Single, six kids and going to be debt free!

Mumoffourkids

Seasidegal58 wrote: »

YNAB always suggested a month's wages as a buffer. If you don't mind me saying your emergency fund looks a little low for a family of seven - perhaps top this up a bit more?

The watersure offer appears very good - especially with the amount of water you must use for laundry!:)

Oh yes, my emergency fund was only just started in January so I have only paid into it for a month. I am trying to top it up to at least £600 but it might take a bit of a hit for my car insurance but that will save me loads per month which will go straight back to emergency fund!

In addition, I believe that I should be debt free by November this year. This is unless my one debt that appears to have disappeared resurfaces. After this date I will have loads to go into emergency fund each month. A month's wages would probably include a month's all income for me as I have not just wages, but tax credits, child benefit, housing benefit and two lots of maintenance each month. So once I have paid off the debts, that will be my savings buffer. I can't save too much though as that affects my benefits! But then I suppose if I don't need the benefits, then I should tell them.

Although thinking about it, I will need to change my car at some point, so I want to be able to save for a new car. It won't be new but will be new to me and the car size that I have to have is big and tends to be expensive!

enthusiasticsaver

Mumoffourkids wrote: »

Would that be a month's buffer for all expenses? Or just things like rent?

Ideally a month for all essential expenses which would include food and travel. I would not worry about discretionary expenditure like entertainment, clothes, holidays etc.

If you are changing your pay date to beginning of the month then building up a buffer for the end of April would be sensible as that is where the crunch is going to come.

Mumoffourkids

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Ideally a month for all essential expenses which would include food and travel. I would not worry about discretionary expenditure like entertainment, clothes, holidays etc.

If you are changing your pay date to beginning of the month then building up a buffer for the end of April would be sensible as that is where the crunch is going to come.

Ok so that's what my next spreadsheet will be to work out, essential expenditure total for the month excluding non essentials.

Yes pay date will change but I will get extra in March and my spreadsheet says that I will be ok until beginning of May. This is only because I have changed the nursery fees and decided to wait a month to put them in on Fridays. That gives me a bit of leeway and my nursery are very good, if I have to pay a few days late, they don't mind as long as I tell them. In addition my car insurance does not need to be paid this month so that is a bit extra to the buffer.

wishingthemortgaheaway

If you do pay your car insurance in one go, make sure you save each month to do the same next year.
When I was first able to do this, I continued to put aside what the monthly amount would be so that when the renewal came up I had a little left over to cover any increase in premiums or to have as a little bonus.

As time went on I was gradually able to swap most of the 'pay monthly' bills to paid annually, I love my little bonuses when I pay the annual bills.

f0xh0les

Mumoffourkids wrote: »

In addition, I believe that I should be debt free by November this year. This is unless my one debt that appears to have disappeared resurfaces. After this date I will have loads to go into emergency fund each month. A month's wages would probably include a month's all income for me as I have not just wages, but tax credits, child benefit, housing benefit and two lots of maintenance each month. So once I have paid off the debts, that will be my savings buffer. I can't save too much though as that affects my benefits! But then I suppose if I don't need the benefits, then I should tell them.

Do you have any savings for your children? I put in £100 for every year of their lives ( I have 4) then set up a kids regular saver at 5%. That way I drip feed it back into their accounts, they get the interest once a year in March so they can see how saving is best for them, and once a year I end up with £4k in my account I can use if I need to for jobs on the house .

You can vary the amount monthly, so if it is a tight month I can drop it down to £10, or if I can afford it then I do the max £100 a month. They get about £30 interest and trust me not to skip the country and head to Cuba:rotfl:. There are quite a few kids regular savers accounts with 3-5% interest, which keeps it out of your account, but is still there and easy to access in an emergency.

Drawingaline

I have a months buffer for all the direct debits excluding mortgage and loan payment. So with Jan's monthly pay I have filled these in YNAB for march. My bill account is sitting at around £2500, mainly because it had my tax set aside, Xmas, car maintenance etc in there.

I don't buffer for food and fuel as these are paid for with child benefit/tax credits which are four weekly, and I tried to buffet the mortgage, but it is just too large a payment to get ahead on. I managed to get ahead when hubby was unemployed as tax credits had to cover the bills and because he was off for a year and they are four weekly I had 13payments for 12months of bills.

