Edinburgher gets cracking!

edinburgher

It looks like the transfer of our S&S ISA is nearly completed.

Unfortunately for me, the new provider has a somewhat daft policy to DDs. Apparently they let you set up 'regular payments', but they don't actually prompt you to set up a DD to pay for the regular payments, IYSWIM. So we missed a regular payment, which was a bit of a nuisance. I have made an ad hoc payment of £500 to cover the missed payment and to add a bit more. We now have ££££ invested (also known as roughly 1.5% of our mortgage) :rotfl:

I'll update the sig with some new challenges in a minute. Our TER has dropped by something like 2.5% in the last few months - now if only I could do that with our mortgage :j

I have also increased the new DD to allow for Mrs E's new tax code, our new payment is £232/mth.

edinburgher

My first nephew has been born, which is nice :beer:

Feeling a bit conflicted, as babies are all cute and good fun, but I'm honestly not that close to the sibling whose son it is. They live in England, are laid back to the point of being comatose about keeping in touch and I think his wife is still mad because I got drunk at their wedding

Cue an unpleasant argument about gifts with Mrs E. I was going to send them a cheque, to get new nephew off on the saving path, as we don't know them well enough to choose anything specific and all that was left on Amazon wishlists etc. was plastic tat (soiled nappy storage bin etc.)

Sometimes I wonder if MFW and MSE seperates us from other people a bit. In my head, a generous cheque is a useful gift, and cash = crystallised time (time that I can't give the new parents in person). In Mrs E's head 'BABY BABY BABY CLOTHES CLOTHES CLOTHES'. I'm not *just* being sexist, the words 'cute outfit' were uttered...

This week has been horrible at work (veiled hints about threats to my job), ridiculously spendy (I think we'll be in the red by payday for the first time in 3 years) and I'm feeling grumpy :mad:

Any wise words to cheer me up?

*Edit: So that it's not all moaning tonight, I have finished my tutoring application and will post it in the morning

sweetdaisy

edinburgher wrote: »

Cue an unpleasant argument about gifts with Mrs E. I was going to send them a cheque, to get new nephew off on the saving path, as we don't know them well enough to choose anything specific and all that was left on Amazon wishlists etc. was plastic tat (soiled nappy storage bin etc.)

How about a compromise: a cheque and a small 'cute' outfit so that Mrs E can give them a gift that they can open? When we had DS1 we had a lot of newborn clothes given as gifts, some weren't worn as babies are not in small sizes for long (but luckily they were passed onto DS2). I have given each of my nieces and my nephew a cheque when they were born so that their parents could either save up the money for them or buy something they really needed.

Hope that things brighten up in work for you .

Alchemilla

Let Mrs E send cute baby clothes, know you are right and keep quiet about it. Argue with Mrs E over stuff that really matters.

Bullet proof yourself at work, dot the is and cross the ts and plan your exit strategy.

Give yourself a break and maybe an early night?

HelenDaveKids

Im with the baby clothes too, they are just sooo cute.

Well done on the test by the way!!

edinburgher

We reached a relaxed truce relatively early on in the evening. Like all young couples, our arguments go from nothing to explosive in a matter of seconds, and then disappear as quickly :rotfl:

Today I have mostly being trying to take positive steps to stop us going into the red.

• Final driving lessons booked (well, definitely for me, hopefully for Mrs E) £353.50 :eek:
• Cheap prescription sunglasses bought through MSE offer (£19.99 + the cost of a 2nd class stamp. Their link to the payment processor was duff, I'm having to pay with a blinking *cheque*!) On a positive note, that's nearly £10 below budget
• Balancing spreadsheets

New nephew has a name

HelenDaveKids

Hope its not "storm"

edinburgher

HelenDaveKids wrote: »

Hope its not "storm"

Don't worry HDK, it's a good traditional Scottish name (I was going to put in a comedy example of an Americanised modern name in here, but knew with innate certainty that I would insult the next person to read the thread, as their kid would be called whatever I put. I call it Edinburgher's law :rotfl:)

I came home yesterday to a £285 factor's bill and a £25 bill from HL for transferring our ISA :eek: Sometimes it feels that no matter how hard you try with the finances, you'll still get it wrong. Mrs E appears to be struggling with the concept that everything *was* budgeted for with the exception of driving lessons, which has thrown everything else off.

I'm not daft - we were earning considerably more than we spent on paper - but everything wasn't on paper! The Santander 123 account experiment of just dumping the money in a bucket has been something of a failure since we started it in February. My new plan would be to open a 2nd 123 account and run the budget the way I used to (i.e. on payday money for every recurring expense is transferred immediately into a savings account until it is needed).

My current thoughts on our cashflow for the next month or so is that we have roughly
-£1k! Luckily we won't need to crystallise this debit immediately and can eat the expense over two pay days. Still, not good

I am trying to get us back into good habits:

• [STRIKE]Rubbish and recyling taken out[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Will hoover after I write this[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Polish shoes[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Went grocery shopping to Lidl, only purchased loss leaders and items that were 50% cheaper than Mr T[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Picked up packed lunches for next week (£3/week vs. £3/day)[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Paying all bills that have already been sent to us straight away[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Soak beans for big SC chilli tomorrow[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Starting a spending diary[/STRIKE] On reflection, this will need to wait until payday
• [STRIKE]Update spreadsheets[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]work in progress :rotfl:[/STRIKE] Done. On the advice of Mrs E, I have made a real budget, not an over 12 months budget. This means that some categories will cost us far more (as they're annual expenses due soon and we haven't held back enough for them). On the other hand, some categories dipped a bit, so not all bad news.
• Opening another account for old-fashioned budget management
• [STRIKE]Might pay change into the bank if I cba [/STRIKE] Missed the bank, £21 bagged to take with me on Monday

My driving license has arrived - maybe GG will read this and favour me with an appropriate smiley :T

gallygirl

Not on iPad I won't!

:j:j:j will have to do I'm afraid

edinburgher

Awww GG - that sucks

In the end I went for a linked savings account, I couldn't see any benefit to another current account and they insisted that I set up DD on the new account. So I'm earning the princely sum of 1% after tax. Seriously - is this what FFL has brought us to? Yay, -2.5% real return or thereabouts.