The ultimate incentive proposed! Buying a house, a wedding, and staying debt free.

bails

Oh no, hope you can state your case Dinah, it's so rubbish being blamed when it's not down to you! Glad you had fun in Edinburgh and look forward to the MS tips!

LOL at the time difference - sometimes I'm on here thinking 'why isn't anyone else posting' lol!

Really not a clue about the wedding dress Cinny as I've never given it much thought before. I've been cutting and pasting the ones I like to see if there's a trend at least :rotfl: Good job OH is away...

clearmydebts

bails wrote: »

Aw, congratulations! I'm in exactly the same position as you, wanting to both stay at home with the baby and also be at work, as I love my job and have missed it so much during my illness. I've worked out a plan to save enough so I can have 9 months off at least - maybe I'll be able to get that up to the full year depending on timings.

I love Barcelona too, lovely!

You sound like you have your head screwed on with regards marriage, babies etc.

I think we could afford for me to take a year off but I am on a 3 year contract so want to get back to it and into a routine as soon as I can after the baby is born as I am afraid I will lose my momentum if I don't!

Dinah93

So a bit of an update. Came back from Edinburgh to find my amazing mummy had completely tidied and cleaned our room, which was full of utter rubbish everywhere, waiting to be sorted, so I am extremely grateful.

Also meant I found our scary to do list. Priority tasks this week are
Dinah: Finish and send off financial ombudsman form
NIM: Send off cat insurance claims, scan ID to TAB

When it comes to be time for the next thread I'm going to reserve the first few posts for our weight loss chart, my to do list, and my challenges, so I can start to keep track of things better. I am seriously debating starting the next one now, as I'm about to launch myself a new challenge.

So on Friday I started having a fiddle with the budget, which I have now finished. This has made various tweeks, then the quite major change of removing the wedding savings (£25 a month) and holiday savings from £200 a month to £50 a month. Other things have been reduced by smaller amounts but basically we are now within our wages and the £310 on the tenner a day is extra not nessisary to make ends meet.

Here comes the fun part. We go to Birmingham on the 27th November. Birmingham has a jewellery quarter where we should be able to get nicer wedding rings/haggle on them a bit. We currently have no real wedding savings. If we buy them on the credit card we would get 30 days till they start charging interest. So. We would need to make about £2000 by the 27th December to avoid interest completely. Huge challenge right? Well, I also want to pay off the £870 overdraft we have before 2010.

So, my new challenge to myself, is to save £2870 in 66 days.... £43.48 per day! I bet several of you think I've actually gone and lost the plot. But, we are selling the second car, which should bring us in about £600 I hope (making it only £34 per day), but yes, the rest is just entirely me being completely mental.

New thread or not?

Dinah93

Oh, and this is over and above the £1000 a month that already goes into savers (speaking of which, we're over the 25% mark for today,but paying the venue deposit later so will all vanish again!)

Flower08

I dont think your crazy because i know you can do it!!

Definitely new thread for a new challenge!

Raychee

Firstly, Congratulations! It's been a long time since I've visited here, but it's great to see that your motivational posts are continuing.

We're getting married the weekend after you. It's going to be a massive do, and I'm just grateful that my parents have been fantastic savers and are giving us 2 thirds of our budget. (In exchange, they've asked for 4 people to be added to the guest list... I think we can do that...) I'm so excited to hear about your ideas and how you can budget for this.

What is your wedding budget? (I confess, I've read the first and last page of your thread - 147 pages is a bit much!)

Dinah93

We don't really have one to be honest Raychee! However much it costs, we'll pay it and worry about saving for the house later! In reality we think its going to be about £12-14k, which isn't phenomenal to my mind so we don't mind paying it to have a really special day exactly as we want it.

Cinny91

Dinah93 wrote: »

I bet several of you think I've actually gone and lost the plot.

I'm pretty sure that happened a fair bit ago

But I'm 127% sure you'll be able to do it :j And yess to the new thread. Makes my extra £15 a week to find look like utter peanuts!

ETA: Wahey for getting over 25% on your deposit. I think with your new challenge you're going to need a longer sig, nevermind a new thread!

Dinah93

I'm going to 'reserve' the first few posts to use to keep track of challenges and the like!

Tete_en_l'Air

Morning,

Wow, it DOES sound like a challenge, but it's £20 per day less than you paid off when you were debt busting so I have every faith in you!

Yay to new thread and weight chart, I need the kick up the bum with this at the min!

Hi Raychee - lucky you and what lovely parents! I wouldn't worry about every page it's mostly waffle.

Oh and it's my Friday because I'm off on hols tomorrow

ETA - and as for work - go in and hold your hands up to the mistake you DID make, but don't take the flak for the one you didn't!