Making money plans as a couple

steveouk

Hi All,

We have a number of competing priorities for saving at the moment and wondered how you would save for these?

unfortunately it looks like we may have to go through IVF early next year and are going to save to go private as time is against us and the NHS will take too long. This will cost around £10,000.

I also think we need to put by around 3k for a baby fund just in case it does work. and we need some work doing on the house next spring too.

shiny76

steveouk wrote: »

Hi All,
wondered how you would save for these?

Look at your current incomings and outgoings (perhaps fill in a SOA) and then look to reduce the outgoings as much as possible.

Put all money saved in as high an interest earning account as possible (subject to your attitude to risk)

pjcox2005

Are the three that you mentioned the competing priorities for saving or do you have a differing view to your partner as to what's required.


As above, I'd


1) Agree priorities and amounts with Partner so on same page
2) Go through budget and stick to it to eliminate waste, particularly easy areas like getting better deals on bills.
3) Go with regular saves (e.g. Nationwide 5%) as various banks. This will give you set amounts each month to save for discipline but also means it can be accesses. Given the time frame, investment options aren't really applicable.


The only point I would say is that IVF will obviously be stressful so you may want to think practically about how tight you are going to cut spending in order to aid savings. I don't think you want to add additional stress on so some points like £3k saving for a baby and house improvements may be able to wait or be reduced by purchasing sensibly (e.g. second hand pram etc)

steveouk

So at the moment we have a regular saver with nationwide due to mature in January think we will have around 3.5k from that. We have got to the point where all bills that can be have been reviewed or cut.
Talking briefly about this with my wife she says she does not want to cut back so much that we live like hermits.
I know that we can make some savings but she will be able to save most of what we need without cutting back to much and i feel rather guilty about that.
I am off work at the moment recovering from an operation so hopefully i can get some overtime at work which will help but my contribution is still small.

Our finances are not totally joint as such we have our own accounts but pay into a joint account for bills £600 each then £200 for food and petrol each a month into a joint fund. Think this is too much but we have agreed to keep this up and if there is a surplus we will just not put in for a month or two around Christmas.

maman

steveouk wrote: »

Talking briefly about this with my wife she says she does not want to cut back so much that we live like hermits. .

pjcox2005 wrote: »

The only point I would say is that IVF will obviously be stressful so you may want to think practically about how tight you are going to cut spending in order to aid savings. I don't think you want to add additional stress on so some points like £3k saving for a baby and house improvements may be able to wait or be reduced by purchasing sensibly (e.g. second hand pram etc)

I'd agree with this. I'm sure the IVF process is stressful enough without adding to it. I think there's anecdotal evidence about it being helpful to be relaxed too.

steveouk wrote: »

Our finances are not totally joint as such we have our own accounts but pay into a joint account for bills £600 each then £200 for food and petrol each a month into a joint fund. Think this is too much but we have agreed to keep this up and if there is a surplus we will just not put in for a month or two around Christmas.

You could get loads of help on the OS boards with cutting back on bills but you'd need to break it down a bit more. Assuming, as you say, that you're getting the best deal for utilities then you need to separate out food bills as depending how you shop/cook etc then savings might be made there. It's also unclear how/how much you pay for going out.


What's most important of all is that you and your wife share the same agreed priorities. If she's adamant that she wants to save some and spend some then you have to respect that although I'd expect you to argue your point of view too.


DH and I have separate accounts too. Like you we jointly pay household bills and keep the rest individually. What DH chooses to spend his money on is his affair and I wouldn't criticise him unless he couldn't come up with money for joint expenditure that we'd agreed in advance. So when we arrange a holiday or give an expensive gift to family or do some home improvements I'm expecting his 50% and vice versa.

Fireflyaway

In our house we first decide how much we have left to save and then decide on what project it's for. Put x amount in a separate account just for that purpose. I think it's easier to save for 1 thing at a time. Rather than spreading money, save for the biggest priority first then into the next one. There are some cool print offs that you colour in a section each time you have a percentage. But childish but it's a good motivator.

buildersdaughter

I think some of it depends on what you need doing to the house - how necessary it is etc.
The work itself may be stressful, so it may be worth getting it over with first, unless this pushes your time deadline too much.
I also think it is worth stepping back and thinking what you need to spend to make you feel good, and how you can achieve it. "Not living like hermits" can mean anything. You may find that you can cut down on entertainment / holiday expenditure and still have a good time. You'll get good ideas on here, and the Old Style Board.
I would certainly consider cutting down on Xmas and telling those close to you why, if you are comfortable with that (or say it's because of the work on the house)
You have probably already had a good talk with the IVF specialist, but I think that I would go to the GP, a more general gynaecologist, or Well Woman clinic and talk to an informed health care professional with a wider view. I say this because I presume you have a pressing reason for wanting the IVF sooner rather than later. Private clinics have a huge amount of expertise, but will 'talk up' their results. I am not advocating using the NHS, or waiting longer than you feel is right, but do make sure you have considered all angles, and forgive me if I am repeating something you have exhausted already.

I do hope you can find a way through this.

steveouk

Hi Many thanks for the advice.

*with the work needed on the house there are some minor things we can get done for say less then £500 eg replacing bathroom carpet with vinyl. We will then get quote for other things and look to do next spring.
*we had an impromptu sit down and went through money this afternoon and have allocated over 4k to work harder for us. Put together a plan to pay off the car payment at the end of the PCP term and we will be keeping the car.
*we have some money set aside for IVF if we need it early next year and have talked about trying turkey baster method in order to get swimmers where they need to be. Age is against us we are 36 so want to try all we can in the next 6 months and will see early next year if we want to go for ivf. I will speak to my GP when i see him next but i would think we need around 18 months before starting on the NHS even though we have already had tests privately.

I don't think we will be living like hermits we have a few shows etc already booked but don't seem to have anything in the budget for a winter sun holiday. Maybe we will have a weekend away.