Spend less now, work less later...

Karonher

Hello - the first thing I notice is the groceries budget. I am sure you can get that down to £250. You should have an emergency fund, and it is hard to see what is being spent if a lot of things are covered by entertainment.

Can you go back over the last 3 - 6 months and see what you have spent on food/presents/haircuts/clothes. It could show you were the £1,000+ you should have at the end of the month is going.

MeenaM

well done on doing the SOA ! another thing that really helped me to figure out where the heck our money goes is to download an app like Spending Tracker, here is the link https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/spending-tracker/id548615579?mt=8 I would recommend it , but you have to remember to put in everything that you spend , it has helped us to see where it is goes and i would also agree on the comment about cutting down on the food bill if you can

EscapingTheAlarm

Thank you both for having a look! I agree that I need to work on getting my food bill down... this is a real stumbling point for me though as I'm a bit funny about the food that I buy and like to cook as much as possible from scratch. I'm still sure I could be better than this though... I'll get DH on it too as he tends to be the one to get drawn in by 'great deals'! I'll definitely look into that spending tracker too - Thank you for sharing it.
After the initial panic of posting the SOA last night, DH did remind me that up until September we were still saving (and then paying off after we didn't save enough) for our wedding and also saving a house deposit so I haven't actually had this much spare cash before.
I have enough in the joint account to save £1000 this month if we don't come across anything unexpected (like the Christmas presents that I haven't done anything about yet!!) so I think that's a good start. I seem to have a real issue with wasting money if it doesn't fit into a nice round number though. If it isn't a nice number like £50 or £500 I seem to discard it and let DH spend it on snacks... (Poor DH- he is wonderful really!) So I think that taking note of each bit of money which I can save is going to be my first challenge for myself.
I'm feeling optimistic at the moment so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays this way!

enthusiasticsaver

As your car loan is 9% that should be your first target. You have £1000 emergency fund but your soa has gaps in it and presumably the £1200 approx spare is available to clear the loan in about 6 months. Is your DHs car loan really 0%?

The groceries figure on the soa is high for 2 people but barring the car loans you obviously can afford it so that is up to you. Is the £400 for everything else an actual figure or just a guess?

EscapingTheAlarm

I agree on the car loan. I think we should aim to have it gone by the middle of next year so that we can move onto the next one. I don't actually know the percentage for DH's car but he isn't convinced about paying that off at the minute so I think that's a battle left for once the other two are cleared.
The £400 entertainment is pretty accurate. I give DH and I £50 a week each that we use for haircuts, meals out etc so the only time we tend to blow this is when we go clothes shopping about twice a year. At that point I tend to allocate money out of our monthly spare cash.
I think we've just been ticking along up until now but just not really bothering to make much headway with these loans as they haven't been our priority. I'm just hoping we can get rid of them now before new priorities sneak in...
I'm very envious that you are debt and mortgage free! Well done - you must have put in so much hard work! Do you have any tips that you stuck by to keep motivated?

EscapingTheAlarm

This weekend has the potential to be a spendy one so I’m trying to plan ahead...
On Friday I have a Christmas meal to go to. The meal itself is £15 which isn’t too bad and I’m going to drive so can’t spend on wine but I think I’m going to buy an outfit which will cost a bit. However, I’m hoping that I can get away with re dying a pair of jeans that I already have so I only need to buy a top (perhaps a Christmas jumper) which I can wear to all upcoming Christmassy events.
I’m also planning on doing all my Christmas shopping on Saturday. I don’t have to buy for too many people so the plan is to pay for everything out of the spare money in my and DHs personal accounts so that we don’t have to touch the potential savings in the joint account.
Fortunately, I have a mountain of work to do this weekend so I don’t think I’ll have time to be tempted by a roast on Sunday!
13 days until payday and still feeling optimistic!

camz2017

I think you are doing great and you clearly have enough to tackle these debts really well! Just keep at it, and make your budget realistic. I have subscribed

EscapingTheAlarm

Christmas jumper purchased! Only £25 which I thought was fine but DH wanted one too so I got him one with lights (lucky DH) and it was £34. He’s going to transfer the money back to me though so I’m not going to worry about buying it.
Two of our friends asked us to go away for a few nights in spring which will be lovely but of course needs paying for. Our friend is great at finding deals but neither DH or I have dared to open the link to his suggested hotel to find out how much it will be!! Hopefully DH will sort it tonight while I do some work and we can still salvage the money in our joint account. Fingers crossed!
Thanks for your kind words cam2017 and thanks for subscribing! If you tell me how to do it then I’ll subscribe to yours!
12 days until payday...

EscapingTheAlarm

Camz not cam! Good thing I’m not an editor...

EscapingTheAlarm

This weekend has been lovely so far. I had a great evening last night and it was really nice to catch up with some people who I won't see again before Christmas. Today, we started to tackle the Christmas shopping and we're about half way there I reckon. I'm going to look online tonight for some more bits and fingers crossed we will get it all finished before we have to get our work heads back on on Monday. I'm just about to start tackling the work mountain so thought I'd do a quick round up of the money I've spent...

The good:
- I only drank tap water last night (I do this quite often anyway as its cheap and stops me from drinking too much sugar) which meant that I only had to pay the £15 for the meal.
- I needed to replace two bits of makeup but instead of going for my normal ones (which would cost nearly £45), I bought cheaper versions for £14.99! I'm sure I won't even be able to tell the difference.
- We are well in budget for our Christmas presents so I'm feeling confident that we can save the spare money in the joint account.

The not so good:
- I bought a sequin top... I convinced myself that it was a wise purchase as I can already think of a few times where I will definitely wear it over the next few weeks... I'm not sure others would agree...
- DH wants a Christmas present and I'm worrying about what he's going to want. I'll try and convince him to go for something inexpensive or maybe even something which I can make!

The food shop is coming tonight and I'm going to make a cupboard dinner before it gets here to avoid the temptation of takeaways.
10 days until payday!