If I was doing it out of normal Monty pay I am not sure I could do it!

Mumoffourkids

f0xh0les wrote: »

Do you have any savings for your children? I put in £100 for every year of their lives ( I have 4) then set up a kids regular saver at 5%. That way I drip feed it back into their accounts, they get the interest once a year in March so they can see how saving is best for them, and once a year I end up with £4k in my account I can use if I need to for jobs on the house .

You can vary the amount monthly, so if it is a tight month I can drop it down to £10, or if I can afford it then I do the max £100 a month. They get about £30 interest and trust me not to skip the country and head to Cuba:rotfl:. There are quite a few kids regular savers accounts with 3-5% interest, which keeps it out of your account, but is still there and easy to access in an emergency.

I don't have any savings for the kids but my dad has just set up accounts for all of them, so I could in theory use those accounts to save into and then use if I need to. I am not sure I have the spare money at the moment, but when I have paid off my debt, I'll definitely be able to do that.

Drawingaline wrote: »

I have a months buffer for all the direct debits excluding mortgage and loan payment. So with Jan's monthly pay I have filled these in YNAB for march. My bill account is sitting at around £2500, mainly because it had my tax set aside, Xmas, car maintenance etc in there.

I don't buffer for food and fuel as these are paid for with child benefit/tax credits which are four weekly, and I tried to buffet the mortgage, but it is just too large a payment to get ahead on. I managed to get ahead when hubby was unemployed as tax credits had to cover the bills and because he was off for a year and they are four weekly I had 13payments for 12months of bills.

If I was doing it out of normal Monty pay I am not sure I could do it!

Thanks drawing a line, I think I may go down the route of having a buffer of the direct debits to start with. And then build up to include the rent. Like you my tax credits cover food, petrol, and childcare. Housing benefit covers half the rent so the other half comes from tax credits and maintenance.

It's hard to work out what to save. My emergency fund should be at around £1000 by the end of the year if not more.

And look I managed to multi quote, thanks to the instructions. :j:j

So my to do list didn't really go too well, but instead whilst the youngest two were playing (read destroying the lounge by getting every single toy out that they own!), I cleared and decluttered more kitchen cupboards and the tops of half the kitchen cupboards.

Tomorrow three of the kids are going to their dads so I will do more of my to do list then. I was pretty ambitious about getting it down with two little ones, but most should get done tomorrow instead!

joeyjimbles

I think what you achieved with two little ones in two was brilliant. I managed to do half my list then got completely derailed by sitting down with a book for 'half an hour' after the laundry yesterday. Never recovered my oomph again though did manage to feed DS2 and myself so today I have been a whirling dervish since I got up.
However, I'm still trying to pysch myself up to go to the butchers and return something to Wilkos as they require actually putting respectable clothing on and doing something to my face and hair other than moisturiser and a brush.

Mumoffourkids

Thanks Joey, although your day sounds like something I would do :rotfl:. I start off with good intentions and then get sidetracked!

Today didn't get everything done and ended up being a spendy day. Although most of the spends were budgeted for. I wanted a new coat which I got with my birthday money. It was £85 but reduced to £25.50 in the sale, so bargain really.

Also got two youngest some new shoes. Managed to get them some in the sale in Clark's in the next size up so should last the summer. Original price for four pairs was £120 and I got them for £45. The money for that came out of clothes fund and some other bits that I had been saving towards new furniture.

In money saving news I cashed out £2.45 on a survey site and sold something else for £5 so I paid that straight off my next target debt.

Also got the offer letter ready to post tomorrow and will do a tip run on the way to rugby tomorrow morning. Am hoping to have about £25 left in my general spending account which I will transfer to my rugby tour savings. I have already transferred £40 from general spending to rugby tour savings this week. So that would be £65 saved in total which is great!

Storm89

You're doing really well for the savings considering you only started last month. I really hope you reach your target of Debt free by November & that that other debt really had disappeared. It will be such a relief and a brilliant Christmas present (plus all the extra money you'll have in December for Christmas!) .