Starting to budget after years of wishful thinking

savingholmes

Great news on the payrise. Things are going well all round for you! Shows how the universe steps in to help when you get on the right path.

LegoHead

Have been offered more money at this other job, but taking in to account travel costs etc.. there is very little change in take home pay so have declined and staying where I am. 

Forgot to do my finance review Friday, but will get to it. Might start doing every two weeks now as I think I have a good system in place for managing the money now.

Have a good day everyone.

LegoHead

Debt Now Total = £11797.20

Paypal Pay In 3 = 60.58x 2 months = £121.16 PAID 8th November 2021

Sainsburys Credit Card 0% till January = £1000 PAID 18th November 2021

Sainsburys Loan 9.2% = £6032.90 PAID 18th November 2021

HSBC Loan 3.2% = £11797.20
Savings
NS&I = £1025
Savings = £3072.49
Yearlies = £500.72

Debt Neutral balance = £7198.99

Fuel, Food and Disposable budget

• Separated all of these budgets now as fuel is mostly fixed, but varies slightly each week. 
• Fuel now comes straight from main account
• Food is now £50 per week into Halifax
• Play Money is now £50 per week into monzo. I intend on trying to save some of this each week for bigger purchases. I want to buy a machine vice for about £90 so savings bits left over from this fund each week for it in a monzo pot.

Checks

• Surprises in Main bank account? - Ebay item sold, put money straight into savings. Got a refund off car tax after selling my car so that was extra £34.16. Had to pay to change all my car insurance over so had to dip into yearlies account to balance a £49.06 spend on this. Garden waste payment just gone out, wasnt sure when it was due, but only £38 for the year. 
• Updated spending diary - done
• Review paypal, google for subscriptions - all ok
• All bills correctly debited? - All except British Gas taking £223.15 instead of £139 I thought they would be taking! 
• Yearly bills and budget- lower now without the second car. Putting away £224.67/month which is including 10% extra just in case.

Plan

• Rent into savings - my lodger now pays rent straight to my savings and it is no longer in my budgets to I don't rely on it.
• HSBC Loan - I have decided I want to get my savings account up to £6000 before I start paying off the HSBC Loan. It is essentially only a 2.4% loan so not costing me too much.
• Thursday Evenings - transfer all left over money in food/play money budgets to savings 
• look at alternative spending diary that I can import data into spreadsheet with.
• Investigate why British gas direct debit is so high

Waited until today the 1st as most my bills go out today. Not going to do the whole review every friday any more. Will change to roughly every two weeks now so I can start to distance myself from the complete obsession I have with looking at my bills spreadsheet every day.

Things are a little stressful at the moment. Don't want to be doing these checks, but know if I don't I will slip into bad habits again. Wages should be going up in December pay so pretty pleased about that.

savingholmes

Making progress. I find keeping a diary helps keep me accountable. I find that I control my £ better the more I look at it - so don't over worry about being a spreadsheet nerd. It really helps with changing habits.

LegoHead

Thought I would report back a little. Getting bored with the checks, I did do them over the weekend. Found some surprise bills that I sorted out and got refunded. 

Still sticking to my allowances for each week and doing well with the christmas shopping. Set myself a budget of £300 for everyone this year and well under that so far.

Being honest with myself and everyone now... budgetting is starting to get boring now, but I guess it is never going to be exciting. I am in a build my savings phase now having cleared everything apart from one loan. 

I have loads of things I want to do. Decorate the bathroom and kitchen is the major two. My kitchen has not been changed since it was fitted in the house in 1980! I have no plans for the next year apart from build savings and clear the last loan so big spends are going to have to wait.

Anyone got any advice to get through this boring phase? I need some excitement!

LegoHead

I keep having this nagging feeling that I really should not be saving the money and should be plowing every spare penny I have into clearing my one remaining loan. I have nearly £5000 saved now that I wanted as an emergency fund, but having it there is torture. I want to be able to spend the money.

jusferbrowsing

I'm sure others will give you more options but our savings and emergency fund (apart from about £500) is in stocks and shares ISAs which have given a really good return in interest over the past couple of years. The funds are available reasonably quickly if required. 

enthusiasticsaver

Budgeting needs to be seen as a lifelong skill/activity like cooking, exercise, cleaning and anything else which helps keep your life run smoothly. It might be boring but is necessary no matter how much you earn.  If you have things you need to do to your house and it does not take you long to save and the loan is at a low rate I think I would be tempted to  do the home improvements after you have saved for them rather than overpaying the loan and let the loan run on.  Depends on how urgent they are although you could argue if you have put up with them so far then another year won't make much difference.  There has to be a balance between saving spending and overpaying debt.  So maybe once you have filled your emergency fund you could split spare money between overpaying debt and a home improvement savings fund.  I would not invest in stocks and shares until you have repaid the debt and done the essential home improvements.  That needs to be long term savings. 

theoretica

I see it as a bit like brushing teeth - boring, good for your future and once you are used to it does not need to be a big deal.

savingholmes

You are doing really well. I had to plan out all the things I wanted to do after I was debt free to help get me through.