easter. Meanwhile we are fortunate that DH employer offers the childcare vouchers and he is in the 40% tax bracket (due to benefits in kind), so makes a big saving for us. In addition one of the private nurseries did run a 2.5 hours per session 5 days a week, so it was free. This was when it first opened though, don't know if it still does. Pre-schools in our area also only open upto 2.5 hours per session, so you wouldn't pay for that either term after they were 3. We also have a lot of schools with attached nurseries, so that is also free.

black-saturn

Oh heck, I forgot about tights too. I can easily spend £10 per month on tights in the winter.

taplady

Since starting our IVA in the summer we have had to budget properly for the first time ever! i use internet banking which is great for keeping track of your dosh and also lets you open lots of savings accounts that you can transfer money around in easily.

We also use take out a certain amount of cash monthly and distribute it into several envelopes to cover things like pocket money, haircuts, dogfood, petrol and grocery etc so we know that we've got enough cash to cover the months expenses.

I also have several savings accounts for such things as car maintenace and tax and an emergency fund.

I pay monthly for everything else by DD such as council tax, gas, house insurance, car insurance, water rates and phone so no big bills to catch us out.

Its a great feeling having it all sorted and knowing if anything unexpected comes along that you're covered :money: