Learning to Live on Less!

White_Iris

So DH and I had a talk about money over the weekend and we've decided to use the £300 a month extra (now we've cleared the credit cards) to live and not drive ourselves crazy pinching every penny, so we can boost our house deposit. I'm happy with this, as we're still going to put £100 towards the deposit and continue topping up the emergency pot but having an extra £100 a month each will make life more enjoyable.


I'm still going to put any overtime payments towards the deposit and my goal is to reach £8000 as quickly as possible. A modest, 2-3 bed house in our village is usually marketed at around £160K, so I'm aiming for a 5% deposit (using a help-to-buy mortgage if we can get one!). Obviously 10% or more would be better but I'll be happy to have 5% saved.

White_Iris

I've been having a post-Easter holiday house clean today (not that easy when the children are still at home due to a training day) and I've managed to clean and de-clutter fairly well. I've free-cycled a few large bits, packed up a bag of clothes for a charity collection and put some more bags of stuff in the car to take to the charity shop and tip when we're next passing. This has all been inspired by debtfreewannabe321 and her hugely impressive decluttering!

I've also listed quite a bit on eBay, so hopefully that will be quite profitable although the children need some new summer clothes (as do I) so it'll probably all get spent on that.

Sadly we've dipped in to the emergency pot quite a bit this month, for things that aren't really emergencies :-( I'm quite frustrated with us, even more so with DH who keeps asking to spend £900 on a new bike by putting it on a credit card and paying it back later!! I've told him absolutely not - we (he) has done this several times in the past and it's never, ever been paid off. Feel like we're never going to have money in the bank or a house of our own. :-(

White_Iris

I've felt quite guilty about not meeting the targets I've been setting myself on here, so I'm not going to set them any more! My main priorities are a) saving for house b) not using the credit card. As long as I can stick to those things then it doesn't matter if we're not saving as much in our emergency pot as I stated we would or if we don't achieve any other MSE-style goals that I hoped we would then so what! I'm going to do my best to be "good" but I'm not going to think in terms of quantifiable targets any more as it really doesn't help me at the moment.

So, today I have managed to work through some paperwork that I've been forgetting to do for a while now, had lunch made up of fridge leftovers and avoided spending any money! Two of my eBay items have bids and several others have plenty of watchers, so that's all looking promising. I've also sorted out lots of other things to list on eBay, which I'll iron and photograph tomorrow.

debtfreewannabe321

I'm glad you were inspired to de-clutter it really makes you feel good doesn't it I've got rid of a few bits of furniture now that I was always tripping over or just using for collecting dust & junk :eek: what a waste and I clearly wasn't getting any joy out of those was I :rotfl:

Good for you for loosening the targets. I used to set targets all the time and then fail at reaching them. I also do the same now, save spare pennies for the new house and get rid of DH's CC (constantly it seems!) Good luck with the ebay items! x

White_Iris

Hello all :hello:, eBay sales did slightly better than expected, not a fortune but enough to pay for some new summer clothes and shoes for DD. We were given a big bundle of t-shirts for DS last summer which now fit him, his summer sandals and most of his shorts are also ok, so thankfully I only have one child to kit out! I also need to get both the children some summer uniform (shorts and summer dresses) which I'll get through Quidco. We put money aside each month for child/school expenses but I seem to have spent a lot of that pot recently on clothes and shoes for them, everything seems to have been outgrown or worn out at the same time!

I've been offered some more hours at work next week but they won't show up until my May pay-check. Still, it's a whole day and we've recently had a pay rise (as of April first), so it should be a nice bonus next month. I'm still intending on paying all my extra earnings in to the house savings - I'm aiming to get it to £6.5k by the end of May and hopefully £7k by August.

I'm toying with the idea of setting up a new savings pot and saving for the stamp duty payment alongside saving for the house. I was intending to save that once we'd reached our £8k goal but I want to speed things up a bit. If we buy a £160k house we would need to pay £700 stamp duty but I'm not sure where the extra money would come from though as everything is accounted for at the moment - hmmm, thinking cap time. :cool:

The decluttering is still ongoing and our bedroom seems to have become a bit of a holding ground for stuff I need to either get rid of or re-locate somewhere else in the house. I don't mind too much though because then I know that all the other rooms are ok and it's just the one area that needs attention.

White_Iris

Hello all, it was a bit of a wet and windy bank holiday weekend here so we stayed in and managed not to spend too much money. :T

I had a chat with DH about our Sky bill increasing and we decided to cancel the movies and down grade our viewing pack, so we should save about £20 a month once it all goes through. It was also time to submit a meter reading and unfortunately our gas and electricity bill has gone up! :eek: Not but a huge amount but it was already quite expensive, so any increase is unwelcome. I'm now trying to cut our electricity use, as we don't have the heating on any more and only heat the minimum of hot water. I'm hanging clothes to dry rather than use the tumble drier (:o I'd got in the habit of throwing things in there, rather than taking a few minutes to put them on airers or on the washing line) and I've also emptied and turned off a small freezer that we had in the garage.

We also had some exciting house news over the weekend. A friend of mine told me about a new development that they've reserved a house on, which neither myself or DH had known was being built. It's out of the village but not too far away, so when we happened to be in the area over the weekend we went for a look. To cut a long story short we've fallen in love with a new build house and if their mortgage advisor is to be believed we'll easily qualify for a help2buy mortgage, as long as we have a 5% deposit. We still need to investigate plot sizes (as lovely as the house is, we couldn't live with a postage stamp sized garden) and save up £10,000 but the idea of a spacious detached house (with en-suite, downstairs cloakroom and utility room!!!) is very appealing, even if it is on an estate and not in the village.

sweetpea26

That is brilliant news. You can buy off plan and have it just the way you would want it WI. Hope the garden is a decent size.

White_Iris

It is very exciting but also a bit nerve racking - we'd need to put down a £500 reservation deposit and the plot we want won't be built for a few more years, so we're taking a gamble on the help2buy scheme still running when we need it. On the other hand, in a few years we'll have saved a much bigger deposit and will be better off financially so we may be able to afford a "normal" mortgage.

sweetpea26

If you decide to go for it ... it will focus you and your husband to save as much as you can. You will have a goal to work towards and as you say even if the offer is not there any longer you will be in a better financial position.

White_Iris

Just got back from the site office at the new development we're interested in and have got some plot sizes, which I need to measure out in the back garden to visualise. The plots we are most interested in won't be released for a few more years and it is likely they will put the price up on them, so we need to decide whether to reserve one now and maybe be moved in by Christmas or wait and risk paying more (or even not being able to afford it at all). I'll have a long talk to DH this evening and go and measure the garden now!