Financial Advice Sought

bpk101

badger09 wrote: »

This is the sort of SOA used over on the Debt free wannabe board. Definitely about personal finances, rather than company balance sheets

http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

There is also lots of useful information on savings & budgeting over on the main MSE site

The Stoozing calculator asks for both mine and my partners income... whereas I want to work out my own personal finances, not our collective finances. Do I just leave her income blank?

I’m assuming of course that it’s okay to get my personal finances in check and that I don’t always need to be considering our joint income? We share all bills equally etc. so I can just account for the outgoings on my half right?

AlanP_2

bpk101 wrote: »

The Stoozing calculator asks for both mine and my partners income... whereas I want to work out my own personal finances, not our collective finances. Do I just leave her income blank?

I’m assuming of course that it’s okay to get my personal finances in check and that I don’t always need to be considering our joint income? We share all bills equally etc. so I can just account for the outgoings on my half right?

Will you carry on paying half each when the child arrives?

If you only want to look at your finances then I can't see a problem with your suggestion.

tacpot12

bpk101 wrote: »

Thanks all, lots of good advice here... I’ll take a proper read through and plan my next steps.

ps: my wife has life insurance and pension through her company, I sadly have neither at the moment.

This is great, but be always remember that her life insurance it tied to her job, if she left it or lost it, she would have no life insurance, and you might have a big problem as a result. Remember, life insurance is cheap while you are young!

bpk101

AlanP wrote: »

Will you carry on paying half each when the child arrives?

It's a good question, not to beat around the bush my wife earns a very healthy 6 figure salary, me... a relatively healthy 5 figure salary (the curse of the creative!)

But yes i / we need to work out what happens financially when the baby arrives in July. I know she get's paid full salary for a short period then a percentage for a longer period during maternity leave but i don't know exactly.

I'd still like to go through the process of working out my personal finances first and work out where i can adjust spending habits and hopefully start to save. We are quite financially independent from one another in that respect.

Is the Stoozing calculator my next best step for working out my financial incomings and outgoings or is there one better placed for personal (non-joint) finances?

eskbanker

Up to you how you choose to populate the Stoozing calculator but there are a number of alternatives, ranging from MSE's own budget planner spreadsheet (accessible at https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning/) up to 'proper' (not free!) budget planning tools such as YNAB (https://www.youneedabudget.com/). Others are available, Google 'budget software' or read the threads on the budgeting and banking board....

badger09

bpk101 wrote: »

The Stoozing calculator asks for both mine and my partners income... whereas I want to work out my own personal finances, not our collective finances. Do I just leave her income blank?

I’m assuming of course that it’s okay to get my personal finances in check and that I don’t always need to be considering our joint income? We share all bills equally etc. so I can just account for the outgoings on my half right?

Entirely up to you.

The beauty of those calculators is that you can use them to map out a variety of 'what if' scenarios;)