Aligning the Stars

DrSpendLittle

Great to see you more chirpy, Star! Really good news on being in the £10Ks. You'll be debt neutral before you know it!

[Deleted User]

You're so close to 4-digit debt, how exciting! Good luck for your upcoming exam, I'm sure you'll ace it. You always sound so determined, I need a slice of your motivation and self-discipline!

Starmummy

Moguline wrote: »

You're so close to 4-digit debt, how exciting! Good luck for your upcoming exam, I'm sure you'll ace it. You always sound so determined, I need a slice of your motivation and self-discipline!

Thank you.
I think I'll reach the 4 digit debt in May, I can only over pay by a certain amount on my loan, so that's why I've started accounting for net worth too. That way I can save up to pay the balance in bulk if I choose to and pay it quicker that way.

Starmummy

Hello Lovelies,

I feel full of things to chat about this morning and I'm feeling so positive.

Mr Star came home for the weekend, we had a lovely kid free hour at the pub (where we had our first date) on Friday night, he took charge of all child related stuff this weekend too, and did a little food shop to keep us fed until my Guosto box arrives tomorrow (I got a fab code which meant 4 x 2 people dinners for £15). He is wonderful and I need to make sure I tell him that more.
His car came at 6 am to take him to the airport for a week in America this morning.
The US trips are the worst as the time difference mean we rarely get time to actually talk on the phone. At least it is only a week. This week is preoccupied with Exams anyway.

Speaking of exams, I managed 12 hours of study this weekend, If I can keep up the pace until Friday I'll be flying through the exam. Which (along with some admin bits) should see me fully qualified/member of my professional qualification body by June. I plan to take the rest of the year off from studying, then I hope to look into financing an MBA (either through work, saving up or post-grad student loan)

I keep racking my brains on how where to place all the money filling up my various savings goals. I think that subject needs a post of it's own though.


It's funny how mindset changes. When I started on my DF journey my goal was to get rid of the debt so I could afford nice things (fancy restaurants, designer bags etc) Now that all seems like such a waste. My focus now is personal wealth, not being flash.
For example, my original plan was to buy myself a designer handbag when I qualified that I could use for work. Now, I have decided to buy myself a new perfume instead. That way I can put £400 that I would have spent into my house deposit savings, and every time I wear my new perfume I can associate the new smell with success and achieving goals.
Same with cars, I planned to treat myself to a brand new car once a reached a certain salary level. silly! My current lifestyle doesn't require a car, why on earth would i spend thousands of pounds on a depreciating asset. I will buy a car at some point if I need it for commuting, but it won't be new or flash.

I think I could just keep on chatting today. So many thoughts running havoc in my little head. :rotfl:

Take care
SM

Starmummy

I have 3 main savings goals broken down as follows

Goal 1- EF
This can be split i two.
£1,000 in EF (need easy access)
£5,000 in F*ck it Fund (if I find myself out of work or there is a big lifestyle change)

Goal 2 -House Deposit
My initial aim is £20k. Although depending on when we plan to move I'd like to have this at £40k in an ideal world.

Goal 3 - Pension
At the moment I have just £10k saved for retirement. I am 30 ATM, I'd like to have at least twice my salary saved by the time I'm 40. If I'm being extra ambitious I'd realllllly like £500k by retirement. Ambitious!

Currently my savings pots are as below.
£1,100.27 in an easy access (earns just 0.15% interest :eek:)
£300 in a regular saver linked to CA (earns 5% for 12 months- max contribution £300pcm)
£694 in a LISA (no interest rate as it is a S&S LISA)
the pension sits between a grouped pension pot and my work scheme.

Due to the max I can overpay on debt I aim to save between £700-£800 pcm.

My general plan is as follows.
Leave £1,000 of goal 1 in the easy access.
Save the max £300 into the regular saver. At the end of the year when it transfers out move the total to an ISA and restart the regular saver. The ISA amount can then either go towards paying the balance off my debt or stay there as my F*ck it fund. (should be about £3670 at this point)
The max I can put in the LISA each tax year is £4000 (then I can max the govt bonus) Obviously this isn't enough to be saving to have a house deposit.

Things I need to consider.
Where else can I save the house deposit aside the LISA?
Where is the most efficient place to save the F*ck it Fund (needs to be fairly easy access but I'd like to actually earn some interest)
Should I re-pay the loan early or not (loan 3%- natural run date Sep 21 )
Do I have my F it fund in place before saving over the £4k pa towards the house deposit.

It's all so much to think about. Nice problems to have I suppose.
I am lucky that I am tackling this all now instead of still blindly spending above my means and wondering why I can't afford to get on the housing ladder.

Starmummy

Well done if you made it to the end of the last two posts :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

redofromstart

Starmummy wrote: »

Well done if you made it to the end of the last two posts :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

i did

I have an easy access account with Marcus at 1.5%. Not so easy access that I just dip into it from the current account banking app, but easy enough to log on and move money in a genuine emergency. That's ten times as much interest as you get at the moment!

Starmummy

That is the account I was looking at to build the F It Fund.
I shall see about applying and whizzing some ££ over this week.

And thank you for reading all that brain fart

redofromstart

I cleared £80 interest out of the 5% regular saver that matured this week, £250 per month. Its the £3k fixed emergency pot that cycles through the regular saver on the basis I could always take it out if I had to. I could just leave it in the easy access attached to my current account but at 0.45% it would have earned £8 or so. I think. And I would probably have dipped into it for some temporary crisis.

Robin09

Love the perfume idea - the sweet smell of success

Not quite the same but I know how it feels to have your partner away for the majority of the time. My DH worked away for 11 years, coming home for weekends mainly. I would be so tired after looking after the house and kids, plus working, he would come home, hype them up and be gone again before I knew it. Was really hard going at times. It took me a good few months to get used to him being here again when he got a local job :rotfl: