Living in the black

Yellow_mango

OK we’re back from holiday now. Time to get back on the budget and attack things properly.

First job - food shopping.

mark55man

hello YM

signing up for the ride. some of my comments might be on stuff you have put to bed weeks ago so sorry if overtaken by your planning

* SKY - I completely rejigged everything telephone braodband connected and for £70pcm get fibre broadband, all calls, sky entertainment + movies, and Sky Go extra (4 devices). I declined sport as too expensive but that would take you up to £100 - whereas it looks like you are paying £140
* as the kids grow up this will get a lot better so there is long term hope for long term planning, but I think not a lot you can do for the next 6-12 months. However please do make sure though that you are not giving away free money from your employers by not at least contributing something to the pensions (your future self will be eternally grateful if you did this).
* you seem to have organised your accounts fine - just be careful not to lost track of the ability to download transaction and spreadsheet them, which is my steady state way of budgeting (not in avance, but looking back and nipping bad trends)
* you do much better on us than grocery so that's a real achievement
* really try and stop paying for post teen children phones - it shouldn't be necessary + we stopped pocket money when they got jobs - a harsh lesson in benefits management, but they are never not going to not get a job because of it
* if your DC are at home and working, then charge them some rent (I did, put put it aside, for when they needed help with deposits for house or in my DD1 case needed a reliable car
* do start putting some more aside for uni costs, the loans don't even cover anything like basic costs so you should expect some expenses there, unless you want them to work significantly more than you would be comfortable with
* is there any way you could consider not doing the private school thing. are the local schools really that terrible?. My OH and I decided that we would not go down that route jointly for cost and being part of the local community (which was easier as we had 2 good choices)

The thing that worked with my family was the saying "you can only spend each pound once"

It is nice to have enough income (as I do) to be a bit soft on some of these issues, but each degree of softness is more money that in retrospect you will see as having been frittered away

Its probably too late for you to go down this route, but you should read the Mr Mustache blogs for frugality, that whilst it is portrayed as hard core, is actually quite thoughtful and challenges your presumptions - maybe get your DH to read it.

I had a snowball moment recently, when I realised with the amount £3K I am putting towards mortgage, loan and CC payments each month that if I could keep that up I would take my mortgage (which after 20 years is only just under what I initially borrowed) and pay it off in 4-5 - possibly in my 60th year if not before I was 60 - so as you hone your repayment machine, please reassure yourself that it is worth it, as you will soon be debt free, and then you will have a real momentum into saving and mortgage busting

hope this helps

EDIT: - I also have moved to simplify accounts and now hardly use my BC at all, just when I leave my wallet at home *doh*, but do have a personal bank account for work expenses which are £400-£500 a month but can be higher

OTHER EDIT: - even more hardcore on SKY is to cancel and actually leave, within 6 weeks I was back on the same package at half the cost. you can get a lot of the stuff from NOW TV for a fraction - but not SPORT

Yellow_mango

hello YM

signing up for the ride. some of my comments might be on stuff you have put to bed weeks ago so sorry if overtaken by your planning

* SKY - I completely rejigged everything telephone braodband connected and for £70pcm get fibre broadband, all calls, sky entertainment + movies, and Sky Go extra (4 devices). I declined sport as too expensive but that would take you up to £100 - whereas it looks like you are paying £140

we are out of contract with sky in October. I’ll see what I can do then. I really dislike paying so much for TV...
* as the kids grow up this will get a lot better so there is long term hope for long term planning, but I think not a lot you can do for the next 6-12 months. However please do make sure though that you are not giving away free money from your employers by not at least contributing something to the pensions (your future self will be eternally grateful if you did this).

this is something we have done. DH has a good DB scheme. I am currently contributing enough to attract the maximum employer match (I think it’s 8% + 12% match)
* you seem to have organised your accounts fine - just be careful not to lost track of the ability to download transaction and spreadsheet them, which is my steady state way of budgeting (not in avance, but looking back and nipping bad trends)

I actually don’t put detailed transactions on my spreadsheet. Maybe I should start!
* you do much better on us than grocery so that's a real achievement
* really try and stop paying for post teen children phones - it shouldn't be necessary + we stopped pocket money when they got jobs - a harsh lesson in benefits management, but they are never not going to not get a job because of it
* if your DC are at home and working, then charge them some rent (I did, put put it aside, for when they needed help with deposits for house or in my DD1 case needed a reliable car
* do start putting some more aside for uni costs, the loans don't even cover anything like basic costs so you should expect some expenses there, unless you want them to work significantly more than you would be comfortable with

our eldest is just finishing uni. She has worked a good deal, but I’ve ended up subbing her for rent now and again. I’ll have the conversation about stopping paying for her phone soon...

All the other kids are pre-job / uni age for now
* is there any way you could consider not doing the private school thing. are the local schools really that terrible?. My OH and I decided that we would not go down that route jointly for cost and being part of the local community (which was easier as we had 2 good choices)

For the moment it’s the best option. We’re not philosophically tied to it though, and will continue to assess if circumstances change.

