A Thread for After Debt?

Little_bit_dizzy

Tied my hair back this morning and realised how many grey roots there are. Time for another box of colour I think.

It would also appear that the 'spin' facility on the washing machine has 'spun' off somewhere as everything's coming out sopping wet. :mad:

AlyBaly

Well JG Roo was well worth waiting for Eliza is gorgeous. Nothing like cuddles from a newborn baby so hope you are enjoying plenty of these !

Well done to all the spreadsheetitis people, I have not moved much forward on mine but I feel ok about that at the moment as I settle into my new life of being debt free. How weird is it for your money to be your own.

We have been looking at holidays for later on in the year basing it on the available cash we will have now that we can save, the funny thing is although we want to go on holiday, I dont want to spend our savings. Does anyone else feel like that. When we lived life on a credit card I would not have thought twice about booking a holiday ! :rotfl:

samtoby

Well good morning everyone.

I am having a NSD today as well OH just brought me boiled eggs in bed with soldiers. Lukcy me

I think once spreadsheets are set up the way you feel you want to manage them (you will tweak them a lot) its something you may always to do to prevent slipping back into the old ways.

Eliza has mde me broody my OH sighs.....'Oh no'.

I have a roastie with my Mummy today x

SOT2011

Hi All,

What a beautiful baby Eliza is! and to just wake once in the night is fantastic, what a clever little girl.

This week, small dog has decided she doesn't like sleeping on her own in the kitchen so is periodically working on a tunnel to escape - last night she woke me twice - at 4 and 5.30 - digging at the wall :eek: She is two now and though she has done it in the past, she had stopped for ages till last week. Not sure what has set her off again, hope it stops soon!

I had a sneaky peek at the flylady thread again earlier (about every 6 months I like to scare myself), I like the idea of keeping on top of it instead of the mad weekend blitz attacks I end up doing, but after looking at the lists I could only face a half hour hotspot sort out, so the bookcases in the living room look tidier, but to be fair I probably should have dusted them at the same time I may have to join the messy house thread instead

We are going to make the most of the lovely bright sunshine and head out for an extra long walk after lunch. Really want to go somewhere different for a change, but everywhere I can think of that is reasonably local needs paying for parking & my change is all safely in my sealed pot so a bit of creative thinking is required!

Have a great day everyone

fozziebeartoo

Little_bit_dizzy wrote: »

Tied my hair back this morning and realised how many grey roots there are. Time for another box of colour I think.

It would also appear that the 'spin' facility on the washing machine has 'spun' off somewhere as everything's coming out sopping wet. :mad:

If you haven't already done it - check the filter!

My new washing machine (only a couple of months old) started to do the same but I found 2 colour catchers caught in the filter, took them out and it's back to happy-spinning again :T

Mort

We have been in a strange sort of limbo since November when the DMP finished. It's not a bad place but our intentions to start building a significant emergency fund have been derailed by car and house repairs. It will be March when we have got over these events, at least it is half past January!

While in the DMP our emergency fund consisted mainly of money saved towards the annualised items we were saving towards. It rarely got over £600.

What I am wondering is what you think is a reasonable level of money to have to have set aside for just in case scenarios. The options I have seen are:

• 3 months regular bills
• 3 months regular bills + groceries
• 6 months regular bills
• 6 months regular bills + groceries
• 8 months regular bills + groceries (on a USA site)

There are similar threads on the Savings forum but they seem to get bogged down on how much and where to keep the money which I am not interested in - for us it will be the trusty savings account.

SOT2011

Hi Mort

For a long time I have been trying to get to 3 months net salary, but more recently I have seen 6 months net salary suggested as an ideal safety net. When I was still with ex-OH we were in theory trying to save jointly for 3 months of the higher of our two net salaries. Not that anything ever got added to that fund by ex-OH.

Both are a long way off at the moment for me though, at the moment the savings I am managing are almost all towards things I already know will need paying out eg car insurance, OU fees and the holiday fund. I suppose I ought to put extras on hold till I build the real emergency fund up but feel I need to allow myself some things I want as long as I am saving up front not getting into debt for my treats. I am working on the basis that anything saved is better than nothing, and definitely better than debt.

HTH

SOT

rising_from_the_ashes

Little_bit_dizzy wrote: »

Rising, well done on the budegting, that's a brilliant achievement. Hopefully it's just the beginning of a successful financial year for you! It's great to get the debts gone, but then it's another whole hurdle in itself trying to 'get ahead' isn't it?

Ohhhh it is hard .... hopefully once I'm ahead thing will get a little easier and I may relax a bit!:D

MunniMuncha wrote: »

I was just wondering tho as someone mentioned that they bank with Barclays and they have little pots to divide their money further, but having banked with Barclays for some 28 years and have had online banking since its infancy, could you please tell me how it's done. I mean, do you have to open lots of little accounts, or just make new pots?

