How to fall in love with saving money

cathybird

oh I forgot to say, got a cheque for £30 today for cashback, plus have some coinage to bank, going to take that down to the bank tomorrow. Re the goal of saving £12,000 this year, I'm ahead of myself so I only need to save £318.93 this month to reach £3,000 and be on target. Which should be doable, in fact I will try to beat it obviously.

Lomcevak

£750 a month seems a very decent amount - that will add up into a sizeable pension pot over 20 or so years, especially added to the work pension, surely? ...

It should, although i'm not quite sure how long it will last. At the moment I have a horrible effective marginal tax rate above £50k because of child benefit clawback, so it makes sense to use pension contributions to drop back below £50k. But in a few years that balance will start to shift, and other things may be more sensible.

Unless CS change their terms in the meantime, which I suppose they might perhaps do, given the way charges are shifting at the moment.

A very good point; while RDR was apparently meant to make things simpler, it seems to have created a horrible maze of small-print at the moment. Hopefully it'll all start to shake out and stabilize over time, but it's tricky to take decisions now. Going for 'no exit fee' seems to be the best option now, but I really hope no (or at least small) exit fees in the event of changes to T&Cs become standard in line with the intent of the regulations. Right now it seems possible to overrule the fees in some cases, but even then it seems a battle

cathybird

Lomcevak wrote: »

It should, although i'm not quite sure how long it will last. At the moment I have a horrible effective marginal tax rate above £50k because of child benefit clawback, so it makes sense to use pension contributions to drop back below £50k. But in a few years that balance will start to shift, and other things may be more sensible.

Indeed but for now it's really a good stack of money to be putting away each month, particularly as you have a good few years to go.

A very good point; while RDR was apparently meant to make things simpler, it seems to have created a horrible maze of small-print at the moment. Hopefully it'll all start to shake out and stabilize over time, but it's tricky to take decisions now. Going for 'no exit fee' seems to be the best option now, but I really hope no (or at least small) exit fees in the event of changes to T&Cs become standard in line with the intent of the regulations. Right now it seems possible to overrule the fees in some cases, but even then it seems a battle

You're right, it is tricky to take decisions now, but by the time your pension pot reaches the point where it makes sense to change providers it will all hopefully have settled down. I'm hoping that with the Isa, anyway.

JoJoC

cathybird wrote: »

Thanks, JoJoC I'm pretty pleased. I feel it's a hopeful sign, as long as I can continue the way I've begun. And I couldn't agree with you more about food as a topic.

btw, think I saw you said elsewhere that you have to save up £20,000 to move house? It seems like a lot but you come across as very determined to do it and I reckon you will probably be surprised by how soon the pot grows big enough. I'm guessing having said that it will probably be a couple of years but that sounds like a longer space of time than it really is, if that makes sense. The months really fly by, you know? ...

Yes, unfortunately we do have about £20k to save to move house. A combination of negative equity and outstanding shared equity with a house builder (25% of selling price), it means we'll be quite a while to save! We can only hope that prices will increase by the time we want to move but it's unlikely they'll go back up to what we bought it for.

I want to be in a new house by the time I have another baby, so we're thinking two and a bit more years of saving and we should be more or less there! It's just horrible saving all of that ku to give a big chunk of it to a home builder who overpriced their flats in the first place.

We were only 20 when we bought our flat and just had no idea about what we were doing- lesson definitely learned!

Anyway, enough of my moaning! We will do it!!

cathybird

JoJoC wrote: »

Yes, unfortunately we do have about £20k to save to move house. A combination of negative equity and outstanding shared equity with a house builder (25% of selling price), it means we'll be quite a while to save! We can only hope that prices will increase by the time we want to move but it's unlikely they'll go back up to what we bought it for.

I want to be in a new house by the time I have another baby, so we're thinking two and a bit more years of saving and we should be more or less there! It's just horrible saving all of that ku to give a big chunk of it to a home builder who overpriced their flats in the first place.

We were only 20 when we bought our flat and just had no idea about what we were doing- lesson definitely learned!

Anyway, enough of my moaning! We will do it!!

Well, the fact that you bought at 20 at all is pretty impressive, JoJoC It does sound a real bummer on the price of the flats but times have been hard the past few years, obviously, and a lot of people have had problems with property or shares (or both). So, I'm sure you're not alone, if it's any comfort.

Lomcevak

We were only 20 when we bought our flat and just had no idea about what we were doing- lesson definitely learned!

We were 22; the good news was that we got our first house mid-90s before the housing boom kicked off so the rising tide of house prices helped us, the bad news was that everything was wrong with it and we were the only people naïve enough to buy it.

I got the keys, walked in, a large lump of plaster fell off the wall and then my father fell through the floor. Wondered why there was a sofa in a strange place when we viewed, it was because the floor was completely rotten. But it was cheap, even by standards back then, and eventually we got it all fixed up. But lessons definitely learned there too

Maryland_Cookie

cathybird wrote: »

It is lovely to hear that people read the thread ... I hope there are people who do, even if they don't comment. I have threads I read but don't post on particularly (the "Save £12,000 in 2014" thread, and the Frugal Living thread, for instance, where I don't feel I can contribute because I'm not living that frugally, just hoping to learn something basically ).

I do hope though that people don't feel they have to stick to the "topics du jour"? ... I do love talking about exercise and food and have had some very pleasant conversations with atush, Lomcevak and others about those things, but am always extremely happy to talk about other things too. But I'd hate to think people were not posting just because the topic had veered to something they weren't so interested in. So, Eco Miser, do just jump in, on any subject that takes your fancy - if you want to post, that is - which obviously you don't have to do - but it's always lovely to hear from you when you do.

WantToBeSE, I love chocolate and find it hard to stay off it, but I do lose weight if I don't eat it so I have to try to steel myself. But a life without chocolate altogether is a very dull life in my book.

Cathybird - I love your diary and WBSE's too, but I'm a long term lurker and don't post, but I do enjoy them :T

cathybird

Lomcevak wrote: »

We were 22; the good news was that we got our first house mid-90s before the housing boom kicked off so the rising tide of house prices helped us, the bad news was that everything was wrong with it and we were the only people naïve enough to buy it.

I got the keys, walked in, a large lump of plaster fell off the wall and then my father fell through the floor. Wondered why there was a sofa in a strange place when we viewed, it was because the floor was completely rotten. But it was cheap, even by standards back then, and eventually we got it all fixed up. But lessons definitely learned there too

Lomcevak, sounds like a challenge, in a good way?? ... I hope your dad was okay.

cathybird

Maryland_Cookie wrote: »

Cathybird - I love your diary and WBSE's too, but I'm a long term lurker and don't post, but I do enjoy them :T

hi Maryland Cookie!! Nice of you to post I'm very happy to think that anyone reads the diary, I hope you keep enjoying it, and WantToBeSE's too

atush

cathybird wrote: »

Must confess I've never eaten a chocolate hobnob that I know of and by the sounds of it it's probably something I'd better avoid! :eek: They sound rather addictive.

OMG, I love oats in things.

From CC cookies to porridge. so hobnobs have that oaty thing going on, add in plain chocolate and we have lift off lol.