The thing that worked with my family was the saying "you can only spend each pound once"

I like that :-)

It is nice to have enough income (as I do) to be a bit soft on some of these issues, but each degree of softness is more money that in retrospect you will see as having been frittered away

Its probably too late for you to go down this route, but you should read the Mr Mustache blogs for frugality, that whilst it is portrayed as hard core, is actually quite thoughtful and challenges your presumptions - maybe get your DH to read it.

thanks - I’ll check it out!

I had a snowball moment recently, when I realised with the amount £3K I am putting towards mortgage, loan and CC payments each month that if I could keep that up I would take my mortgage (which after 20 years is only just under what I initially borrowed) and pay it off in 4-5 - possibly in my 60th year if not before I was 60 - so as you hone your repayment machine, please reassure yourself that it is worth it, as you will soon be debt free, and then you will have a real momentum into saving and mortgage busting

hope this helps

EDIT: - I also have moved to simplify accounts and now hardly use my BC at all, just when I leave my wallet at home *doh*, but do have a personal bank account for work expenses which are £400-£500 a month but can be higher

im really liking the Starling account. DH even commented the other day that the notifications were quite handy. It makes it so much easier to keep track of how much we’re spending. I do keep kicking myself a little over the cashback we’re giving up though :-/

OTHER EDIT: - even more hardcore on SKY is to cancel and actually leave, within 6 weeks I was back on the same package at half the cost. you can get a lot of the stuff from NOW TV for a fraction - but not SPORT

Thankyou :-)

Yellow_mango

Food shop done. £129. A bit of restocking as we’d run the fridge and freezer down before the holiday. Also DH and the kids are home for the holidays, so it’s always a little higher. Hopefully that will last the week.

Nothing much else to report today. Back on the waiting game until we get paid again and can move some stuff around.

I’ve do have a few things that need selling. I’ll try and get those listed tomorrow. I hate the hassle of selling stuff :-/

mark55man

you're welcome. your pensions sound much much better than average, so your concerns for an early retirement can be ratcheted down a notch. your DH DB scheme will give you a sound guaranteed income post his retirement date, and your (presumably DC scheme) will give you some options for going earlier or (a bit morbid) is a very good mechanism for passing on your wealth to your kids - which they will be pleased with but you may disagree

just one other thing, its never too early to phone SKY and tell them you need to save money - especially if you are offering to sin up for another 18 months you would be surprised about what they are prepared to do now to keep you even for a reduced package

astrocytic_kitten

Yellow_mango wrote: »

I’ve do have a few things that need selling. I’ll try and get those listed tomorrow. I hate the hassle of selling stuff :-/

I hate the hassle of selling stuff too - it’s the taking pictures and listing I dread the most - but whenever I (eventually) get round to it I’m always happily surprised that it takes much less time than expected. If I have a big pile I also do it in batches of 3 and tell myself I can stop after each batch if I want to.

Not that any of this stops me procrastinating on the listing!

Yellow_mango

I hate the hassle of selling stuff too - it’s the taking pictures and listing I dread the most

It’s the posting / arranging collection I hate most!

Today has been a bit of a budget disaster. The curtain rail in our bedroom fell off this morning. It was a very old plastic strip rail so no great surprise, but we weren’t planning on replacing it just yet. Anyway. We ended up in IKEA...

£157 later.... at least we have a blind that should fit. Actually 3 blinds. And a couple of lampshades, and some kitchen bits...

I’ll take the fact that I managed to put back the £95 pan set DH wanted as a win...

Splishsplash_2

I’m jealous of your trip to IKEA! I love going but it’s impossible to leave without a load of stuff isn’t it. The kitchen bit is my downfall!

Yellow_mango

Oh the kitchen bit is dreadful! I had to try SO hard not to come home with a lot more!!

Yellow_mango

I’ve been settling back in, sorting out my spreadsheets, checking all my accounts etc. Some things I’ve learned from our holiday / first month of trying to budget, and things I’ll do differently next month:

1. Electricity use. I discovered from being away that we are using around £1.25 a day on electricity when we’re not even home. This is more than half of our total average usage. I’m now on a detective mission to figure out what this is and see if we can reduce it.

2. Buffer funds. Our overspending on holiday revealed that we don’t really have a good plan for dealing with that, and it’s clearly part of what has caused the debt. I’ve decided that a top priority over the next couple of months will be creating a buffer fund to cover the “unexpected”, irregular or just overspent expenses. I’ve decided to simplify a little and just have a single £1k pot for this, rather than trying to separate into categories, and topping up as required. I can’t imagine a month when these expenses would be more than £1k. I’ll keep this in Starling so it’s easy to transfer to cover spending.

3. On a similar note I am going to simplify other savings, and just throw everything we don’t need in a given month (once the buffer is full) into a single savings pot. I’m still figuring out the best place to keep this, and there might be a bit more fiddling here to balance returns and simplicity. For example I have a TSB account that gives me 3% on balances up to £1,500. And I can open an HSBC regular saver to get 5% on £250pm. I’m also considering a Marcus account to get 1.5% on everything else.

4. The first monthly school fee payment will be taken on 1 Sept. So I’ll use the school fee amount in August to cover uniforms and other school related expenses (all 3 kids need pretty much full uniform overhaul, so that will be pretty expensive).

Now just to wait until pay day again! The hardest part of the month!