Just logged into check and mine are called "Everyday Saver" - you can apparently have up to 12. I've tried to set them up online before but never managed it and have had to phone but it's been really quick to do (if you get a foreign call centre, just ask to speak to someone in the UK and they will put you through no hassles/queries). HTH

AlyBaly wrote: »

We have been looking at holidays for later on in the year basing it on the available cash we will have now that we can save, the funny thing is although we want to go on holiday, I dont want to spend our savings. Does anyone else feel like that. When we lived life on a credit card I would not have thought twice about booking a holiday ! :rotfl:

I know just what you mean Aly I didn't think twice about adding yet another thing to an ever increasing cc balance but now it's "my" money ......

rising_from_the_ashes

SOT2011 wrote: »

I had a sneaky peek at the flylady thread again earlier (about every 6 months I like to scare myself), I like the idea of keeping on top of it instead of the mad weekend blitz attacks I end up doing, but after looking at the lists I could only face a half hour hotspot sort out, so the bookcases in the living room look tidier, but to be fair I probably should have dusted them at the same time I may have to join the messy house thread instead

:rotfl:I do this too ....... I'd love to be mega organised and tidy ...... don't think it's ever going to happen tho':o

Mort wrote: »

What I am wondering is what you think is a reasonable level of money to have to have set aside for just in case scenarios. The options I have seen are:

• 3 months regular bills
• 3 months regular bills + groceries
• 6 months regular bills
• 6 months regular bills + groceries
• 8 months regular bills + groceries (on a USA site)

SOT2011 wrote: »

For a long time I have been trying to get to 3 months net salary, but more recently I have seen 6 months net salary suggested as an ideal safety net.

I think that pre-recession 3 months was generally considered adequate - mainly down to the fact that it was highly likely that you'd have a new job within that time should the worst happen.

I have seen 6 months bandied about a lot more recently - thinking seems to now be that due to the lack of jobs it could take significantly longer to get a new job .....

Personally, I'd love to get to 3 months but that's going to take me YEARS with the piddling little bit I can put aside each month:(

DF showed me a bit in the paper this morning that suggests that interest rates could stay at this low level until 2016 (previous estimate was 2013) which is good news - especially as I saw yesterday that PS workers are only going to get a 1% pay rise until 2015 (in total, not each year).

In real terms my income has & will continue to drop significantly (0.5% 2010 and freeze 2011 & 2012) which is going to squeeze things to the limit with inflation sitting at around 5%:(

Hope everyone's having a good Sunday ... just back from DM/DF for lunch (yum:)) - it's baltic here today! Still frozen solid outside.....

QueenB.

Afternoon lovely people.

I am having a NSD day but aside from that I am not planning on doing anything as I am not at all well today. Think I may have that horrible sickness bug which hit me in the early hours of this morning:( Hoping I will feel a lot better tomorrow.

JulieG. Lil Eliza is beautiful, no wonder you can't stop looking at her and looks like she will be a good sleeper, my DS2 was like that and is still the same now. How are you feeling now?

Buffy welcome to our little corner of MSE:)

Dizzy Sorry about your washing machine problems, is it still under warenty?

Alybaly I know exactly what you mean. A few years ago I wouldn't have thought twice about spending money that I didn't have and tell myself I would worry about it later. I would always talk myself into it with some excuse that would make me feel better about doing it. But that has completely changed in the last few years. We are planning a family holiday this year and OH has suggested that we should put some of our savings towards it. I am against the idea and have been collecting the sun tokens. I am determined to get a cheapish holiday using all my MSE tricks. OH feels that we should be enjoying our life a little more now instead of still scrimping on everything. I understand where he is coming from, he is not saying he doesn't understand what I am doing he just wants a nice holiday (he hasn't been away in 10 years). He sometimes says he thinks I am more worried about money now than I was as a DFW. Maybe I am:o its that whole fear thing.

Mort I think at the moment I am aiming for having 3 months wages in my emergency savings but I really want 6 months wages in there. I guess it is what is realistic for you, even if its only one months thats a start.

Dizzy & Rising I think you are right about the bank OD issue. I don't think the people in them know half the stuff we would expect them to. I just feel like he was trying to manipulate our decision IYSWIM and I hate feeling like that. So I will be visting the bank next week just to make sure it has all been finalised. I don't want to get rid of the OD completely because it is still a safety net (Im all for safety nets) especially as this will be our first DF year and there is a lot to get in order/used to. But whilst I want a safety net I don't want a large one which either could be too tempting, or too big to pay back if we did need to use it ending us back in a difficult situation. I hope this makes sense.