Wedding Money Gifts

jade-evie

Hi All,

As some of you will have read my partner and I are trying to clear some of our debts. we're not in dire straights- no DMP and we can afford minimum payments but we do have more financial commitments than we would like!

We would like to buy our house in 2013 and will need about a £15k deposit to do so. This means saving approx £500 from now until then. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! We have £900 to spend on our "debts" each month and with the snowball calculator this equates to another 18 months of repayments.

Once these repayments have ceased we will be ploughing all of that money into a savings account.

Our dilemma is that in just under 6 weeks we will be getting married. We haven't asked for gifts because we don't need anything but we do expect some family to gift us with cash/cheques... what would be the "right" thing to do with these? We could put them into a savings account towards the mortgage or we could pay them off of our existing debt which would shorten the repayment term AND remove any temptation of using the money for things we don't really need...!

I would rather save the money because it's a good starting block and I feel weird about using other people's money to pay off our debts...plus a lot of our debts we have consolidated onto a 0%CC. My OH would rather clear some debts to give us a bit of breathing space and it would mean we'd finish paying our debts off in less time...

What would YOU do? How would you feel if you gave someone £50 after they got married and then found out they used it to pay off a credit card (albeit one that is cut up and won't be used ever again?!)?

Tixy

Financially speaking it would obviously be better to pay it off whatever debts are not at 0%.

However I think I too would feel wierd about using wedding gift money towards debts, personally I would put in savings towards a house deposit, I'd put it in an account you cannot access easily to remove that temptation to use it for anything else.
Thats not the best money saving advice - but its what I would do in your situation, and you can then tell friends/relatives thats what you have done without feeling awkward.

mrsb83_2

Tixy wrote: »

Financially speaking it would obviously be better to pay it off whatever debts are not at 0%.

However I think I too would feel wierd about using wedding gift money towards debts, personally I would put in savings towards a house deposit, I'd put it in an account you cannot access easily to remove that temptation to use it for anything else.
Thats not the best money saving advice - but its what I would do in your situation, and you can then tell friends/relatives thats what you have done without feeling awkward.

I agree with all of this.

silvdo

Esentially from here to a house deposit requires you to get from £14300 to +£15000. So that is 29300 you need to save as soon as possible. To me it doesnt really matter where that money goes. It all one way or another getting you closer to your new home. The only difference is that if you put it against paying off Debts it will have more efect on the lengh of time it take to get you there!

Look at it this way if you put your relatives mony in to a savings account then your creditors willcontinue to take money from you so you are essentially just giving some of your relatives money to your creditors. I am sure your friends and families would prefer your out of debt.

I Don't knoww what theterms of all your debts are but if both your CC's are 0% parhaps you can put the money against your loans. If you can't overpay maybe put it into a savings acccount and then add to it untill you can compleately clear off a loan. In the end your relatives money is still getting you closer to your new home and they have still contributed to your future.

Another compleately off the topic idea is rather than ask for money or presents, Create a list of things that you need for your wedding that you would otherwise pay for. And ask your guests to provide some of those (e.g An hour behind the bar, The Cake, An hour as a DJ, Provision of 50 Sandwidches) It wil save you money that you can then put towards paying off your debt. Friends of ours did that and it made for a really friendly atmosphere and felt like we were all part of it, but i hear it was very difficult to co-ordinate.

lvm

Do you have any debt that's not on 0%? If you did and I was you, I'd be putting the wedding money here. Then I'd set up a standing order of whatever the minimum payment was into your mortgage savings account.

If anyone asks you what you've done with it - I'd say it's gone to your mortgage savings. It's not as if they'll as for proof and in the end, their money is making you even more cash towards your savings due to interest saved.

If all your debt is 0% though I'd be putting it to a savings account, getting as much AER as possible.

Have a lovely wedding! x

jade-evie

Thanks All- both of our credit cards are 0%, I have a next account which is £300 but I plan to have paid that off before the wedding, and the other 2 loans we can't overpay on so unless we get nearly £8000 in gift which is highly unlikely we couldn't repay the larger one.

I will be showing this thread to my OH and trying to encourage him into the stick it in a savings account plan. I think it'll be much more motivating for us this time next year when have half the debt AND some money in a savings account. We have both agreed that any birthday and Xmas money is going on debt repayment so I think the wedding gifts will go into our new house account!

jade-evie

silvdo wrote: »

Another compleately off the topic idea is rather than ask for money or presents, Create a list of things that you need for your wedding that you would otherwise pay for. And ask your guests to provide some of those (e.g An hour behind the bar, The Cake, An hour as a DJ, Provision of 50 Sandwidches) It wil save you money that you can then put towards paying off your debt. Friends of ours did that and it made for a really friendly atmosphere and felt like we were all part of it, but i hear it was very difficult to co-ordinate.

Our wedding is in 6 weeks so everything is done and paid for now (£2000 is on an interest free CC still). I have a bit of a bug bear about people asking for things towards their wedding- our mantra the whole way through has been that it's our choice to get married and althoough it's expensive we don't want anyone to feel we need them to pay for it ifykwim? It's probably really silly!

The reason that we are getting married this year is because our daughter goes to school in 11 months and we wanted to be married before this and I have grandparents who may not be with us next year- in an ideal world we'd have spent £5k on clearing the debts but life is never very ideal for us!!

yellowcrocus

silvdo wrote: »

Esentially from here to a house deposit requires you to get from £14300 to +£15000. So that is 29300 you need to save as soon as possible. To me it doesnt really matter where that money goes. It all one way or another getting you closer to your new home. The only difference is that if you put it against paying off Debts it will have more efect on the lengh of time it take to get you there!

Look at it this way if you put your relatives mony in to a savings account then your creditors willcontinue to take money from you so you are essentially just giving some of your relatives money to your creditors. I am sure your friends and families would prefer your out of debt.

I agree with this. I would make an extra debt repayment. If it's saved, there is more temptation to dip into it!

Congratulations on the wedding.

elaine12022

When I got married I felt it was important to use any money given to us on things that we needed (new bed eg), so that we would have something positive with the money, as really that was what it was for.

At the end of the day, you don't know how much money you may get, and you have to do what you feel comfortable with.Maybe even split the money into different things. You don't even have to decide now.

Good luck with the wedding, hope it all goes well, and you have a wonderful time starting a new phase in your relationship :j