Small Steps Out Of Massive Debt!

GeorgianaCavendish

2022 Goals 

House
My main goal is to buy a house! Plan for the next 3 months is to continue to save as much as possible. Financial plans are fairly fluid at the moment as so much depends on the house itself (not just the purchase price, but whether it needs any work doing) but my savings target is based on a 10% deposit plus all costs associated with the purchase transaction. 
We've got an excellent mortgage broker and have discussed a number of scenarios, so we're confident in our budgets and with a few different scenarios. I just don't know which one we'll end up going for yet! 

Emergency Fund
My end goal is £7,500 in an emergency fund. I've got £5,500 and am adding £50 a month. At this rate it will take me 3+ years to get to target, but I'm happy with the current progress given what else is going on. 

Pension 
I'm contributing 7% (employer matches 5%) and my vague plan is to increase my contributions by 1% every year. I already did the increase for 2022 as I received a pay rise this month, but this is something I want to sit down and look at properly during 2022. 

Other Savings 
Something to get my head around once the house is sorted! But my most urgent query is whether I can open another LISA (if I use my current one to finance a house purchase in this tax year) - or are you only allowed to use a LISA once - for house purchase or retirement, not both? 

astrocytic_kitten

Happy new year! 2022 is going to be a great year for you - debt free, and new house! Really interesting extra money roundup too, has given me some food for thought. I do prolific and cashback, might add a couple more of yours into the mix.

On the LISA, I’m sure I remember reading that you can only have one but after the house purchase you can basically convert it to a retirement one. Though the MSE article says saving to a pension almost always wins out over it, I’ve been wondering if I should open one before I turn 40 or not.

GeorgianaCavendish

astrocytic_kitten said:

Happy new year! 2022 is going to be a great year for you - debt free, and new house! Really interesting extra money roundup too, has given me some food for thought. I do prolific and cashback, might add a couple more of yours into the mix.

On the LISA, I’m sure I remember reading that you can only have one but after the house purchase you can basically convert it to a retirement one. Though the MSE article says saving to a pension almost always wins out over it, I’ve been wondering if I should open one before I turn 40 or not.

Happy New Year!   May 2022 be a wonderful year for you! 

I think I might add another survey site, I've heard good things about swagbucks and I think there is some kind of sign up bonus available at the moment. 

I will check out the details of the LISA more, I wonder if I can convert the cash LISA into a stocks & shares one after house purchase? I suspect that pension saving might be better for me but I want to at least open a retirement one before I turn 40 so I can decide whether or not to use it, instead of the door being closed to me forever (dramatic ) 

GeorgianaCavendish

I can open another LISA, as long as I meet all the other criteria (age etc) - so if I buy a house before the end of this tax year, I'll probably open a new one to have the option available. 

GeorgianaCavendish

Success! Unprompted, my mum said that they have already decided to scale back to only one roast meat next Christmas because they had so many leftovers and no-one wants to eat them (they ignored my suggestions about the leftovers    )  

I just said "oh what a great idea, that will save a lot of work too!" 

WinterWarrior

You are slowly rubbing off on her 😁

GeorgianaCavendish

WinterWarrior said:

You are slowly rubbing off on her 😁

At last! Hopefully she remembers this conversation in 11 months time. 

Saw the headlines about O2 & Virgin not re-introducing roaming charges in Europe. I'm with Tesco Mobile which uses the O2 network so hopefully this will apply to me as well (hoping to go on holiday somewhere in Europe this summer!) 

ThisLife

Well done on all you have achieved! It's reading diaries like yours that gives me hope that I can finally get debt free in the next few years. Just need to keep going 

enthusiasticsaver

Well done on all your success with savings and the debt.  You sound like you have the finances sussed now. 

GeorgianaCavendish

ThisLife said:

Well done on all you have achieved! It's reading diaries like yours that gives me hope that I can finally get debt free in the next few years. Just need to keep going 

Thank you so much @ThisLife Keep going, you can do it!  To quote my favourite piece of advice from another debt free diary : 

Starting your debt-free journey can feel like someone has asked you to empty a lake with a teaspoon. Just focus on the teaspoon. You won’t notice the lake going down from one month to the next, but one day you will look up and see there’s just a pond left, then a puddle, and then suddenly nothing but dust.