'Almost there...' A MFW Journey

kansaskitty

As 2014 draws to a close I had a look tonight and read back over my December 2013 review post and my January 2014 goals/refocusing posts and thoroughly enjoyed reading them!

Here goes for a 2014 review and some goals for 2015.

Personal Goals

I have set myself two New Years Resolutions, or goals if you like.
* Have a positive mental attitude
* Make more time for reading

It's difficult to reflect on this whilst I am raging with pregnancy hormones (six months pregnant but feeling good, YAY!) but I think overall I have developed a thicker skin and am able to find more positives, particularly in my career (teaching). I also know when I get low that focusing on what I am thankful for, trying to do kind deeds for others and keeping a gratefulness diary are all great steps to feeling better sooner. :beer:

Make more time for reading- I think evenings in bed need to go out of the window because I am just too tired, if I want to read it needs to be 'instead of' TV or forums/iPad etc, e.g. for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. In October I read Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch, in five days because I was on holiday in Rhodes. I thoroughly enjoyed it, rather than having to re-read the last two pages each night of what I read the night before, because I was so tired it didn't register properly!

So no new personal goals, other than keep up with last year's two. Oh and also I hit my goal weight of 9st the month that we fell pregnant, so I know where I want to get back to after the baby is born. Am I being ridiculous saying that I could be 9st again by the end of July (baby due March 30th)!?!?!?

Financial Goals

Step One: Emergency Fund
Create an Emergency Fund of £500 for car/boiler repairs etc

Aim: £500 by Feb 2013
Reality: Completed Feb 2013

Step Two: Three months expenses
Put three months worth of expenses (bills and mortgage) into a savings account

Aim: £3000 by Dec 2013
Reality: Completed Oct 2014

Step Three: Pay off your home early
Begin making overpayments on the mortgage and calculate how long it will take to pay off

Aim: Begin OPing Feb 2013
Reality: We made OPs 9/12 months of 2014 and reached 85% of our overpayment target for the year.

We have nothing on any credit cards, we paid off all of the IKEA baby bits from our 0% card within three months of buying it. The only debt we have other than the mortgage is we are paying £65 p/month to DFS for our sofa (0%), but from the Dec payday and Jan payday we are able to pay the remaining balance off completely, so there should be no debt of any kind other than the mortgage by the time baby arrives.

At the moment our monthly savings pots/sensible financial outgoings look like this:
* £100 Expenses E-Saver (car tax, MOT and veterinary expenses)
* £30 Heating Oil E-Saver
* £15 Christmas E-Saver
* £213.59 Mortgage Overpayment

This will change from the March payday when I will have started maternity leave, we are aiming to keep all of these 'pots' but to lower the standing order amounts that go into them. The 'expenses' E-Saver is a life saver for the cars and pets.

My main financial resolution for 2015 is to try to use cash more, as Dave Ramsey suggests that there is more of an emotional connection when parting with the money physically, rather than entering card details online.
I have budgeted
*£35 p/week groceries/food
*£50 p/week petrol (two cars, two work commutes)
*£60 p/week leisure (between myself and husband, so would include ANYTHING that wasn't a bill/food/petrol e.g. rent a DVD, go for a meal, buy an outfit, anything luxury/fun!

Thanks for reading, would love to hear your thoughts on anything. Sending positive thoughts to all!

KK xx

pavlovs_dog

Congrats on your lovely news KK, chuffed for you.

kansaskitty wrote: »

My main financial resolution for 2015 is to try to use cash more, as Dave Ramsey suggests that there is more of an emotional connection when parting with the money physically, rather than entering card details online.
I have budgeted
*£35 p/week groceries/food
*£50 p/week petrol (two cars, two work commutes)
*£60 p/week leisure (between myself and husband, so would include ANYTHING that wasn't a bill/food/petrol e.g. rent a DVD, go for a meal, buy an outfit, anything luxury/fun!

Thanks for reading, would love to hear your thoughts on anything. Sending positive thoughts to all!

