When things hit rock bottom the only answer is to fight the way back up...

UncannyScot

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

That soa is looking good HI and glad your DD has had the DLA awarded. There are gaps in the soa which you might want to address. Emergency fund is one. Just put £25-£50 a month away in a savings account for emergencies. It will give you a bit of a buffer. I would also take out contents insurance. It is cheap and if the worst was to happen (fire or burglary) you would not want to have to replace everything from scratch.

You also need to allow for haircuts, presents and entertainment as I guess you do spend on these although I think you have used your survey money for this. Once you are working you may not have as much time to do these though so putting £30 a month away for presents and entertainment seems reasonable. That is the cost of a cheap cinema trip/meal out once a month.

totally agree with this^^^
I have an emergency savings fund with my local CU and I also have a allocated budget for what is listed above.

Check if your council housing authority offers a contents insurance scheme (a lot do these days) downside is you need to be not only in credit but at least a week/month ahead dependent on how you pay your rent... this is the way my local authority do it anyway.

Toni'sfriend

Check if your council housing authority offers a contents insurance scheme (a lot do these days) downside is you need to be not only in credit but at least a week/month ahead dependent on how you pay your rent... this is the way my local authority do it anyway.

Doesn't apply in my local authority area so may be different depending on where you are. The advantage is that it is cheap if they offer it.

Hiddenidenity

missymoo81 wrote: »

sOA looks good Hidden! You do so well on so little. X

You've made me want a roast!

Roast on a Sunday happens every week here :rotfl:

Toni'sfriend wrote: »

Everything is looking great, Hidden. Lots of good advice as well. Re contents insurance, I rent from our local authority and mine is included in my rent. It is optional but it's only a few pounds a month. Just wondering if it's something you might want to check out or is it possible you already have this

Oh we did have this before will need to check about this. Thank you

sashybo wrote: »

Great news about the DLA Hidden. :j

We have savings accounts for Birthdays/Christmas (we have 6 nephews & nieces and now DS), Cats (food/general vet visits) & Household (appliances/repairs around the house etc) and a separate account for DS (saved before maternity leave to buy things for him). We actually need to open another savings account for the cars for MOT/repairs etc as well as both have second hand cars now.

We have set up standing orders to each account every month and it's roughly £30 each to cat & house accounts and £70 for birthdays/Christmas. I think we'll reduce the £70 though as need to put a bit away for the cars.

The good thing is that all the accounts are in one place so it's easy enough to transfer the money back if there was an emergency. It's just better for us to separate them so we don't spend the money as it's been put away for a specific purpose.

On the back of this I've just opened some instant savers attached to my account and renamed them :rotfl: All are obviously empty and will be until October but still a start and then I can work out what needs to go into each one :cool:

Thank you x

Hiddenidenity

UncannyScot wrote: »

totally agree with this^^^
I have an emergency savings fund with my local CU and I also have a allocated budget for what is listed above.

Check if your council housing authority offers a contents insurance scheme (a lot do these days) downside is you need to be not only in credit but at least a week/month ahead dependent on how you pay your rent... this is the way my local authority do it anyway.

Thank you will check with them Monday, if not it looks about £70 a year elsewhere so not too bad. Definitely worth it for the peace of mind.

I need to sit and have a good think about the budgets for clothes/kids/presents etc. How grown up will I feel :rotfl: :rotfl:

Hiddenidenity

Gifts = £40 a month? Seems too much but broken down ( Xmas - 3 kids- sister & BIL - Mum/SD - nephew + token gifts usually homemade but still some expense to everyone else) + Birthdays (same as Xmas list really)

EF - £50 a month

Entertainment - £30 a month

Other (household/dog/haircuts/kids travel to appointments DS &DS are no longer free/Clothing) £30 a month.

That leaves £50ish a month to overpay the debt.

Obviously still not taking into account DLA .

Will go through properly and double check all my working out as it stil seems quite a lot.

I can't start it really until the 18th October (First full wage, September will only be training days I think)

Hiddenidenity

We were nearly late for bedtime tonight! but just made it in time and they are tucked up warm and fed

10 Ebay items ended and all sold Making £28.65 after fees and postage (We went and posted them and stopped by the park hence nearly being late )

10 more are listed and ending next weekend, with a few bids already

Spent too much time looking at numbers today so have some ironing and bits to do. Have fitted a new shelf in the pantry so want to move some things around in there too (keep the treats out of the reach of little fingers )

missymoo81

Lol at being late for bedtime! Mine are just going off now, I blame the soup taking so long to cook! nothing to do with me cooking it lol. I seem to spend all of my time number crunching!

Hiddenidenity

Late for bedtime because I was being a big kid and playing on the park :rotfl:

I'm still sat here I should move and get my jobs done

missymoo81

yaaay for playing in the park, I love it! my littlies are now all tucked up in bed, now to eBay some things!

Sun_Addict

Great news about the DLA Hopefully this will make things easier for you. You're doing really well.