Start at the very beginning.

Brindlebabe

I know I'm not very good at updating this. But I do enjoy it. And lurking on lots of other peoples' diaries.

Horrendous and expensive commute will be over in 3 weeks (and one week of that is annual leave!). So that will save around £200 in petrol. About £70 for monthly bus ticket to get to new work but that's ok. Plus if I get weekly ones instead and walk between new weekly tickets (If its sunny and I'm being organised) I can save a little. I had been thinking about a bike but initial costs are much higher, and I'm not completely certain that cycling to work will be the dream I think it will be, in view of traffic, hills, pollution etc. So I think bus in first instance then buy a bike later on if it seems reasonable.

Also my pay will increase! Not sure how much by exactly once student loan/pension accounted for but should be around £200. I had been planning to add this to mortgage repayments but husband has slightly different ideas.

He's been reading Dave Ramsays's total money makeover - has anyone read this??

Apparently he advises that firstly save £1000 you pay off any debt, then save 3 x monthly expenditure (about £9000) then you work on the mortgage. We only have interest free debt (£600 to Ikea, £2500 to my mum), both are being paid off by direct debits so won't be around forever anyway, but husband is now very keen to pay those off before we work on the mortgage (despite the fact that mortgage is saving interest too). I'm not sure I entirely agree, but tbh as long as we're paying something off I'm ok.

I know we should have more in savings, but we do have a lot of insurance so I'm pretty well covered for sickness if I can't work, and big expenses are insured, like dog, contents. My job is very secure, and I don't want to have any breaks from work, so I'm not sure why we require quite so much emergency cash savings. But I suppose if we can save it, and then its clear that we don't need it, we can always chuck it on mortgage repayments at that point.

I've upped the regular mortgage payment by about £12 per month to make it a more even number so that's something!

Hope all doing well.

BB x

savingholmes

Hi - I'm a Dave Ramsey fan - other than on his view of stopping pension. There is a lot of motivation to be gained by clearing debt which is why he strongly suggests starting with your smallest debt and clearing that. I was really sceptical but I realised that I'd never really broken my agreement with repeatedly going into debt. I could get transfer deals so cheap - sometime 0% handling fee for 6 months or 1.9% for over a year etc that I could rationalise staying in debt and just paying the transfer fee when it came up. Similarly, he says owing money to parents clouds the relationship and can lead to resentment and interference. He quotes a joke, "If you lend your brother-in-law $100 dollars and he never speaks to you again was it worth the investment?"

DR's babysteps are:
1) Save £1K emergency fund - it sounds like you have that
2) List your debts smallest to largest and clear then with the same intensity as a gazelle fleeing a cheetah
3) Build up a 3-6 month emergency fund
4) Invest upto 15% in your retirement investment - max out your company match and then invest the rest separately yourself eg in S&S Isa
5) Save for kids university fees
6) Over pay mortgage
7) Build wealth and give

He recommends you do 1-3 sequentially and 4-6 at the same time followed by 7.

I don't fully follow him - but have been following this approach for about a month or two (other than his recommendation to pause pension which we haven't and don't intend to and don't agree with). In that time I have paid off a store loan for a table which was otherwise due to hang over us 2 more years, I have paid off a CC that had our holiday on it. Then we had a stroke of good fortune and I had 2 ppi claims upheld and got a payout of £6.8K. By close of play tomorrow we will have repaid £9K. Would I have done that without DR? Doubtful - as I would have said 'it's only £' or let's buy a new kitchen or something similar as everything was on 0% anyway and I could pay it off in the term. This way though, I can sleep better knowing we now owe £9K less and our monthly minimum payments have shrunk. Rather than having 7 debts to pay - I now have 5. I now only owe £1.3K for my car (debt 5) which I hope to repay within 2 months. I hope to pay debt 4 by Christmas. Before both of these were only due to be paid next summer.

Prior to getting into watching him again in May and June, we had only paid off a few thousand pounds this year. You have to find what motivates and works for you. If it would give your DH more peace to know the smaller debts were gone - I would go for that option.

BachSoon

That sounds great progress BB. Is your husband one who likes to see results quickly? I'd second saving holmes' idea of paying off the smaller ones first. Don't know much about DR as haven't looked into it, but always think it sounds a good idea when I see people talk about it!

FIREdoc

Hi BB,
Wanted to check in to see how things were going - how's the new commute/pay? Any wiggle room in the budget for hitting some financial goals with these changes?

Brindlebabe

Hello,
FIREdoc thanks for checking in on me!

Obviously got emergency taxed in first month of new job, so difficult to work out a regular budget. Getting rid of the commute is amazing! I don't think I've filled the car up all month! Trying to walk as much as I can, all the £2.25 bus fares build up. Doing pretty well with having a M&S and a costa in the hospital (just saying no, and carrying around a small jar of instant coffee!).

