£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Treadingonplaymobil

Random house news: I have floorboards upstairs, and a nice wooden staircase! I have just discovered both of these things under revolting carpet, having always assumed they would be horrible MDF type stuff. Can't believe I have been living with awful pink carpets for 2.5 years when I had floorboards underneath. I won't bother doing anything with them now, but if I can sand and wax them it will save the cost of new flooring in at least the two front rooms upstairs when the dormer is done (the back rooms are mostly in the eaves, so no boards down in there), and I can paint the stairs and get a runner.

Treadingonplaymobil

I think it's time to set an income goal. As discussed in recent days, I definitely need to earn a bit more money. Not necessarily masses more, but we've certainly made all the cuts we're willing/able to make from our budget, so the only way to change our finances now is to make more, and it's realistically easier for me to do that than DH, as I am currently earning so little.

The main motivation for earning more is totally the extension, rather than debt paying off, but I do want to keep up with/increase the rate we're paying off debt too. A few starting points that I noted down while working out my extra required income:
1. I want to put £5,000 into the extension pot by the end of the year (to cover all the 'pre-build' expenses).
2. I don't want to abandon all the other things we want to save money for while trying to save towards that £5k.
3. There are eight full months (plus a little bit of April, but I'm not counting that) until the end of the year. That's 245 days from 1st May to 31st December.
4. If I earn more overall, I can adjust the savings divisions which I've been working on (the 10% here and there list that you might have seen a few times), as there's an upper limit to how much I need to put into, for example the tutor or the extra household supplies pots.
5. When I first started to think about this, the shortfall between the current monthly extension savings and the extension savings required to hit the £5k mark was £340pm. Thanks to DH's bonus it's now £225pm.

With that in mind, I've rejigged the savings division of anything I earn. Month 1 (May) looks like this, and Month 2 onwards is slightly different (no more saving for wedding cake supplies, so 5% more towards extension savings):
10% debt overpayment
20% extension
10% house stuff
10% food/household supplies
5% annual insurances
5% sister's wedding cake
25% future months in biz account
5% biz account savings pots
5% DS1 tutor
5% emergency fund

In order for that 20% (and later 25%) of extension savings to be sufficient to cover the £225 extra needed per month, and to ensure I keep my three month income buffer up, I need my minimum post tax income to total £7,425 for the rest of the year. Well that figure gave me a total heart attack, until I realised that if I carried on earning exactly as I have done Jan-Apr this year, I would earn around £5.2k anyway. So I'm talking about a 50% increase in my income once tax is accounted for, as I'll pay some tax if I earn more (and when I say 'my income' I mean any extra money in - cashback, ebay sales, anything, some of which obviously won't have a tax implication). Totally doable, right?

I don't want to have that scary huge number of £7,425 there in front of me for the rest of the year, since I've firmly established that big impossible seeming numbers do absolutely zilch to motivate me, I'm going to break it down into 'per day' earnings.

To earn that total I need to earn £30.31 per day from 1st May to 31st December (as mentioned, 'earn' can include any other income, and by DH or I, including underspending on the previous month's budget, ebay sales, cashback, anything at all!). Any day I earn over the daily target, that figure will go down, and any day I fail, it will go up. I'll keep a track on the remaining 'daily target' with my daily debt repayment update at the bottom of my morning post.

I have five days before the end of the month to try to reduce that figure a little more before it starts to increase every single day that I don't earn. I'm perfectly happy to drop it if it's just unfeasible, but I think I need some kind of target and way of tracking it daily, so this seems as good a plan as any to kick off with. Wish me luck!

enthusiasticsaver

Good luck and great idea to have a target to aim to. I agree that earning more is the key to getting your extension built and eventually clearing the debt. Cutting back more does not sound feasible and besides everything seems to be getting more expensive.

Verbatim

Sound like you've done some excellent detailed planning there. I'll be cheering you on.

Courgette

Excellent! I love a plan! Will be cheering you on

Silver_Queen

A random thought...I'm sure you're already fully aware of this, but just in case you're not - have you had some of your personal allowance transferred to your OH as marriage allowance?

XSpender

Great plan to increase your income in nice manageable chunks

[Deleted User]

I love your idea of splitting up your extra income, I have stolen it for my own budgets - I have a fixed wage so doest fluctuate to the same extent but I do work/can volunteer for weekends and over time and my budget is based on my lowest monthly wage without any extra pay
You are doing so well! Your mindset has clearly changed over the last year, best of luck without your new goals!

[Deleted User]

That should clearly say 'with' above - its been a long day!!

ellen_vannin

Good plan and should be doable.

I like the way you include other income besides wages,
e.g. cashback , ebay sales , underspends etc.

Should be really motivating and easy to follow

Good luck !

One idea maybe you could put some savings into premium bonds as a temp measure , any wins are tax free !