Attempting to get MF again...

South_coast

I don't think you've done that badly, especially after a second year of the pandemic (who was expecting that this time last year)?

Come on, give us your 2022 aims 😀!

savingholmes

I'm with South Coast - if you've used savings and not added to debt you are still winning

frugalfrog

My aims for 2022:

1 - Increase my working hours (self employed) to 25 hours (I also home ed my kids so quite a lot of hours used doing that)
2- Finish clearing the house of the excess we have accumulated over the years! - mostly to charity shop as I have given up on trying to sell. The amount of time vs reward is too small. I could be utilising my time better in my business.
3 - Have a fully sunk Christmas budget by November
4 - Sinking fund for all other annual costs - this was on last year, but I hadn't included enough for car issues, DIY, holidays etc, so I have increased my monthly standing order to my sinking savings account to hopefully cover
5 - Have £1,000 savings for emergency - hopefully by summer
6 - Kitchen replacement - we moved into a doer upper house 10 years ago and the last room left is the kitchen. It hasn't had any work on it for about 40 years so really needs doing. Our aim is to do as much work ourselves as possible. We are both quite handy when it comes to DIY.
7 - Finish my qualifications. I have been soo busy this year I haven't had chance to get any exams done. This has to change...
8 - Increase pension contributions - need to look into best options, I have old workplace pensions, partner has about £1000 in an old pension and I opened him a LISA a few years ago. We also have 2 BTL properties which will be part of our pension income hopefully.

Longer term aims:
1 - Have £10,000 savings (Dave Ramsey's 3 month savings) - aim 2024
2 - Pay off our mortgage - aim 2032 but hopefully sooner
3 - Pay of BTL mortgages before retirement age (aim 60 years) - 2041/2045 

frugalfrog

So, after 3 months I finally got round to looking at my aims... basically an updated version of 2021. 

Also looking at our debts, we finally paid off the 0% cc which has been around for about 7/8 years, transferring to a new deal when they latest expired. The only credit card we have now is one I used monthly and pay off monthly.

Only debt we have is the mortgages which I managed to get 5 year fixed before all interest rates went up:
Our home - £87,318 - fixed until 2027
BTL 1 - £103,000 - fixed until 2026
BTL2 -  £117,780 - fixed until 2026

Finally our income has take a turn for the better, then my husband broke his wrist meaning he is having a op next week, resulting in him having 4/8weeks off work... hopefully the extra work I have taken will cover everything. Will have to be extra frugal the next couple of months, I do have savings to fall back on and his income is only about 1/3 of our total household income, so hopefully we will be able to cover.

I've been trying to tally my budget with the increase cost of living, and even with the extra income we've had it is still in a negative position I will be reviewing today to see if I can scrape stuff off. A lot of it is my aiming to sink costs included in my monthly budget, but I want to be able to cover the cost of car breakdown/washing machine breakdown without resorting to the credit card. 

Is anyone else struggling to balance the budget

Aimingforthegoodlife

It is a scary time, hoping hubby heals up really quick and you can get the budget on track. It is hard to imagine how all the costs are going to look, especially by Winter next year, scary prospect!

savingholmes

Well done for returning. Hope DH recovers quickly. Scary times. Check out free food apps

frugalfrog

So my annual review!

My aims for 2022:

1 - Increase my working hours (self employed) to 25 hours (I also home ed my kids so quite a lot of hours used doing that) - pretty much done this, took on extra clients & increase work from one client. HOWEVER the huge increase in living costs and hubby being ended up being off work for 3 months!!! pretty much cancelled out any increase in income
2- Finish clearing the house of the excess we have accumulated over the years! - mostly to charity shop as I have given up on trying to sell. The amount of time vs reward is too small. I could be utilising my time better in my business. - ongoing project! 
3 - Have a fully sunk Christmas budget by November - did do too great with this, spent more than sunk for so there is £1000 on 0% cc which WILL be paid off this month when I get some money in
4 - Sinking fund for all other annual costs - this was on last year, but I hadn't included enough for car issues, DIY, holidays etc, so I have increased my monthly standing order to my sinking savings account to hopefully cover - this worked mostly, needed to buy a new microwave this year which is on Argos card payments, but other than that everything else was fully covered with extra left in account for the car if something breaks
5 - Have £1,000 savings for emergency - hopefully by summer - didn't make this, currently have £650 as had to dip in a bit, but that is what it is for!
6 - Kitchen replacement - we moved into a doer upper house 10 years ago and the last room left is the kitchen. It hasn't had any work on it for about 40 years so really needs doing. Our aim is to do as much work ourselves as possible. We are both quite handy when it comes to DIY. - still outstanding I did dare create any more expense with the lack of income & increase in costs
7 - Finish my qualifications. I have been soo busy this year I haven't had chance to get any exams done. This has to change... - exam book for this month, still got a few more left, with the extra work last year I haven't had the energy
8 - Increase pension contributions - need to look into best options, I have old workplace pensions, partner has about £1000 in an old pension and I opened him a LISA a few years ago. We also have 2 BTL properties which will be part of our pension income hopefully. - opened us both a NEST pension, but not added anything yet, plan to do some direct debit from BTL accounts when we have some money in them.

Longer term aims:
1 - Have £10,000 savings (Dave Ramsey's 3 month savings) - aim 2024 - hmmm not sure 2024, will see how this goes
2 - Pay off our mortgage - aim 2032 but hopefully sooner 
3 - Pay of BTL mortgages before retirement age (aim 60 years) - 2041/2045 

On other notes, we had a tenant move out in Sep, who left our property in a bit of a state, so had it empty for 2 months and had to spend around £1200 fixing & cleaning which I had to put to 0% cc (we all did ourselves, which meant hubby couldn't take on much work that month). New tenant in and paying their rent, so hopefully in a couple of months we can pay of the cc debt soon...

Savings:
£650 / 1000 - emergency fund
£6,538 - other savings (this is hopefully going towards kitchen & DR 3 month - need to up our savings game this year!)

DEBT!!!
£208.95 - Argos card 0% 16 May
£2211 - other cc - £1000 WILL be paid of by end of month & remaining is from BTL