F.I.R.E. Starter, the journey begins

jaydeejay

Have you tried meaningful money podcast? Lots of different seasons about all aspects of money and investing.
Off to a good start, just keep plugging away and you will get there.


JDJ

FIRE_starter

Hi back again, 

I’m newly invigorated by a successful Christmas period where no money was put on the credit card!

We’ve an £1,000 emergency fund saved and we have cleared our overdrafts which is momentous for us and the first time since I studied in 2007! 

No major changes since last post relating to loan as we are paying set amount each month with a remaining 49 payment to go (£20,874 settlement amount).

We have £5,849 on the credit card which we recently transferred to a 0% card which has 27 months on it as the previous one had expired. We have set a goal to increase the payments on this and have it cleared within those 27months. 

Since DH job change and pay rise we’re planning on putting half our spare money in savings and the other half to overpaying our loan as I can’t wait for 4 years to be debt free. 

All in all feeling like were winning with a plan. 

I hope everyone else is succeeding in 2020. 

FS

savingholmes

Welcome back. Congrats on getting through xmas with no new debt and an intact EF.

mumtoomany

Hi, have you looked at Frugalwoods blog. Especially the earlier posts. They have managed FIRE. Good luck, mumtoomany.

Timpanum

Good luck on your journey!
Timps

doingitanyway

All sounding great. Good luck.

FIRE_starter

Slight change in plan. Since the credit card is 0% and has 26 months left we’re only going to pay the minimum payment and then as before split the remaining money on savings and overpaying the loan. We’d like to have a larger emergency fund as DH is now self employed. 

So, so far this month we have overpayed the credit card by £170, added £200 to our savings bringing us to £295 in savings and the icing on the cake is a few weeks on and we still have our £1000 emergency fund in tact! 

We we made the decision to pay everything we can yearly as they are up for renewal to save money. I’ve added a list of bills we need to pay and which month they’re due so we have no surprises and we’re putting away what we need each month so we have a fund for this. 

All these things are probably obvious to others but I think we have been taking the wrong choice at every turn until recently. I feel like I’m on a high at the moment seeing the savings, emergency fund and annual bill fund going up and the debt going down! I think this is the best financial year of my adult life and as a result has improved my stress levels and home life. 

I hope everyone has managed to keep up there new year enthusiasm. 2020 for he win! 

FIRE_starter

Spoke to my DH this evening and we have agreed to sit down on Thursday after we finish work but before we both get paid Friday and make a plan. I was listening to an interesting podcast called Couple Money and the host Elle Martinez recommended money dates. We’re going to set a goal or in our case check our idea of the goals are the same. Then make a plan to achieve it, then comb through what we spend and assess:
1) does it help us achieve our goal - becoming debt free
2) did we enjoy it and if we did was it good value or is there’s a free/cheaper alternative. 

The idea is without judgement to go work through it all but I have a feeling that’s something we’ll need to work on. 

This evening we were talking about something that happened at the weekend and I could feel the tone change so had to nudge us both back. We’d had a picnic on our trip to London and stopped for ice cream on the way back to the train. He’d gone and got two snack wraps to eat as a side. I felt he shouldn’t as we were going home and if he was really hungry after the picnic and ice cream could eat at home to keep the cost down and he obviously didn’t agree 😆 

Still I’m looking forward to it. I’ve always done the money planning (badly as you can see from our debts) while DH prefers to just get on with it but without a plan and me not really knowing what I’m doing we’ve made some poor choices!

 I’ll update you after. Xx

FIRE_starter

Last night went well. We were both a bit tired but there was not a cross word spoken. On the agenda:
- Agreeing our goal - to clear debt ASAP and increase savings so we never need debt again and to make us financially independent. 
- budgeted our spending for the coming week (DH gets paid weekly)
- agreed how to split the remaining money - half to a debt repayment, half to saving
- made a meal plan, not necessarily budgeting but an area that helps us stick to it. 
- just for fun we also reviewed what we paid off this month which was a great moral booster and fab way to end! 
I’ll update the my signature when I remember how! 

Have a good weekend all! 
FS

FIRE_starter

Did a weekly shop yesterday which calendar under budget even with a couple of bottles of Prosecco for our meal at a friends house. We’ve decided to do two veggie meals a week to land on the days the kids eat dinner at the childminders. I think that’s really helped the budget. Also focussed on making meals that can be taken as leftovers for lunch. 

My laptop broke after 8 years and so we had an unplanned spend yesterday of £160 buying a used laptop from market space. I am currently a nurse but I think it’ll be the end of me if I continue and I can’t make the hours or commute work for my family so I am retraining and enrolled on AAT level 2 to eventually become an accountant (this will be a slow process with two young ones) 

FS