Single, six kids and going to be debt free!

JoJoC

Yes, I think it was fatrab that posted about the annual payments. It certainly would be a lot kinder to the monthly budgets to save up for these and pay them in one fell swoop and it's something I've been considering for a while. I definitely need a car pot - MOTs and services always catch me unawares and I've never in my whole life paid car insurance up front. Even our road tax is paid monthly to DVLA for both cars just because it's convenient. Maybe if I can do some sums and work out when everything is due I can see about getting on to annual payments for these things at some point this year.

How many different pots do you have?

Mumoffourkids

So I have the following different pots:
Christmas and Birthdays
Car
Holiday
Contingency
House
Holiday Childcare
Clothes
House Deposit
Other savings

The car covers tax, breakdown, insurance, mot and maintenance.

The contingency is just for general emergencies.

The house fund is for anything that breaks down in the house like the washing machine, freezer and for house insurance as I currently pay that monthly but it will be paid in full this year.

The holiday childcare is for extra childcare costs in the holidays.

And the other savings is a general fund for whatever I have been saving for next. So it currently has the spending money for various rugby tours in and will have the money that I will have to save for passports in. I have a spreadsheet detailing my targets and what I have saved so far for it.

JoJoC

Thanks for laying that all out for me - it's great to see how other people work these things.

Do you have separate savings accounts for each of these things or does it all go in the one account pot and split out on your spreadsheet? I just can't figure out how best to work it to make it simple and easy to keep track of.

Mumoffourkids

Those are all the separate savings accounts I have. Apart from the house deposit one, all the rest are online savers from the same bank as my current account. I also have two current accounts so one is for DD's and bills and the other is for food, petrol, pocket money and general spending. I transfer money weekly to each of the savings accounts and my general spending account.

I also have a massive spreadsheet which tracks everything. I like having separate savings accounts as I can easily see what is in each one especially when it comes to clothes and presents.

wishingthemortgaheaway

I have a feeling tv licence is the 1 bill it's cheaper to pay monthly by direct debit, but if an annual direct debit is cheaper let me know. I pay most of my bills annually (even the council tax) it took me about 4 years to switch from monthly to annual, and that's for:
Council tax
Water
Two lots of car insurance
Car tax x2
Home insurance
Union fees
Amazon prime
Website subscription.

I think that's it.

Storm89

I love the savings pots idea ,it's really helping us to stay on track too. I'll have to sort out a spreadsheet I think that's a great idea too to be able to keep tracking it.
Wishingthemortgageaway that's so good being able to pay for all that annually !

Mumoffourkids

I checked and the TV licence is the same amount monthly as annually so £147 at the moment. They have switched me over to annual DD which will be taken out 22nd September. So not got to pay monthly DD for TV licence from this month until August. I should have enough in the Household budget by then to pay for it. In theory if nothing goes wrong I'll have over £600 in there which is more than enough to pay TV licence and house insurance which will be due the same month. That will still leave about £400 in case anything goes wrong which I am happy with.

So this year I will have switched TV licence, Car insurance, House insurance to paying annually. My water I am on a reduced tariff anyway and my council tax is a huge amount to pay annually. One day maybe!

Oh and Amazon Prime I already pay annually and hopefully I'll be able to switch my car tax to annually as well. So I am getting there!

Drawingaline

I am paying the house and car insurance and car breakdown cover annually now. I was going to try to pay most of the council tax upfront, but have decided that my loan has interest added where the council tax almost gives me an interest free loan by allowing the installments.

I use YNAB which uses the savings pots idea. I love the fact that I can see at a glance how much I have saved for certain things.

The next thing to go to annual payment will be the car tax. Slowly getting there.

Mumoffourkids

That's another thing I pay annually for, is my breakdown cover.

I like ynab but didn't want to pay for it and also I get money in weekly so it got a bit confusing. I set up my spreadsheet to replicate ynab. I have a tab for my income and then that goes across to my budget tab where it sits in unallocated until I allocate it to the different categories. This then rolls over each week when I get the next lot of money in. I have loads of other tabs as well on my spreadsheet as I like to keep track of my money.

And in other news, last night was spent in A & E with my younger son. He fell and banged his head on one the handles on the kitchen cupboard. He had a nasty cut on his head so off we went to the hospital. It was ridiculously busy, so finally got seen after an hour and half by which point my son had fallen asleep on my lap. It took the doctor five minutes to glue the cut together and my boy didn't even wake up!

So today I will be one tired mummy and instead of doing a list for today, I am going to do a list for the weekend just in case I don't get much done today.

• Get DD3 to school for 8.15 as she has a cross country competition
• Take car seats to locak charity
• Clear small freezer and defrost
• Do Shopping order on Ocado
• Do tip run
• Phone school re DD2
• Phone gym re membership
• List ten items on ebay/FB
• Check banks and update spreadsheet
• Check work emails
• Look at wedding quote
• Change my sheets
• Washing mountain
• Take kids to their dads
• Take girls to rugby
• Clean bathrooms
• Sort out black toy boxes

I've probably forgotten loads but will add to it as the day goes on.

Mumoffourkids

So almost lunchtime and going to see how I am doing so far :rotfl:

• Get DD3 to school for 8.15 as she has a cross country competition Done
• Take car seats to local charity Done
• Clear small freezer and defrost
• Do Shopping order on Ocado
• Do tip run
• Phone school re DD2
• Phone gym re membership Done
• List ten items on ebay/FB
• Check banks and update spreadsheet Done for today
• Check work emails Done this morning, will check again this afternoon
• Look at wedding quote
• Change my sheets Done
• Washing mountain Two loads done and on the line drying, third load in the machine already, probably got one more load to do
• Take kids to their dads
• Take girls to rugby
• Clean bathrooms
• Sort out black toy boxes

Also been tidying up after the smallest two. I have also updated my savings goals for the holiday at New Year! So not doing too bad seeing as I had planned to do this list today and the weekend! Right next to attack is to list some more bits on ebay.