KK xx

Whilst I understand DR's thinking, if you have a good handle on spending anyway I think there's a lot to be said for treating a cashback credit card like a debit card. We have a tesco clubcard CC which we use to pay for pretty much everything. The vouchers we had saved up halved the cost of OH's christmas present (an xbox). In the past we've also used them for cheap days out.

I want to give the pin money idea a proper go this year. I *think* we've slightly overbudgeted for food and fuel. This year I will siphon the food and petrol money into a separate account, and use the surplus each month to help fund various DIY projects that we have planned around the house.

greent

Hello KK


Have caught up on your diary from the start - am very impressed at your determination and achievements I'm also very pleased to see that you managed to buy a house at a young age - my DD is planning on becoming a teacher, so I'm encouraged by your financial achievements!


Aside from all that, have lovely Christmas and congrats on the pregnancy


x

kansaskitty

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

Congrats on your lovely news KK, chuffed for you.
Whilst I understand DR's thinking, if you have a good handle on spending anyway I think there's a lot to be said for treating a cashback credit card like a debit card. We have a tesco clubcard CC which we use to pay for pretty much everything. The vouchers we had saved up halved the cost of OH's christmas present (an xbox). In the past we've also used them for cheap days out.
I want to give the pin money idea a proper go this year. I *think* we've slightly overbudgeted for food and fuel. This year I will siphon the food and petrol money into a separate account, and use the surplus each month to help fund various DIY projects that we have planned around the house.

Thanks Pavlov! See, without sounding terrible, whilst I feel that I have a good handle on spending, Mr. KK finds it quite hard to put a limit on his 'fun' spends, so cash for now until it really clicks that a baby will mean reigning his spending in!

What is pin money, didn't find much from googling?

greent wrote: »

Hello KK
Have caught up on your diary from the start - am very impressed at your determination and achievements I'm also very pleased to see that you managed to buy a house at a young age - my DD is planning on becoming a teacher, so I'm encouraged by your financial achievements!
Aside from all that, have lovely Christmas and congrats on the pregnancy
x

Thankyou very much greent! We had a lovely and relaxing Christmas, spent with family. Our only downer was that our Shar Pei seems to have very suddenly gone blind which I have been finding it very hard to cope with. We have a vets appt Mon 5th Jan and she is fine in our house and on her usual walk until then, but from a quick research it seems like SARDS. Just as long as she is not in pain we will manage it. Very sad though, poor confused peiby girl.

On a more positive note, I didn't mention in my 2015 goals post that we are booked in for a new kitchen before baby arrives! We had a private plumber in to give us a quote to fit a dishwasher, however we'd have to have it sticking out from under a worktop as our kitchen is so old it's not the right dimensions for a dishwasher! He then revealed he is also a builder, who gets trade price at B&Q, and quoted £2300 for a fully fitted new B&Q kitchen! Using gifts of money for the baby (as we already have everything as hand me downs or bought cheaply off of gumtree/car boots etc) and £500 each from Nov and Dec wages (instead of adding to disaster fund or paying off DFS) we have £2300 saved ready to pay for it. It feels amazing to have the money ready to go, and that we won't be getting into any debt, and that this time a year ago we were very close to saying yes to an £8k kitchen on a 0% loan! Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that the car died last year! :rotfl: He is coming also Jan 5th to measure up and book in a date to fit, ideally Feb half term once my maternity leave has started but a good six weeks before my due date so we're not cutting it too fine. It is a minuscule kitchen and we have gone for nothing fancy which is why it's so cheap and should be done very quickly. How EXCITING!

greent

Sad news about your Shar Pei


Fab news about the kitchen though - and Feb half term would seem an ideal date for fitting Hope it goes well


x

katep23

Hi KK, just found your diary! Wonderful news about the family but sorry to hear about your poor Shar Pei.

I think it's fantastic to be so savvy with money so young, I bought a house at 23 and it never occurred to me to overpay. I sold it at 26 and couldn't afford to buy anywhere else (had bought in a really bad location!) so rented.

