A long way to go..

Lollies · 13 July 2014 at 8:30PM

I'm a long term lurker on the forum and have finally been inspired to start my own diary, so I guess I'll start with a little background.

I'm a 24 year old mum to a beautiful 10 month old baby boy, and got engaged earlier this year to the man of my dreams. I've been following a lot of diaries and have been taking lots on board, but not necessarily putting them into practice. The thing that's really given me the shove, oddly, is booking a family holiday.

I have only just gone back to work after 9 months of maternity leave and I am so lucky to be back part time and still earn a full time wage (salary, so no provision for doing overtime). My other half recently left teaching and is in the process of setting up a business, although has been doing some other work in schools in the meantime, but this will be coming to an end when school finishes for the summer. We're hoping that the new business will be ready and raring to go in September for when the new education year starts.

I'd like to set some realistic goals, although they only seem hopeful at the moment.

Stay within a £10,000 budget for our wedding in early 2016 (date not yet confirmed)
Have a savings account with £5,000 in for holidays/home improvements/contingency
Reduce our mortgage in any way we can (£151,500 at 1st Jan this year)

We've just paid out for our first holiday together as we've never had one on our own since we've been together (we go on an annual family ski holiday), and of course we will be taking our son, so that's just taken a huge chunk out of our savings (now left with £1,600/£3,000). However, my engagement ring is due to be completed in the next couple of weeks so we can also say goodbye to another £700.

We pay off our credit card spends in full every month and have no other debts. The savings account we use is an ISA in my name.

I've already done a meal plan for the next two weeks where we will use up what's in the freezer and cupboards and we'll only be buying essentials and some top up fruit and vegetables. I will be feeding a savings jar with any leftover change I can find.

I'll update my signature shortly, but hope that by keeping a diary it will keep me on top of things!