Cutting up the cards and saving for a house - one debt at a time!

stokegal

Whoop! All jobs have been completed! I only listed the 5 things about an hour ago and my motivation was seriously lacking but I did it!

One item is a lego toy that should go for about £70 - ive already had a £30 bid on it and it’s listed for 7 days.

My shopping at Aldi came to £27 - partly due to the fact that Aldi had no food in and partly because OH put £6 worth of necessary items in (last time I take him lol)
I got to the toll and OH insisted on paying (Because he had put the unnecessary items in) so as I compromise we went to the Coop where I could get the things missing from aldi which came to £7.74

I also picked up the two boxes from Home Bargains for £11.98. This was a real test as I love a wander up and down the aisle of HB - after avoiding the novelty pineapple Jaffa cakes! I managed to get in and out with only the boxes.

Now we are settled in for a quiet NYE and will be aiming for NSD’s until Monday when I’ll need to get milk and bread again!

Happy New Year everyone!

stokegal

Day 1 of 2021

Plan to have a NSD today.

We have a joint of beef in the slow cooker for dinner and plenty of jobs to be getting on with in the house to avoid spending any money.

I opened a nationwide flex account just before Christmas - it has a monthly fee of £13 but offers family mobile phone insurance, travel insurance and breakdown cover. I already have breakdown cover included in my motor insurance but I’ll be able to cancel this at renewal (May 2021) and £13 to cover mine and DS phone is cheaper than any seperate insurance I could find.
The card and online banking details for this account were delivered today so I have set it all up on my phone and transferred my remaining food shopping money £82.22 plus £13 fee over and I’ll use this for food shopping going forward.

All DD due out today are showing as pending for Monday now so I have highlighted them in orange in my monthly outgoing Spreadsheet (they will turn to green once taken)

My eBay lego piece has had another bid on it so it’s now at £40 with 6 days left - I’m hoping for around £70-£75 so should get that.

I’ve also set up a new email for registering with survey sites - I’ve downloaded Swagbucks and Prolific so far. Does anyone have any suggestions for any others?

Todays 5 jobs for today are
1. Declutter 5 things (taking inspiration from @Nicnak diary!)
2. Put Christmas decorations back in the attic
3. Polish and hoover mine and DS bedroom
4. Spend 30 minutes tidying through office ready to go back to work next Tuesday
5. Convince DS to play at least 1 game with us rather than hide on his PS

savingholmes

Happy New Year. I hope your sickness eases soon. You are off to a flying start. I do wonder why you and your DH's finances aren't joined though? We pool our £ and have agreed pocket money particularly while clearing debt. There have been times when one of us has been out of work or the other has studied etc. There was no negative pressure around that as the money was always joint and big decisions agreed.... Just a thought.

stokegal

Thanks Savingholmes - Happy New Year to you too!

There are a few reasons why OH and I don’t pool money together - we only moved in together at the start of lockdown, he moved into my house and we split the house bills 50/50 - when the water bill increased so did his contribution. He also pays 50/50 towards food shopping and if we ever go out anywhere he will always offers to pay / go halves, even though there’s me and my son and just him.

He also earns approx half of what I do (although he’s just taken a new sales based job and his motivation is to earn more than - in a friendly competitive way not in a misogynistic way) he had offered to pay more towards my caravan as we both use it and if I was to replace my car he had offered to pay half. However I don’t want him committing to anything like that until his wages are stable (he will need to build up a good account base before he sees his commission ramp up) and I’m very stubborn 🙈 I was on my own for 3 years befor meeting him and my relationship before that was with a very controlling man who constantly wanted financial commitment as a hold over me.
I’m £1450 away from paying off a £10k car in 2 years and it’s worth about £7k - selfishly my thought process is that’s my asset. If I was to buy another car for 15k and finance 8k - he would be getting half of a 15k car for a 4k contribution. It’s the same with the caravan. He’s a good man and I know he wouldn’t screw me over if anything did happen to us (even before falling pregnant - he has far too much respect for people) but I want to keep myself protected if that makes sense (this probably says more about my issues than his 🙈)

I also don’t think it would be fair for him to pick up any of my debts that I occurred before him. The plan is to have enough of a house deposit saved up to move in April / May 2022. At that point we would pool our finances as I would be debt free (aside from caravan) and hopefully he will be earning a comparable salary.

