Growing up, Having a baby and Changing Our Lives

Deloria87

I thought I’d start a new diary because the previous one obviously had some sad news that I didn’t like seeing, and I don’t like to see my failings and how we’re already 2 months passed our debt free date, so here is a shiny new diary which will be beautiful and organised and accurate to how we’re going to live our lives! haha

Ok, so yesterday we sat and had a sensible grown up talk about everything from the house that we live in and love, our chances of a mortgage (slim), and how we want to go about our financial plans because we really do have to grow up. I usually come up with a plan and a budget and my partner picks it apart and gets frustrated that he hasn’t gone the long and expensive trip to visit his parents often enough (although nothing stops them from coming to us) and it all ends up looking like the plan was a terrible idea and it would never have worked.

So. We have agreed that *possibly* before the baby comes we will move to a larger house with a bigger garden for the dog and the ferrets and more space in the house for all the baby things that we will be bringing into an already cramped house. The space in the garden is more my concern than OH’s because our dog is so strong and I’m quite concerned about exercising her if I’m carrying a baby in a sling so I’d feel better if she at LEAST had a bigger garden to run and chase the ball. If not by the baby coming, it will happen by Christmas, because this year we didn’t even have a Christmas tree due to lack of space and I got a bit annoyed by this. This will mean an initial cost of probably around £1,600 so this will need to come out of savings, but we are going to ask our agency that if we stay with them and go to a new property if they’ll just transfer our current deposit meaning we’d only have to pay a first months’ rent and the referencing fees which are discounted because we’re already a customer.

We have also agreed that if our chances of being approved for a mortgage really won’t be happening for at least another 6 or 7 years, then we have no MASSIVE rush to pay all of our debts by July, as long as they are in a steady stream of payments then we can do them once a month but that wouldn’t have to be in chunks of payments of £500 as I’d originally accounted, so we can save and have a bit of a safety net especially with the deduction of my salary to maternity pay, and in case anything drastic comes up. Then also if any debts started screaming we’d have a little pot that we could clear some down with.

Income 1 (Basic - there will be overtime so this will change, this is the bare minimum OH brings home) 1,440
Income 2 (Salary) 1,341
Total 2,781

sky 72
water 48
british gas 99
council tax 265
food 100
brighthouse 232
debt 200
sundries
travel 100
rent 695
bt 18
orange 110
car insurance 88
house insurance 11
Pet insurance 30
savings 600
Total 2,668

We had a little look through our bank statements yesterday to get a more accurate look at our outgoings as well, and my OH also set up an arrangement plan for the water, gas and electric so we pay that monthly with our usage as well so it’s a regular payment instead of ‘oh I don’t know how much it will be but it’s due soon’ which has helped budget.

Like I said we’ve limited our debt repayments down to £200 as well which will make it manageable and payable by next summer, but if we’re comfortable enough we will probably settle some up earlier with the savings pot we’ll have by the end of the year.

New Targets

Savings by July ’14 = £,3700.00 (taking away nursery furniture and potential moving costs)

Debts paid by July ’14 = £1,327.00 (paid £274 already this weekend)

Total savings by Dec ‘ 14 = £6,300.00

Total debt paid by Dec ’14 = £2,127.00 (potentially cleared if we hit the £6k savings target)

Hire Purchase Cleared = £4,705 which should be all but finished once all the interest has been deducted from overpayments, again, potentially cleared if savings target hit.

We are saying we’ll clear stuff with our savings, but obviously we don’t want to get to December, use our savings and have nothing left while I still have 6 months off, so we’ll have to see how we go there.

Right, now let's do this!