Edinburgher's balancing act

InaPickle

Hey Ed - it's been a while. I'm glad to see that you are freshly installed Very Oop North and that GF has an interview.

I understand the desire to be financially independent but don't beat yourself up in the short meantime as you will be contributing/saving for you guys very soon.

Well done on being as restrained as financially possible during the move.

edinburgher

Pleased to report that GF got the job, so we will be a two income couple again once her paperwork goes through. It pays just under £22k, which is a slight drop, but perfectly reasonable for Scotland and it's with a decent employer.

One downside is the fact that it's only a one year post and there's no point in joining the pension scheme for this time, but GF has taken my advice and will pay 10% of her wages into a stocks and shares ISA to make up for this

My job fluctates between being wildly busy and hideously dull and I'm trying to remain hopeful that there will be more work to come shortly!

We've had all the final utility bills for the London flat and while we've yet to see the flat re-let, we did get back £200 or so from suppliers and the council, which is always nice.

My bonus (all £275 of it) is being paid out at the end of June and I've decided to pay any of the remainder after tax straight into my savings. We need a new flat deposit, I still want to get an engagement ring and my laptop bit the dust

It happened a week ago. We were celebrating ourselves on the end of my first week in my new job, had had a few {too many?} glasses of wine and I decided to take my laptop to the bedroom to check emails before sleeping off the wine. Long story short - soft matress led to a bouncing laptop which led to a fault that means I can no longer charge the battery (the socket where the adapter goes into no longer works). Doubt it can be repaired cheaply, so there goes my laptop :mad:

The one good thing is that I can probably get a netbook with the same or better power for less than £400 (laptop cost double this 3-4 years ago), but it's still a pain in the posterior!

Signature updated, payday on Wednesday coming

lellybun

Hi Ed, any chance you can claim on house insurance? You probably have already thought of this but thought I would mention it just in case!

lelly

InaPickle

Good to see you Ed: I was getting worried!

I've got the same thing with this lpatop, but got cover after my last debacle, but I need to get mum to find the letter for it (it went through the company so the receipt went in the bookwork). I think it's at the accountants. *Sigh*

Nice to see the moving bumps are getting smoothed out, and that sucks about GF pension, but at least she will have the chance to look for something more permanant in the meantime, and is emplyed, which is obviously the most important thing at the mo.

Best of luck and check in when you can. x

edinburgher

Interesting! Do let me know what happens with your laptop (i.e. if they tell you what the fault was).

I may have explained GF pension poorly - she will probably be entitled to a pension, but one year of preserved Civil Service pension would be worth £499 a year (adjusted for inflation), assuming that she spends a full year in the scheme. I doubt she'd be in the scheme for a full year, so the benefit would be even lower. As well as this, I'm expecting some fairly radical changes to the Civil Service pension scheme, so who knows if they'd even honour a pension based on less than a year of contributions in 35-40 years!

Anyway, a good chance for her to learn a little more about the wonderful world of investments. I've certainly made more from my small investments in the last 2-3 years than I've ever seen in savings interest

InaPickle

edinburgher wrote: »

Interesting! Do let me know what happens with your laptop (i.e. if they tell you what the fault was).

Will do, but the chances of me getting hold of that piece of paper any time before the warranty expires are looking very slim...:eek:

edinburgher wrote: »

Anyway, a good chance for her to learn a little more about the wonderful world of investments. I've certainly made more from my small investments in the last 2-3 years than I've ever seen in savings interest

*Sighs* So true. I need to learn a bit myself. I went to uni with a friend who was a proper stocks and shares hotshot, and wish I'd had his accumen. Where's 'Shares for Dummmies' when you need it?! :rotfl:

edinburgher

Where's 'Shares for Dummmies' when you need it?!

Benjamin Graham's 'The Intelligent Investor' is really good, there's also a decent Motley Fool book and a host of other titles worth a peek. I'm no crazy stock picker, I invest in funds as opposed to individual stocks.

Payday today, so have updated my signature (I've even removed the embarassed smiley)! Feeling like I've maybe mastered this savings malarky Will try a proper post today, nackered now!

edinburgher

Time for a proper update, then I should do some work

Payday has come and went and I feel flusher than I have done in ages. Spare monies were split between myself and my GF and although we ended up with a reasonable amount of walking around money, it'll be good when she gets her references sorted out and starts the new post.

My emergency fund is looking a bit healthier now (it should be at the £1500 target by the end of next month if a) we get our flat deposit back and b) GF works for at least some of July). It'll be the first time in my working life that I'll have more than one months salary socked away and so I'm getting sadly excited about it

I also stuck a few quid in my ISA and have decided to 'roll' my emergency fund into my ISA at the end of each financial year (i.e. any money not used for emergencies will go into the higher rate ISA to maximise tax benefits and I'll aim to re-save an emergency fund in the following year). It basically means that I'll maximise my tax benefits while retaining relatively easy access to my money for 11/12 months and gives me the incentive to continue saving for a rainy day. Hopefully the £125/mth I'll need to keep to refresh the EF should remain affordable in the long term...

My stocks continue to tank, but I don't particularly mind as Zopa remains an enjoyable way to drip feed some money into investments and I feel like I'm getting the hang of it now.

We will be looking for a new rented home soon and I'm hoping that I will be able to stick to my guns and encourage the GF to go for somewhere towards the cheaper end of the market. Two bedrooms would be nice (we've accumulated a reasonable amount of stuff over the last 5 years and I've no particular urge to start from scratch again...) Other than that, as long as it has a roof and isn't in a total slum it should be fine.

We've started talking about possible home ownership in the next couple of years and I'd rather take a good stab at starting a deposit fund than pay some landlord sacks of cash because they're renting us an expensive property! Time will tell Believe that there may be some parental assistance next year, as various endowments are maturing. Still, think we'd need to be looking at £10k+ in savings by next autumn. Still, it's easy to remain motivated. While I don't feel any urge to help maintain a housing boom, I'm happy enough to buy an affordable house/flat as a home (not an investment) as renting isn't much fun.

InaPickle

Don't blame you on wanting to buy when you can, especially considering the current dip in prices. Well done on the savings, too.

I will take a look at those investiment books when I can.

TTFN.

edinburgher

Pretty quiet day (busy at work, managed to finish off a project that half a dozen people have failed to complete over the last 4-5 years!)

Lots of good news tho - GF starts her new job tomorrow, it looks like our flat will be re-let from Saturday coming and this should mean we're due some rent back as well as our deposit We've agreed to look for a flat to move into for the end of August, so we'll have a leisurely 6-7 weeks to view lots of different places and save some more pennies...

Have put my cash savings DD up to £200/mth, stocks and shares ISA up to £180/mth (including two new funds) and am looking at a small additional DD towards my student loan. MSE Martin can dissuade me all he likes - he's not the one with a £15,500 student loan to pay off