Babystep 6

ruby_eskimo

Every little bit helps as they say and that's a little bit of interest saved further down the line.  Hoping you get some clarity about the moving situation sooner rather than later.

savingholmes

Well done on the OPs

Clutterbuck2

BabyStepper said:

So OH let me know he already contributes to a local charity, £10 per month. And I've had a vague memory that I asked about it on here before and was reminded that giving clothes and items to charity shops, putting change into tins, buying poppies and badges and shopping in charity shops all counts as charitable contributions too. And I already do all of those things. Hard to quantify but a contribution none the less. 

There is a local charity I'd love to volunteer for but for a few reasons it's just not possible for me to do that. I'd love to give them a decent chunk of cash every month. I do feel that in the coming months and possibly years *gulp* of this pandemic we will need to look after each other much more than before. And I'm possibly in a position to help. But I'm just not sure. 

Maybe, as with most things, I should try it and see. I don't need to commit for life, just start payments on the justgiving page. Maybe I'll try that.  

   

Hello BabyStepper. Well done on the charity giving strategy - good on you! Just make sure the platform takes only a fair charge. You suggested JustGiving but they are greedy. They claim to charge nothing to charities but take 1.9% "payment" fee - BT Donate as just one example charge much less. As well, and worse, JustGiving add on 15% to be paid by the donor as a "contribution" which they keep themselves. Not many people realise that they are a really profitable business owned by a huge US tech giant. Make sure your hard-earned money goes to a good cause.

BabyStepper

Thanks for that, Clutterbuck2. I had no idea Justgiving charged fees, that's not really ok in my mind. I'll make sure the cash goes straight to the charity in future. Thanks for dropping by! 

BabyStepper

January is here and I seem to have neglected my diary. Usually I'd be making goals for the coming year and enjoying the 'fresh start' of New Year. However, given the state of things, I've just been treading water.

Work has reduced for me (again), but OH is still secure. We've had some more house repairs to fork out for but we paid cash so that was fine. House repairs seem never ending, perhaps a move would be a great idea after all. I've managed to hang on to the emergency fund, car pot is filling nicely but I spent much more on Christmas than usual - I needed cheering up. I made another £70 mortgage OP bringing the total to £260. Not a bad start over 4 months but I can definitely do better. I renewed the boiler insurance and paid outright so that's another DD wiped off spreadsheet and a small increase into the 'sinking fund for household bills' pot. It takes a long time to reduce all your DDs and switch to sinking funds. I've managed to stay on track though, and when the B&C insurance and life insurance come up for renewal this year, I should be ready. 

So what might my financial goals be for 2021? Umm...I literally have no clue. Increase savings pot for the potential house move maybe? Increase OP to the mortgage? Look into investing? I've done some research into investments and am thinking about S&S ISAs for me and OH, but not yet. My business account STILL needs to be better organised so I can pay myself the same amount on the same day every month (how long have I been talking about this??) That should definitely be a priority. Maybe I should have a list of business financial goals and keep personal ones separate? There's an idea. 

I'll have a think and post later. Need to figure out priorities. I hope everyone is staying safe and well and cosy.  


 

savingholmes

I think separate goals make sense. Are you still relocating?

BabyStepper

Hi savingholmes, good to see you. Yes, we're still possibly relocating, won't find out for definite until Easter though. I've stopped worrying about it, if it happens then I'll figure it out then. A good pot of money makes everything less stressful, so that's as much as I can do for now. 

BabyStepper

So I've set some goals. They're quite basic, but I'm not exactly feeling inspired. 

Business goals
I plan to take a regular (and reduced) wage of the same amount every month. Probably around £1k because...

I also plan to build up an amount in my business account so I can pay myself on the last day of the month, same as OH. This will help with budgeting. 
I plan to achieve this by the end of April wage. 

Personal goals
To pay all yearly bills outright and reduce the number of DDs coming out every month. I've sorted the boiler cover, now to deal with life insurance, B&C insurance, tv license and council tax. Car insurance is already paid outright, so I'll keep that up. 

To gradually increase mortgage OP to £140 (doubling it) to make up for the years when I didn't overpay at all. I'll start this after April, when we have more cash available. 

Keep saving for a move, and if it doesn't happen, use the cash to start investing. 

So that's it. Pretty basic, no grand plans for now. But I'll review the whole thing at Easter and see how I've done. 

I need a bit of urgency about all this, mostly I'm just dawdling along thinking 'there's no debt, so none of this matters too much.' Maybe I'll sit and work out exactly how much cash I need to make all this happen and then set a savings target. 

 

Moneywhizz

Hi babystepper, been a long time since I was on your dairy. Good to know that you are still on top of all things financial. This has been such a difficult year for everyone, I am sure you are glad you made such an effort to become debt free before it all happened. Just a thought, I can see that it is great to reduce your monthly bills and pay most things annually but I am not sure of the benefit of paying your council tax in advance. It is a hefty amount to save just to hand over to the council and given that there is no extra charge for paying monthly, it would maybe make more sense to add that amount to your savings. Also if you are possibly moving, sorting out a refund  just gives you another thing to do. I guess all your plans for doing things to the house are on hold till you know if you are moving. Will you be able to carry on your own business when you move or will it be starting from scratch again? Nice to catch up with you again. 

BabyStepper

Hi there Moneywhizz. Good to hear from you.

Yes, I still can't believe my debt free date almost exactly coincided with this pandemic starting. I never imagined for a second this would be how my debt free life would start when I was making debt payoff plans years ago. I'm so glad for this site and for everyone's help in getting me to that position - we'd have been in a lot of trouble otherwise. 

Yes, the plans for the house and the big holiday are definitely on hold. We're only spending on minimum repairs to keep the house in good order, and holidays seem so far away just now. I don't think I'd book one even if it had been declared safe, even though I'd love a week on a beach somewhere. How everyone's priorities have changed, eh? Keeping our heads above the water is as much as I can manage. 

I agree about the council tax, I probably won't pay that in one chunk. I was also wondering about the tv license, is there a fee for paying monthly? I'm spending a lot of time scouring our finances looking for ways to better organise things and maybe cut back a little more. It's pretty much ongoing. I even considered taking our car off the road to save on road tax, insurance etc. I hardly ever drive any more but I decided it was always good to have the option, so it stays for now. 

While I am working online, my job can come with me. After that, who knows. I will need to advertise in the new area and see what happens but I'm hopeful there will be as many opportunities there as there are here. Fortunately, OH's job keeps us financially stable but I'm very keen to build up my business. It was going so well before the pandemic but at least I didn't lose everything. I keep having flurries of interest that then die out after a few weeks. Very uncertain times. 

I hope you're staying well, it was really good to hear from you.