Only freedom will do

AlexLK

I do wonder if paying tradesmen is a good investment for you, Ed.

edinburgher

Not helpful Alex.

Squeaky bum time financially, Mrs E gets paid tomorrow and we are currently skint :eek: Our new pension arrangements will definitely have an impact, I think it sees us with £140 less to spend.

Not looking forward to £2,000 worth of credit card bills which all fall on the 30th. This will basically knock out about 1/3 of our savings Hard brake on credit card spending is working relatively well (£1,700 spent in December, less than £200 in January).

I know that sticking to the budget and trimming our spending will take time, but just now it feels less like turning the Titanic around and more like rearranging the deckchairs...

*Edit: Sold my old K1ndle, that should add £27 or so to my savings target.

AlexLK

Sorry, I suppose my comment was more a statement that you may end up spending more fixing things yourself than paying tradesmen or buying new if things often go wrong. If you're doing things that don't necessarily need to be done in the house, take the item to your garage / workshop, e.g. to avoid the carpet incident I'd have taken the item to the workshop, fixed it and left it a day or so before bringing it back into the house. Avoids potential accidents and avoids solvents being in the house.

Glad to hear you're halting the credit card spending, especially with a reduces income. You'll get there.

elantan

hey Ed, we aint even rearranging the deck chairs at the moment, but I know it will come together... it just has to

keep plodding as our dear Beanie would say xx

edinburgher

If you're doing things that don't necessarily need to be done in the house, take the item to your garage / workshop, e.g. to avoid the carpet incident I'd have taken the item to the workshop, fixed it and left it a day or so before bringing it back into the house. Avoids potential accidents and avoids solvents being in the house.

It was a repair to a 6' high bookcase, filled with books and secured to the wall with heavy duty screws. Repair in situ was essential, the only thing I should have done that I didn't was putting a thick towel or similar down to absorb any heat from the iron, which I must have held too close to the carpet.

hiddenshadow

edinburgher wrote: »

I know that sticking to the budget and trimming our spending will take time, but just now it feels less like turning the Titanic around and more like rearranging the deckchairs...

*Edit: Sold my old K1ndle, that should add £27 or so to my savings target.

I've been trying to get our grocery spends closer to £200 for at least a year. (We average £225.) Only in the last couple of weeks has DH (who does the shopping, though I manage the shopping list ) started embracing things like Lidl, driving to the shop so we can buy more things in bulk if they're on sale, etc. He's a firm creature of habit (which bodes well if shopping around becomes the new habit, I suppose!) At the moment we've got almost £125 left in our grocery budget this month, so we should come in under £200 for the first time!

Anyway, all that to say, sometimes it is just baby steps. Everything moves you in the right direction (esp. the increased pension contributions! ), even if it feels like it's a glacial pace.

edinburgher

I am thoroughly hacked off with pensions at the moment.

Mrs E's workplace pension was moved to a SIPP that supposedly offered the same costs and a huge amount of choice (i.e. documentation suggested access to full SIPP market with 000's of choices).

In reality, it's a SIPP in name only, with relatively few choices, a crap website and much higher charges (platform fee + funds costs). I managed to create a Vanguard Lifestrategy 100% clone for her using six passive funds, but it was a total ball ache) :mad:

Her costs have probably gone up by 0.1% a year (which might not sound like much, but it's our money, dammit). Call me a cynic, but I'd be willing to bet that the new arrangements save her *employer* money.

Worse than that was the fact that they transferred everyone by default into a crap fund that was 75% in UK equities :eek:

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

At least you were able to rectify things up to a point. I bet most of her colleagues have not even noticed. I hate pensions. The fact that a company can charge you to 'manage' a pension which actually goes down in value over several years makes my blood boil. I could put it into a low interest bank account for free and not actually reduce the capital. Idiots.
Things may be a bit dodgy for you at the moment but something lovely will happen very soon.

edinburgher

Thanks Squirrel, that would be nice

I suppose with pensions, I put up with less than ideal fund choices and opaque fees etc. because the tax incentives still lead to most people 'winning'. The last 5-6 years have been remarkably benign for investors, I suspect that there will be a lot of angry posts about pensions losing money in the not too distant future! All we can really do is watch costs, disbelieve the hype and remember that once dividends are reinvested, we're probably ahead in real terms, even in a bear market.

£8.69 paid into savings from the sale of an unwanted voucher, sig updated. Hoping for another £20-27 after fees and postage from my Kindle sale, Mrs E dropping it off at the Post Office today.

Another truly awful night's sleep, DD has a combination of teething and is unable to get to sleep by herself. This is entirely our fault, I am scunnered. On the one hand, you want to train her, but on the other hand it feels wrong.

She loved her inspection trip to a local nursery, I think she will do well as she is so loud and confident

biglass

Hi Ed- lurker here!
I can sympathise with your DDs sleeping habits totally Can I offer advice in that you may have to brace yourself and harden your heart for a good night's sleep using "Controlled Crying" or "Disappearing Chair" techniques.Teething can be a trial but often it is not the real issue .
It may take a few nights and involve planning some time off work to cope with it and it very much has to be a joint effort and committment! Many disagree in these techniques ,but they do work.
Lack of sleep is a killer! Also I would signpost you to your Health Visitor as they and their team of nursery nurses are usually a great source of support for issues like this. Sorry to butt in and feel free to ignore !:)