I worry about being on maternity leave for 6 months and dropping my salary but he is adamant that he will pick up the loss of my income in this and I probably won’t be in a position to argue so letting him in more financially will be a big step forward for me, however going back into debt is not an option.

I hope I didn’t ramble too much then. I completely get why you would ask the question and having been on my own for most of my life (I’m also a typical only child) I do find it difficult to accept help and share.  Only today I shouted at him that I didn’t need him to help me out things in the attic.. as an independent woman I could do it on my own... (complete with finger clicks) - luckily he ignored me as this pregnant, exhausted, nauseas feeling woman I absolutely needed help 🙈

Today has been a write off in terms of jobs. I managed to get half of the decorations back into the attic and then felt sick so we spent the day sat on the sofa - DS compromised and instead of playing his PS in his room. We bought the projector in from the garden and he played fifa and UFC with OH (the projector screen huge so Connor McGregor was practically life size - DS was very impressed 🤣)
 

I’ve struggled with eating again today - every time I eat I feel sick and when I don’t eat I feel sick so I can’t win 🤷‍♀️. I’m 12 weeks pregnant today so am hoping this will ease over the next couple of weeks. 

I hope everyone has had a good day!

savingholmes

Sorry if I put my foot in it. I thought you were married (hope I'm not still digging!). It's right he should care for his pregnant partner regardless. It's I assume his child too... 

savingholmes

Sorry if the hole is getting deeper - I wouldn't recommend sharing debt with someone I wasn't married to

stokegal

Ha ha - no digging! We are not married - he did have this... “should we...” look when we found out I was pregnant which responded with a “don’t you dare... I’ll get married for love and not because society expects it” - the more I write the more I realise I have issues 😂

DS1 isn’t his - he is from a previous relationship but yes I’m pregnant with his baby now. (I’m sure this is starting to sound like a episode of eastenders 🤦‍♀️) he’s a really good man and would help out a lot more than I let him but it’s partly down to my independence and our current different views on finances.

I’m squirrelling everything away that I can to pay off debt ASAP and although he earns a lot less than me he has a good amount of disposal income. I would like him to squirrel that money into a LISA for our next home so that he can match the equity in my house currently. He however likes nice things and has never really had to budget before. Which has obviously worked for him as he has no debts, but on the flip side he also has no assets apart from some very expensive perfume and costly camping equipment.

I’m in no position to dictate to him on how to spend his money and he doesn’t dictate to me how to spend mine so just splitting the household bills 50/50 and then letting us manage our own money works for us at the moment. I know neither of us would let the other person struggle (this weekend DS had suggested an outdoor activity that costs £30 each and he saw the look on my face so he immediately said he would take him instead ot me trying to reallocate £60 from my already tight budget) and Im fine following this plan for now, but both of us are preparing to be more flexible when I’m on maternity leave to see what happens with our finances then. 

savingholmes

I think if you get chance it would be worth exploring your different views on money and coming up with a plan. If you are having a child together that's a significant commitment and if nothing else I would want a plan that safeguard's mine and the child's future.

stokegal

savingholmes said:

I think if you get chance it would be worth exploring your different views on money and coming up with a plan. If you are having a child together that's a significant commitment and if nothing else I would want a plan that safeguard's mine and the child's future.

Thanks - will definitely be something we talk about. I’ve sent him the link to open a LISA and I think when he sees the figure going up it will help him save

Parkyp

I can understand why your finances are separate at the moment as a new couple. My boss at work has been with her husband for 25 years and I find her finances so strange for married couple. He buys his families presents, she buy her family. When they book a holiday they both pay exactly half each. They recently bought a holiday cottage he didn’t have enough for his share of deposit so she loaned him it for a couple of months until his clients paid some bills 🤷🏻‍♀️. Each to their own but I find that really unusual. They both have very good salaries.