Trying to do everything all at once!

LiveLifeFull

Thanks so much Redo! I'm really determined this time - it feels different from all the other times I've tried to lose weight!

SavingAFuture

Thanks for popping over to my diary! Getting married is such a massive incentive to get my butt in gear to sort out my debts and generally re-think my attitude to money. Saving up for stuff is so much more rewarding.

I love your idea of early retirement and getting a campervan. This is something I would adore too - I'd explore all round the UK and then maybe off into Europe. My Dad is currently saving for a narrow boat when he retires - can't wait to start visiting him up and down the waterways of Britain! I guess we're just a family of adventurers. Even my Mum talks of running off to Peru, but I think that's just when she gets sick of work haha.

So, as you asked about wedding savings... originally we were going to do everything on the cheap but the more we discussed it, the more we realised that for what we want to do, it wasn't going to be £5k. We've set a more realistic budget of £10,000 but even that is quite low if you want all of the "traditional" elements. We're pulling in all the favours we can to keep it under this so we can also afford a honeymoon (we also love to travel - aiming for Hawaii). But post wedding I should be debt free (FINGERS CROSSED) meaning we could channel all our savings towards a honeymoon and go a little later.

It seems like you are in a good head space about your situation so well done for that and I'm so impressed with your to-do lists. I've had one tough year of plugging away at the debt with one more to go. I know you can do it too.

Best wishes,
SaF x

LiveLifeFull

Thanks SavingAFuture! I think £10k is quite reasonable actually! I think the wedding that I want is going to be more like £20k :eek: If we can save it, then its all fine, but if not, I'm not putting anything on credit cards etc, so if we cant afford it, we wont have it.


Still nothing much to report - had a lovely day out at Resorts world in Birmingham over the weekend - we had a Nand0s and went to Cinew0rld - My OH gets NHS discount in Nand0s, and we are both members of Cinew0rld unlimited - so the costs were absolutely minimal really! And it was such a lovely day! Only four more sleeps until payday.


Weight loss and exercising is still going well. I'm really impressed with myself actually. I feel so much better about myself already and I've only just started my SW journey. Its also amazed me how much money I've saved because all my lunches and dinner have to be carefully thought out with minimal snacking. So its such a win- win.


I just wanted to put in a little list of the goals I want to achieve in September, it makes the overall goal less daunting


- Pay £500.00 off debt by budgeting accordingly, completing surveys, entering competitions, Baying.
- Lose 6 pounds. That's 1.5lbs per week - drink 3ltrs a day, gym x3 per week, prepare all lunches.
- Read at least 4 books in September
- Write 10,000 words of my novel that I'm currently working on
- Learn a new craft; For example, soap, bath bombs, candles, drawing, comics
- Spend more quality time with family and friends
- Get my website and IG up and running
- Either get up earlier/go to bed later but use the time to achieve the above.




I'm so motivated at the moment - I just hope it lasts :j

LiveLifeFull

Morning everyone! Its payday tomorrow, so I thought I would do a round up of August and then projected spends for September to help keep me on track.


August:
August went pretty well apart from our hiccup right at the beginning of the month. We have managed to pay off £500.00 worth of debt this month, so I'm pleased about that. We did go to Nand0s twice too, which wasn't necessary - as in twice in two days. We loooove Nand0s but that needs to stop even though we do get 20% discount. But apart from them too things, its been a really successful month. Haven't bought ANY lunches this month so far which has saved me a ton of money and I've lost half a stone in the process. To sum up - I'm hoping to have another really successful month in September, but its going to be much much harder as we have LOTS of things planned and a week off work.


September: - Are you ready for this? :rotfl:
This month is going to be a lot harder to navigate through, as we are both really busy pretty much every weekend, and we are both going down to Kent to see family for a weeks holiday. I have a hen party to begin saving for in October, I have a birthday night out in Birmingham which I need a new dress for and money for the night, I need to go to the dentist, AND its my cousins first babies birthday this month too. AND THATS JUST ME. My OH has his cousins 30th birthday present to buy and we've been invited to his birthday meal, it was his dads 60th birthday which we bought Jersey Boys tickets for which have already been paid for, but my OH will need money for the day for a meal or something. Its also his older brothers birthday this month too. AND FINALLY, there are too very highly anticipated boxing fights on this month, (my OH is a HUGE fan) so we will be buying them on the tele to watch too.


ARGHH. Such a busy month :eek:


THE SILVER LINING:
My OH got paid an extra £295.00 this month because of the back pay from the NHS rise. :j We are keeping that to one side instead of just whacking it on the debt, just because we have such a busy month ahead. We have budgeted for all of the above without the additional money though, so hoping that we can get through it.


THE BUDGET(ITS HUGEEE) :eek:
Combined income this month: £3265.59


My Outgoing Direct Debits: £482.59
OH Outgoing Direct Debits: £132.40
Household bills: £723.67
Petrol for the both of us: £300.00 (OH works in the community)
Food: £250.00
Bank Charges for both of us: £53.00 (overdrafts)
OH Min Payment on CC: £30.00
My Cousins Babys birthday present: £25.00
Dentist for me: £30.00
Hen Party Savings: £100.00
My friends birthday night out: £50.00
Dress for above nightout: £41.00
OHs Haircut: £15.00
OHs Cousins 30th Bday Present: £20.00
OHs Cousins 30th Bday meal for the both of us: £50.00
Two Boxing fights on TV: £30.00
Jersey Boys day trip for OH for his dads 60th: £50.00
OHs brothers Bday present: £10.00
Kent: £200.00


TOTAL: £2592.66


Which means leftover for Debt repayment this month is: £672.93


If we can pay off £600.00 of debt this month, I will be so happy! That would be half my overdraft gone forever! :T


Sorry for the extremely long post!


