saving money so we can start a family.

hob

hi guys im looking for advice about saving money so we can start a family. me and my boyfriend both work in call centers so we are not exactly rolling in it. were looking to have a bit of cash behind us before we do anything drastic like have a baby. would really love all your tips and advice of things that we can do to save money. i all ready swiched are shoping down to the vaule brands and stoped ordring take outs. (im not cooking every meal just yet but im trying) any advice ,tips or if ur doing the same id love to hear from you. i also have a blog on just for this http://iwantafamily.wordpress.com/

Mupette

not anything to do with your post, apart from spell check your blog.

hob

sorry super bad at spelling ....and my 'wordperfect' hasnt ponted anything out on a copy and paste....witch makes me worrie as i know i suck so it must of had it settings changed or something.... hope people can decode it coz there isnt much i can do about right now

Fang_3

hob wrote: »

sorry super bad at spelling ....and my 'wordperfect' hasnt ponted anything out on a copy and paste....witch makes me worrie as i know i suck so it must of had it settings changed or something.... hope people can decode it coz there isnt much i can do about right now

You could go to adult literacy classes.

paulwf

hob wrote: »

sorry super bad at spelling ....and my 'wordperfect' hasnt ponted anything out on a copy and paste....witch makes me worrie as i know i suck so it must of had it settings changed or something.... hope people can decode it coz there isnt much i can do about right now

The problem with spell checkers is that they are a dumb tool, i.e. they don't take account of the context. Therefore when you use "witch" instead of "which" or "are" instead of "our" or "privet" (as it privet hedge) instead of "private" it can't pick this up.

I hope you don't mind me pointing this out, I only do so because you say you want to get a better job and in most cases that means at least a certain level of literacy. I'm not a pedant and my own level of English certainly isn't perfect

It might be worth looking at taking some courses or getting some books on improving your standards. Let's face it, a grocery downshift challenge might save a few pounds a week but it is small change compared to getting a better job. Your kids will also appreciate it, if they can get a good command of language at a young age it opens up all the other areas of study to them; to be reasonable at geography you need to be able to read a textbook to a good level for example.

One thing that I find really helps is to take care whenever I write, and never get sloppy and use informal text speak on Facebook or forums etc. I know it's "cool" to start sentences in lower case and not care about spelling and punctuation but if you keep doing that on websites you'll get into worse and worse habits. That's why I always re-read my posts on here and they usually need heavy editing, but I hope they seem reasonable (there will still be mistakes but I don't proof read 100% like I would in a job).

I might even suggest ditching the spell checker altogether. They really are terrible at improving your English for the reasons already mentioned and because people get lazy and rely on them rather than bothering to learn properly.

I wish you good luck with your journey and remember you are still young, you could easily wait and save for another 10 years before starting a family. People that I know who have a family in their mid 30's usually have a lot more money and a better career by then, and if they've been in a relationship together for a long time the two incomes really help to put some money by.

hob

i should take adult clasees, not just for job hunting but for passing on my poor spellings to my kids. tho i can read fine, i sometimes i think im just broken.

hngrymummy

No, not broken, just needing some TLC.

The other thing I would suggest is checking your speech (not wanting you to feel like we're ganging up on you). I often find that people spell as they speak, therefore a bad pronounciation, or s trong regional accent, leads to spelling mistakes, such as 'are' instead of 'our', 'innit' instead of 'isn't it'. There's nothing wrong with a regional accent (before anyone shouts) as long as you realise that it might not be spelt that way (where I come from 'butter' is pronounced more along the lines of buh'er with the t dropped.)

We're honestly not picking on you, just telling you the things that your teachers should have taught you.

Keep saving away, the pounds will add up. You may even find that a better use of the money is adult learning (for bf too?), which will allow you to get a better job and save up quicker.

SmlSave

Don't feel bad hob, my spellings terrible! but like you I'm a good reader. I once had a English Lit teacher who couldn't spell to save his life!

I'm TTC atm and to be honest don't have much in the way of savings. When I asked how much a baby costs some months ago the generall answer was - "how much you want" - and the bare essentials came in at an average of £1000.

Most people also said it the loss of earnings that hit them the hardest so my action plan is when (and if of course) I'm pregnant that we'll start living on DH's wage only and saving mine so that we can get used to it.

hope this helps

hob

hngrymummy wrote: »

No, not broken, just needing some TLC.

The other thing I would suggest is checking your speech (not wanting you to feel like we're ganging up on you). I often find that people spell as they speak, therefore a bad pronounciation, or s trong regional accent, leads to spelling mistakes, such as 'are' instead of 'our', 'innit' instead of 'isn't it'. There's nothing wrong with a regional accent (before anyone shouts) as long as you realise that it might not be spelt that way (where I come from 'butter' is pronounced more along the lines of buh'er with the t dropped.)

We're honestly not picking on you, just telling you the things that your teachers should have taught you.

Keep saving away, the pounds will add up. You may even find that a better use of the money is adult learning (for bf too?), which will allow you to get a better job and save up quicker.

boyfriend has degree in english so maybe he should teach me lol quick way to start a fight tho. i dont think i have a strong accent often people dont belive me when i say im a gordie! i just dont think my brain works very well with spellings
smlsave thats a really good idea, i like the idea of a baby only costing 1000 pounds but it would be the loss of my income that would hit us the hardest. im the highest earner so it would make more sence for me to stay in work but i dont think i could do that. will have a talk with him tonight about living off one pay for a few month as a trail run. at the very leats it will force us to think about what we 'really' need.

IWantToBeFree_2

Hob, moving away from the spelling/grammar mistakes...

I have recently lost my baby, however, we were already well down the line in respect of saving money for when the baby was born. I am the main earner in my house but there was no way I would have gone back to work full time and OH stay at home to look after the baby - OHs wage covers all our financial commitments and my wage covers 'living' expenses such as shopping etc. Our plan was save enough to live comfortably whilst I was on maternity leave, factoring in any maternity pay and benefits I would have been entitled to.

In terms of where you can cut back, and how you can save, I would head over to the debt free wannabe part of this forum, which is a great resource even if you aren't in debt. If you post your financial affairs, there will be lost of people who can give you tips on where to cut back etc and also tell you how you could increase your income alongside cutting your outgoings.

hngrymummy

If you think you can cope with bf correcting your spellings, then get him to proof read stuff for you, even to the point of getting out a red pen! If not, can you get another friend to help out.

In the meantime, if he has a degree he needs to start applying for better jobs (if he's not doing already).

My first proper job was in a call centre, and I remember thinking I was being paid loads at 10.5k The reality is that housing would have been about half of my wages after tax, and that once all other bills were paid (CT, water, electric, insurance etc) my money for everything else like food, clothing etc would have been 1k a year.

You're still young, you have loads of time and loads of potential. Keep the dreams and keep working to achieve them.