Overall feeling not too bad about money situation just now. Husband is delaying getting his passport sorted (for reasons I can't work out, he thinks its a bit stressful) which means no big payments for holidays at the moment. Have set up a £200 direct debit to a holiday account each month (£400 in so far) so when we do go on a foreign holiday it can be paid for out of that.

Other exciting news: I got a Glastonbury ticket! Not very money saving, but I haven't been for more than a decade, and I love it. And I missed it last year when the Cure played, so it seems reasonable. I have until April to pay the £200 balance anyway... Might use the money saved on Council tax is Feb/March for that!

Hope you're all trundling on ok. Will catch up with some of the diaries when I have more time!
Have to go to work now...

BB x

jodles16

Hey BB! We also have a brindle staffy cross, and a brindle staffy, best dogs ever!

The balance is so tricky to get right, Glastonbury tickets is amazing and definately worth it! I love holidays, in fact have reduced my OPs to help finance a holiday we have just been on and one for next year...oops!

You will find some balance, and feeling good about your financial situation is half the battle!


Best of luck!

Jodles

Brindlebabe

Thanks Jodles. I think you’re right about recognising how feeling good (or at least not feeling bad) about your financial situation is an important part of all this.

Reading other people’s threads, none of us really want to be rich, we just all want to be out of debt and free to relax a bit in later (or earlier) life. And why not?? Also, yes, Brindle Staffies are the absolute best! Although I basically love all bull breeds (and basically all doggies for that matter!)

Week seems to be going ok so far. I worked all weekend so no time for spending. Trying to love out of the cupboards this week, (although did spend £35 in Tesc* last night( only went there to buy a beer to enjoy during bake off and a loaf of bread but came out with various ‘essentials’. Never mind, none of it will get wasted.

Latest plan is to get a coffee table for some of the house plants so they can sit a bit nearer the window. They’re currently quietly dying in the corner. Will try Freecycle first, then charity shops when I get a bit of time (maybe next week when I’m on nights).

Will endeavour to keep you updated.

No overpayments just now (except from my £11 regular - just to make up to an even number). Will wait for payday again and see where we are if my tax code has been sorted.

Oh, there was one exciting piece of post. Apparently my student loan has less than 2 years to go according to the slc predictions (although I don’t think £8000 in 2 years is really right) so they’re suggesting I switch to direct debits, surely if I do that I’ll be paying more tax? Currently it comes off my salary before I see it, so presumably tax exempt? I’m inclined to leave it how it is until it’s realistic to pay it off at once - advice welcomed...

Have a good day MFWs
BBx

savingholmes

Congrats on the Glastonbury ticket. It's important to allow yourself thing to look forward to and some 'guilt-free' spends. It helps you stay motivated

Brindlebabe

Quick update..

Feeling a bit skint at the moment.
Have had a splurgy time (not really clear what we've been splurging on!). Just seemed to forget about budgeting for a couple of months and amazing how fast the £1000 'buffer' disappears. My husband's mental health (and also my mental health) have been up and down since before we moved in, and for various reasons: lack of daylight, new neighbours, work patterns, poor doggy daughter having a bad leg, things have been a bit rubbish again lately.
My husband sometimes spends on things to compensate for this, so he's got into comic collecting recently, which was okay, and potentially some of the comics will be very sellable so its a bit like an investment rather than lost money, but it has hit the bank account quite hard. Also a couple of other things to try to cheer us/hiim up, and when he spends I always thing: 'well, if he's going spend, why shouldn't I? So I relapse into buying coffee and sandwiches at work when I would usually go without or make my own.

So, long story short, we're a bit skint at the moment.
Mental health seems to be coming out the other side (hopefully) so, now we've reflected on this a bit. The positives: there isn't any new debt, could have been worse, some of the comics are potentially worth something. The negatives: we have lost our buffer, we have filled up our small spare room with stuff we don't really need.

Anyway, back on the straight and narrow for now. A work and a family Christmas meal out to pay for, plus I need a haircut, but really going to try to avoid spending on unplanned things.
I've booked an hour's massage for next week for £20 at the local massage training place, its cheap because they do 4 massages in the same room, with a curtain between, but I don't mind about that. I shall be too busy relaxing to remember there are other people around.

Very difficult time of year to resist spending. I hate the adverts all the time! I'm going to cancel the TV license after watching the election (that's £160 per year!) and remember not to get it back until there's something really worth it on! (I might be tempted now Wales have qualified for Euro 2020 though)

Bb

Brindlebabe

One other thing.
HMRC got in touch to let me know I have a £2500 tax bill that they (for a reason that I don't understand) can't reclaim by changing my tax code... So I've had to set up a direct debit of £100/month for 2 years to pay off. Which is flipping annoying. I have a few Direct debits finishing soon (IK*A loan for the furniture when we moved in £88/month) finishes in January so I was looking forward to using that towards savings/mortgage. It's because my job/pay changes in the middle of tax year almost every year and the tax people can't keep up with it.

Anyway, its just annoying.
At least they don't want it all back straight away. Then I'd be really in trouble!