I really believe in karma - the car situation stopped you spending more on the kitchen than you needed to so you can focus your savings on the family. Great news that you have got the money together to pay for it up-front too!

The house we have bought, we put an offer in during the summer but were rejected in favour of "cash buyers". When it turned out in October they had a house to sell and it had fallen through, we resubmitted our offer which was accepted. By the time the survey was done, it had been raining a lot and the house was showing serious signs of damp which weren't evident in the summer and we got £15K off the price which wouldn't have happened if our offer was accepted in the summer.

pavlovs_dog

sory to hear about your furbaby kk. Is is likely to be treatable?

kansaskitty wrote: »

What is pin money, didn't find much from googling?

pin money goes back to the days of women making the most of the housekeeping money. Essentially, it is money syphoned off from your main budget due to savings made. This money can then be used for other plans rather than being lost in the vagueries of one's purse. As an example, if I budget £40 for groceries and only spend £35, I'd have £5 pin money.

at the risk of showing my forum age, there's an old thread about it HERE

kansaskitty

katep23 wrote: »

Hi KK, just found your diary! Wonderful news about the family but sorry to hear about your poor Shar Pei.

I think it's fantastic to be so savvy with money so young, I bought a house at 23 and it never occurred to me to overpay. I sold it at 26 and couldn't afford to buy anywhere else (had bought in a really bad location!) so rented.

I really believe in karma - the car situation stopped you spending more on the kitchen than you needed to so you can focus your savings on the family. Great news that you have got the money together to pay for it up-front too!

The house we have bought, we put an offer in during the summer but were rejected in favour of "cash buyers". When it turned out in October they had a house to sell and it had fallen through, we resubmitted our offer which was accepted. By the time the survey was done, it had been raining a lot and the house was showing serious signs of damp which weren't evident in the summer and we got £15K off the price which wouldn't have happened if our offer was accepted in the summer.

Wow what an amazing story! Things definitely happen for a reason sometimes! Thank you for your kind words too.

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

sory to hear about your furbaby kk. Is is likely to be treatable?

pin money goes back to the days of women making the most of the housekeeping money. Essentially, it is money syphoned off from your main budget due to savings made. This money can then be used for other plans rather than being lost in the vagueries of one's purse. As an example, if I budget £40 for groceries and only spend £35, I'd have £5 pin money.

at the risk of showing my forum age, there's an old thread about it HERE

Unsure about our peiby, vets is tomorrow 2pm. Just as long as she isn't in pain, we'll manage whatever happens.
Ahhh ok I understand, a way to boost other funds without really noticing, rather than losing it in the abyss/frittering it!

____________

As a side note, I have abandoned the envelope system. I realised that even limiting our grocery, fuel and leisure spends didn't ensure that I have enough money to cover all bases throughout the year, e.g. the categories in the MSE Budget Planner. As I will be losing a wage by not going back to work after baby KK is born I keep frantically checking and re-checking the MSE Budget Planner and we are still in the green and can even keep saving a little bit just on hubby's wage, so I decided to really use those categories and start PIGGYBANKING!

I have always had two extra accounts for Car Expenses and Heating Oil but this year I have really started extreme piggybanking (!). At the moment I am feeling really chuffed with knowing exactly how we will afford yearly expenses, and like it will help us to keep on track financially for 2015 as our lives change big stylee!

I use Halifax as we are really happy with our current account, we can see our mortgage online and we are happy with our fixed rate, and it's great as they offer unlimited Online Saver accounts. I now have a current account for the wages to go into and bills to come out of, plus ten piggybanks:

Car Tax/MOT
Veterinary Expenses
Heating Oil
Christmas/Birthdays
Holidays
Work Clothing
Dentistry/Optical
Household Maintenance
Baby Savings
Disaster Fund

Then a different current account for all of the surplus to go into which is our fun/leisure spends for the month, so we know that what is in that account is to spend as we please, without worrying what else is left to come out. Any surplus then left in this fun account can be extra into savings.

Here's hoping this can help us to be financially secure in 2015!