A Diary of Reinventing Ourselves

Forward_thinking

Just handed oh 50 sheets of printed out MSE material - one on credit card shuffles/one weekly newsletter/one on credit cards. Also handed telephone numbers of his credit cards and APR rates. He has some bath time reading to do!!

Forward_thinking

Didn't look too impressed but if he can't bothered to sit down and read it on here - I will gladly take it to him.

pelirocco

Ah the joys of trying to read on a phone !
Didn't the OP say in a previous post she gets paid £800 per month through company .If she has the same amount of tax as her husband to pay then she has to be one of the directors of the company and as such should know the finances of the company

getmore4less

questionss wrote: »

Surely £120k per annum is £520 a day over 46weeks - still a big drop down from £1200 either way though

Thanks,

You are right I had the calculator in base 8 for something else I was doing, not sure why I posted as I remembered thinking it was around £500pd previously

greensalad

If you want to track stuff, you could get a whiteboard. I'm going to do this soon.

I used to keep about 6 different internet savings accounts and divide everything into those. When I got into YNAB really well I stashed all the pots together in one ISA but I tracked them separately on YNAB. Now that I've fallen out of YNAB for the time being I've gone back to just having three savings accounts.

I've just bought a white board for the kitchen and my plan is to update the totals there. It's nice to see the savings growing. E.g I can say:

Holiday savings £120
Car maintenance fund £190
Emergency pot £550

Then I can just update those values when I add to the pot. In this manner, it doesn't really matter whether your bank accounts are separate or all in. The pot of money doesn't matter, but keeping track of how you divided it does.

Could be as simple as a memo stored on your phone that you update.

Forward_thinking

Pelirocco - I get a small fraction each month and no, I am not a director of the company. I said I may have the same tax to pay on his director's loan! By the way, as you can see I am a regular on here so happy for you to post in second person

Getmore - thankfully, we are not down to £520 based on your calculations - OH only takes about 15 days holiday a year. He isn't worked to the bone though and works for a great company. I have just mentioned super balance transfers to him - he doesn't know about them. I have just been reading up about them and they may be very helpful. Just trying to work out how they could be a good way back onto 0% again for a while....

pelirocco

I can't see why you would be liable for tax on his directors loan

Saying OP in a post is pretty normal .it's not a slight

getmore4less

OP == Original Poster

standard term use in threads to identify the "owner/originator"

KxMx

If you decide to go for monthly savings pots FW then with multiple kids i'm guessing that's quite a few toys between them Birthdays & Christmas.

Some Facebook pages i'd recommend are:

https://www.facebook.com/Extremecouponinguk/?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/couponmumuk/?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/hotukdeals/?fref=ts

They post lovely toy bargains all the time

Also worth signing up to the MSE weekly email if you haven't already.

You mentioned you were an Amazon shopper, sometimes there are deals where you buy £30 of gift cards and get £7 or £10 free on top. That usually means the gift card money runs out as normal (10 years) and the free amount sooner.

The Works are great for books/stationary/craft supplies, again keep an eye out for the sales, free postage etc this is usually on top of cash back Quidco/TCB which is quite a generous rate. May be worth adding as favourite on the cash back sites as they're so cheap taking advantage of normal prices + raised CB rate can be worthwhile.

lovehackney

Hi Forward thinking, I've been reading your diary (along with your original thread) with interest. The one thing that really resonated with me was your husband thinking that it will all be fine when you earn more. I just wanted to share my story with you, maybe you could share it with your husband and some of it will resonate with him..

So a little bit about me, I'm in my mid twenties, living with my partner in a (mortgaged) flat. We both have 'low' levels of debt with respect to our incomes, about £10k between us on credit cards, with a household income of over £130k.

Over the past few years my salary has nearly tripled. Yet during this time, my credit card debt has grown! I've always had an excuse - oh well I deserve a holiday, we've moved house so need some furniture, new job so need a new wardrobe, buying lavish presents because you feel that family 'expect' it etc... Each time, I kept kidding myself that I'd be earning more soon. That when I earned more, it would be easy to pay off my credit card because I wouldn't miss money I've never had before, right? WRONG! You can start with all the best intentions, but it only takes one unexpected cost to get you relying on credit again.

Everyone on here who says it's about how much you SPEND not how much you EARN is completely right. I've been keeping a spending diary since 1st Jan and to be honest, am horrified at where my money goes! I didn't think I had a particularly lavish lifestyle, but I sat down and realised that even though my mortgage/bills today are very similar to what my rent/bills were nearly 5 years ago, I don't have lots more disposable income from my salary. Why? because I have increased everything incrementally because "I can afford it". By that I mean, whereas I would have bought a £5 bottle of wine in the past, now I spend £10. Dinner for two no longer costs £50, it costs £75. A new dress for work doesn't cost £45, it costs £80. So on the face of it, I kid myself by thinking I'm not eating out lots, not buying lots of new clothes.. but them all being a little bit more expensive has basically completely eaten up all my additional income.

Now, I know that when my debts are paid off (in ~6 months hopefully), I WILL be able to afford them, without being in the cycle of paying off loads of debt at the beginning of the month and then respending on them by the end of the month. Knowing I can look forward to it being my own money and having no guilt about it being debt it's a great motivator.

Also, I'm increasingly thinking about the future. Yes we're lucky we have bought our own flat, but it's only a one bed (we live in London). At some point we would like to move somewhere bigger! Thinking about the bigger picture, about one day having a beautiful two bed flat in a Georgian property (want to stay in London so have to be realistic about what we can afford to buy!), makes it much easier to say no to all those random nights out that you don't remember, the more expensive orange juice in the shop, the average holiday that you 'need' but really a week at home would have made you feel just as relaxed...

Anyway I'm rambling on so I'll stop. I guess this is a long way of saying that it really isn't about how much you earn. It's all in what you spend.