2014 - the drive to be ready to pay back debt created by doing a masters

sassychick2014

Morning

Oooh, the dreaded monthly allowance to your kid challenge! I can totally see why you got angry with her but I also agree that at least she did it now rather than when she is older. How old is she by the way?

Being given £50 to spend is a big thing to a teenager and I can totally see why she went wild and bought heaps of clothes. The temptation is there for all of us. However, knowing what we all know about spending in this way means we know you need to budget. I think the disappointment you have expressed, the disappointment of not having any money and the whole situation has been a good lesson in budgeting and that she will go on to be budget savvy. Sometimes you need to mess up once to appreciate why you should do things the "proper" way.

I've signed Littley up to goHenry and she has a card with all her money on and she can see what she's got to spend, have a savings target and also where she has spent money already. This is for 8yr-18yr I think and works like a cash card, you can't spend what isn't there. Maybe this is something that could help (if it is let me know your email add in a PM & I'll recommend you as you get some free money if you do!).

Hope today is calmer for you x

StarMummy_2

Hi Magsnoodle
Been looking through a few diaries and yours caught my eye...mainly because of the MBA. After I've completed my current qualifications I'm looking at a MBA as the next step but the thought of how to finance £16,000 worth of course petrifies me.
Best of luck to you

Magsnoodle

sassychick2014 wrote: »

Morning

Oooh, the dreaded monthly allowance to your kid challenge! I can totally see why you got angry with her but I also agree that at least she did it now rather than when she is older. How old is she by the way?

The dreaded teenager is 14.5 or nearly 15 as she pointed out earlier. She is usually so good and we did have to do it at some point. She now realises that she needed money for her trip from school on the Tuesday she goes back and she hadn't got it. However, she has had her get out of jail card today in that people have given her money for Easter instead of eggs and she has managed to save herself. We have agreed that we will get her calendar up on her wall so she can mark the occasions coming up to help her to plan for what is coming up e.g. trips, half term in May etc.... I has been a good learning experience for her. Watch this space though - all I can say is that her ability to breathe might be severely impeded if she does anything like this again.....

Oh well here's to a lovely Easter. Off tomorrow to open up this year's ISA to make sure I can get this money together for next April....

TTFN x

Magsnoodle

StarMummy wrote: »

Hi Magsnoodle
Been looking through a few diaries and yours caught my eye...mainly because of the MBA. After I've completed my current qualifications I'm looking at a MBA as the next step but the thought of how to finance £16,000 worth of course petrifies me.
Best of luck to you

Hi StarMummy,

Thanks for dropping by. The MBA is definitely been the best thing I have done but it is hard work with working full time. You can get a career development loan (CDL) for up to £10,000 and it is paid in equal amounts. Barclays and Co-Op did offer them. The interest is paid by the skills development agency (I think) and you only start to pay it back after two years. I'm not sure if you can apply for it until a year after you have finished your undergraduate degree but I am honest I am not entirely sure of the rules.

My course costs £18,000 and I had to pay £1,000 deposit so I needed to find £17,000 over six terms. The CDL pays £2,500 in four of the six terms. I have to find the difference - four terms the difference is nearly £400 and then two terms I have to find the whole lot. I am throwing as much as possible into a savings account so that I can try and pay the loan back before the interest starts and had started saving before I started the course but not as much as I have been doing in the past few months. I have used a 0% credit card to pay the difference and pay that back at £100 a month but plan to pay it all back by the deadline before the interest kicks in... Hope this makes sense as my hubby thinks it is quite complicated. I plan to apply for another 0% CC next January to pay for the second full term that I have to pay but will still be throwing lots of money into a savings account.

What are you doing at the minute? If you want to PM me with any questions I will be happy to explain as best as I can.

Take care xx

Magsnoodle

sassychick2014 wrote: »

Morning

Oooh, the dreaded monthly allowance to your kid challenge! I can totally see why you got angry with her but I also agree that at least she did it now rather than when she is older. How old is she by the way?

Being given £50 to spend is a big thing to a teenager and I can totally see why she went wild and bought heaps of clothes. The temptation is there for all of us. However, knowing what we all know about spending in this way means we know you need to budget. I think the disappointment you have expressed, the disappointment of not having any money and the whole situation has been a good lesson in budgeting and that she will go on to be budget savvy. Sometimes you need to mess up once to appreciate why you should do things the "proper" way.

I've signed Littley up to goHenry and she has a card with all her money on and she can see what she's got to spend, have a savings target and also where she has spent money already. This is for 8yr-18yr I think and works like a cash card, you can't spend what isn't there. Maybe this is something that could help (if it is let me know your email add in a PM & I'll recommend you as you get some free money if you do!).

Hope today is calmer for you x

I'm interested in the account you have for littley. Mine has a natwest one - not the best rate but she has the cashcard which she liked. If you give me some more details then I will look into it and see if it might be better for her.

Thanks for your help xx

Magsnoodle

Hi all,

Have just updated my signature as my ISA from last year has now matured and I have opened up the new one with the Nationwide for 2014-15 so it is looking even better. I am becoming a little bit obsessed though.... Have also changed my mobile from T mobile to Tesco and it will bring the bill down by £10 a month which will be added into the pot.

This money saving bit can take over your life....

Have a great weekend all xxx

giblet1979

It's all sounding great Mags - hope you have a lovely Easter yourself x

sassychick2014

Magsnoodle wrote: »

I'm interested in the account you have for littley. Mine has a natwest one - not the best rate but she has the cashcard which she liked. If you give me some more details then I will look into it and see if it might be better for her.

Thanks for your help xx

There's no interest rate on this account but the conept and the principal is good because there's more control on it from the parent's side, the child can control what he or she is spending and they can put URLs in for targets so it shows them how much they need to save and have saved etc. If you go to their website there's more details.

Although there's no interest on this I think it's a good way to get kids into the habit of saving and seeing where their money goes. Not sure if you can put URLs on here but if you search goHenry on Google you'll find it. It's the .co.uk site (think I've just told you the full add there! lol).

Happy Easter! x

Magsnoodle

Hiya sassychick,

I will look into the account and if we go with it I will drop you a PM for the introduction if that's ok. We've been talking about her trip with school when she goes back but I think she has been saved by money that people have given her instead of eggs - saved by the bell I think you call it....

Have a great rest of the week xxx

Magsnoodle

Hi all,

Well I'm just sitting here updating my diary whilst OH has taken himself off to bed. He is very quiet tonight and dreading tomorrow's test - trying to avoid thinking about it tbh and hoping for a reasonable night's sleep.

On a completely unrelated note, I have used one of the birthday vouchers tonight to buy a new dress for work - with a20% discount so have ended up with £8 left over. Have also had a voucher for Next and have seen on here that if you purchase online using a code provided at the tills it will discount your spend by £10 if you spend £15+ so that has meant I have £50 to spend rather than £40. Learning slowly but surely how to make the money go further.

It has been interesting reflecting on the journey I am on as before I would have just used the voucher and added to it and bought more than was needed. No fear of that happening now. Decided to only look at dresses that had some money off. Does this now make me a bit of a money saving geek? :rotfl::rotfl:

Anyway better get off to bed - think OH will need hugs to sleep.

Good night all and God bless xxx