Bring on September!! :j

enthusiasticsaver

I like your plan of not getting a £200k mortgage and going into BTL. We have explored it several times and came to same conclusion as you and it is no where near as tax advantageous as it used to be. People I know who have become landlords spend half their time sorting out problems with property or renovating them ready for rent and the other half stressing about financing them or finding good reliable tenants.

We did the same as you and while many of our friends kept moving up the property ladder spending loads of time renovating and paying huge mortgages we did not increase our mortgage and stayed put so our mortgage was repaid in our 40s. That gave us a good 10 to 15 years to increase our pension savings before retiring at 58. Would have been earlier if we did not have kids although I would not change that for the world

I am a fan of Mr Money Mustache. It is on our agenda to rent a camper van and explore the states and maybe Europe although we are now leaning to doing it using trains and hotels once our grandchildren are older and we are not helping so much with childcare.

LiveLifeFull

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I like your plan of not getting a £200k mortgage and going into BTL. We have explored it several times and came to same conclusion as you and it is no where near as tax advantageous as it used to be. People I know who have become landlords spend half their time sorting out problems with property or renovating them ready for rent and the other half stressing about financing them or finding good reliable tenants.

We did the same as you and while many of our friends kept moving up the property ladder spending loads of time renovating and paying huge mortgages we did not increase our mortgage and stayed put so our mortgage was repaid in our 40s. That gave us a good 10 to 15 years to increase our pension savings before retiring at 58. Would have been earlier if we did not have kids although I would not change that for the world

I am a fan of Mr Money Mustache. It is on our agenda to rent a camper van and explore the states and maybe Europe although we are now leaning to doing it using trains and hotels once our grandchildren are older and we are not helping so much with childcare.

This is what we realised too! If we got another house, we would be paying another mortgage until were 60+ and its just not what we want. We aren't really bothered about big houses and flashy cars, obviously we would LOVE that but we would choose life experiences/travel/memories over everything and we think this is the best way to achieve that!


Do you invest or anything? We will be overpaying the mortgage/maximising our pensions with our employers and then we want to save/invest but we are complete n00bs with that!


Thanks for your reply! I'm glad that our plan doesn't seem foolish!

LiveLifeFull

QUICK UPDATE:


Just been told that I get a 2%+ payrise with my wages tomorrow - it will probably only be about a tenner but every little helps! I also move up a salary scale at some point over the next few months! It could be tomorrow too.. we shall see! :j

enthusiasticsaver

LiveLifeFull wrote: »

This is what we realised too! If we got another house, we would be paying another mortgage until were 60+ and its just not what we want. We aren't really bothered about big houses and flashy cars, obviously we would LOVE that but we would choose life experiences/travel/memories over everything and we think this is the best way to achieve that!


Do you invest or anything? We will be overpaying the mortgage/maximising our pensions with our employers and then we want to save/invest but we are complete n00bs with that!


Thanks for your reply! I'm glad that our plan doesn't seem foolish!

We decided our priorities were travelling and having enough money to do that before before retirement and now, helping our daughters through university and house deposits etc and early retirement as my DH worked long hours and travelled a lot by car. Consequently we aimed to retire at 60 but could afford to go at 58. We have been in our current house 30 years and opted for home improvements/extension rather than moving.

We do invest or rather we have invested as now we are in drawdown phase although we are using cash/current accounts at the moment for this. We invested firstly in our occupational pensions by overpaying. My DH paid 10% and his employer matched it and I have a LGPS which I paid additional contributions into. We also invested in stocks and shares isas Just using a multi asset fund with low charges and a mix of fixed term investments (bonds) and equities (shares). I was a novice until about 4 years ago. The savings and investment boards here are good for advice. Mr money moustache also talks about it but as he is US based I follow more UK FIRE (financial independence, retire early) blogs. Monevator articles are good for new investors. We also have an income portfolio which subsidises our pensions and SIPPs again to supplement pensions.

LiveLifeFull

Thanks Enthusiastic! I need to take a look at some FIRE blogw, because at the end of the day, that's the dream isn't it!


Once we are debt free, we will be looking at maximising our pensions, as I'm only paying around £38.00 into mine at the moment. My OH has an NHS pension which is amazing, so it will be mine that we focus on the most, and then additional savings alongside that.


We probably wont start overpaying pensions/mortgage etc though until we've hopefully had a baby and they are in school, as we've noticed that so many of our friends and people on here get into so much debt on maternity leave or from paying childcare, so we want to save and make it through to the other side of that first. Then we will go crazy with the overpayments haha. :j


Thanks for all your advice - its really exciting!

LiveLifeFull

Argh! I just wrote a really long post and it somehow deleted.


Anyway.. I'll keep it short as I cba to type it all out again. I did in fact get a pay rise this month! A whole £51.00!! But I'm pleased with it, as over the course of a year that really does add up. I was also a little nervous about making it through this month unscathed as we have so much going on, so my pay rise plus the extra money my OH received, is perfect timing.


I also downloaded the NationW!de app to keep a check on our mortgage. Finally got onto it last night. Drumroll please... our mortgage stands at a huge £81,877.62! With an end date of 2040 which would make me 48 and my OH 49 when it ends! HOWEVER, we are not sure yet whether we will be remortgaging for home improvements or whether we will be saving for them. We want to have a baby in the next 3/4 years, but our home is unfit for one at the moment, and I don't think we could save it all by the time the baby would be here, so we most probably will have to remortgage. However, we will save as much as we can so we don't have the add on too much. I still want to be mortgage free before I'm 50!! We are young though and have a lot of time to really focus on overpaying when the opportunity comes.


Anyway, I'm off to Kent tonight until Wednesday, so I probably wont be posting until I come back and update you all on how well behaved we have been.


Hope you all have an amazing weekend! :j