Building the future!

beanielou

Lots of positives

Gemsy81

I'm back from holiday....and emerging from the mountain of washing!! We have pretty much stuck to budget....hurrah! We avoided the trap of expensive eating out by and large but extra expenses incurred in 'stuff' to take (i.e. roof bars) meant it was not as cheap as I hoped for.

Like a good little budgeter, I have spent the morning reconciling all my bank statements and moving money around to balance everything. The car maintenance budget has been moved to cover a few overspends, but I've justified it as I literally had just serviced, MOT'd and put brand new tyres on the car, so I think we're safe there for a bit, and I'll get back to setting aside the money in August. I've also dealt with a few big work finance things which have been weighing heavily on me.

Six days left of the month, and we're quite tight, but not really anything to spend on, other than a present for a new baby that a friend has just had. And one mini food shop to get us to the end of the month.

Have made the decision to allocate a space on the budget to 'child', just to cover things like uniform, clubs, sports etc. He doesn't do loads and loads, but it just means I have the money there ready and waiting.

Homegrown0

Hi Gemsy81 - just read through your diary from the start and it's amazing how far you've come already! All credit to you for grabbing the bull by the horns and tackling this stuff, even though it was probably pretty scary.

I like your idea of having a 'child' fund. I think i noticed a couple of posts back that your little one needed shoes (or something) and it came out of your personal pot? If you and your other half have separate pots for spending, does he also incur child-related costs in his personal pot? Just a thought! I think a child fund is wise to stay separate from personal spends.

School uniform time is always an expensive one! I've budgeted £100 and I can already see it's not going to be enough. My MIL is buying the school shoes though, as she does every year which is a big help. I'm saving as much as I can on the uniform front for DC2 when he starts school in 2 years' time.

You're doing so well on the quest to make extra money! Keep up the good work

Gemsy81

Thank you Homegrown! Yes, I've been paying for his bits out of my personal pot - OH will always contribute, and he is happy too, but he has spent his last two personal pots paying for a golf trip he is going on later in the year (normally, he would never budget for it and come to be begging for money about a week before he went....my new money Nazi ways (as he calls them!) means I have told him if he wants to go, he needs to budget and pay for it himself!).

I thought if I section off the child costs that makes it easier, and anything left over can go towards his Christmas presents.

Uniform.....argh!! Already spent £40 and thats just on the sweatshirts and polo shirts! Still everything else, plus shoes to go!

Homegrown0

Funny you mention about your £40 Spent! I spent £53 This morning on 3 jumpers and 3 polo shirts... uurgh!

Sounds like you're getting your oh to think the right way long may it continue!

Gemsy81

OH and I decided to have an exercise in either torture or inspiration, depending on which way you look at it :rotfl:

As is the case in most areas, there are some lovely new build estates going up around us....we decided to go for a jolly and look round the show homes! We will need 4 bedrooms wherever/whenever we buy, so of course we've now found the dream house. The price is whopping, we'd need to get our serious saving boots on, and have a tremendous run of business luck. If we manage both, it is within our reach (in the next two years - not next week). OH is still a first time buyer, I'm not - so the new saving plan, is to get cracking of one of the Help to Buy ISA's in his name. I've already bought a house previously so sadly am not eligible.

I'm having a surge of ambition in terms of providing for my family and our future, and it is driving forward my business plans with renewed motivation. I'm sure all self employed people go through this, but sometimes you just feel a little 'meh' like its all a lot of work, for a lot of sh*t in return. But having worked for myself for over 10 years now, I just don't feel I could go back to being a paycheque slave (that is not meant in a derogatory way....believe me, when it is tax return time, or when I've had a trying conversation with HMRC I long for the days of secure employment!). Now, I'm sitting here, thinking of new plans, possible returns and how it could all pan out for us if things go right

Budgets are my job for tonight, as OH at work. Its been a bit put off as we've still been a little in holiday mode, but of course its the 31st so I have to do it! And tomorrow is a big accounting day at work too, so I'll feel ready to go for August by the time I've got through my long financial to-do list!

Homegrown0

The motivation is oozing out of your post Gemsy81, sounds like you are in a good place to make some exciting plans for the future.

I am another who likes to torture themselves with future house dreaming! Well, i did. I was viewing houses for at least 2 years before we could finally afford to move and although it was torture, i always came home and did my sums and worked out what it would take to get us there.

Of course, once that's done there'll always be something else. There's always 'the next thing'. I'm in a great house now, our forever home, but the whole house needs done up - new kitchen, bathrooms, every room needs decorated etc but we'll get there. One step at a time

Gemsy81

A quick round up, now I have done budgeting, evaluated last months spending, paid ourselves from the business account and paid all the credit cards for this month.

Holiday - with accommodation, food, activities and the extra bits we had to buy we spent a total of £1031.22 (!), not quite the cheap holiday I had in mind, but an improvement on the 4-5k we spent last year that we couldn't afford. It has all been paid for though, not put on credit so I am happy with that.

July was the month of unexpected costs in terms of childcare and medical bills. I have budgeted to spend £4000 on paying ourselves through work. My mini target though is to only draw £3000 therefore saving the business £12000 per year. This is doable most months, as long as I make a bit of extra money on the side to allow us to overpay the credit cards.

I've overpaid them all this month and the balances are now as follows;

Lloyds cc - 5394 (15.9% APR)
Barclaycard 1 - 3002 (6.9% APR) .....I really should go and pay £3 off this to get it below 3k!
Barclaycard 2 - 3495 (26.4% APR)

I have £3800 sat free on a cc with 0% on balance transfers. So obviously I need to transfer over the Barclaycard with the high rate. I should have already done this, and I'm annoyed with myself I haven't. The interest on this card was £80 last month!

To do August.....

-Balance transfer
-See if I am eligible for any other 0% cards, I'd like to be able to transfer the Lloyds card somewhere ideally
-Get my ID sent in so I can start contributing towards my pension
-Get OH's pension set up
-Try and trace OH's old pension abroad which is about 30 years old but should have something in it?!
-Set up Help to Buy ISA
-Set up savings account for our LO, even if it is just a nominal amount at the moment
-My normal target of an additional £500 income (I didn't quite hit it last month )

With regards to additional income, I have the following;
- Chase up payment of outstanding invoice for work already done
- Get OH's ridiculously large collection of coins and notes valued (he does not want or need them, and I have a feeling they could be quite valuable, but I'm not sure of the best place to find out)
- Put old wedding dress online to sell...it is gathering dust in the wardrobe, and I have no desire to keep it when I got divorced 6 years ago!
- Put Jimmy Choo boots online....they don't fit me anymore although I will cry when they go!!

beanielou

Do the balance transfer quick.
80 quid is a lot in a month to save!

[Deleted User]

Great goals, Gemsy! It's such a good feeling getting a grip on these adult life things, isn't it? I felt like a proper grown-up when I started sorting out things like life insurance etc haha!