Give me some motivation! Feeling embarrassed and down about debt!

kimwp

Andyjflet said:

leannes_3 said:

Andyjflet said:

1 - Save £1000 for your Starter Emergency Fund or £500 if you earn below £20k pa

2 - Pay off all debt (except the house) using the debt snowball

3 - Save 3-6 months of expenses in a fully-funded emergency fund

4 - Invest 15% of your household income in retirement

5 - Save for your children’s Uni fund

6 - Pay off your home early

7 - Build wealth and give

Love this! We’re well on our way  

1) £50 going into an emergency fund as of September.

2) on our journey!

3) need to clear debt first!

4) I’m a teacher so pay 8.6% of my salary into my pension anyway.

5) we put £25 a month into a savings account for our baby girl. Not for university though, it’s to gift her a deposit for a house when the time comes. 

6) we’re probably going to now stay where we are, keep a smaller house, but have much more money each month, and not get ourselves into more debt! 

7) that’s the dream!

Just a quick point, you do these in STEPS. 

So you start with step one, then you are on step 2. So stop step 5 etc for now until all 2 is complete. Not to be done all at the same time! When you get to step 4 you need to invest more into Step 4 until you reach 15%

It may not always make sense to do these one at a time, just as it may not make sense to save 15% salary, the list is just a guideline of how to achieve things that are reasonably sensible.

leannes_3

Another update! I do wonder whether people actually care about my journey or whether I’m rambling to myself.. anyway!

so we put £25 in the emergency fund last payday to make a start. I set one up after being convinced by you lot on here.

Well, my warning light for tyre pressure came on a week ago. We filled the air up, but back on it came yesterday. Naturally, you don’t budget for these sorts of things in a month so I felt a bit worried about having to pay £120 for a new tyre. Imagine if I’d set my emergency fund up sooner. I’d not have had to worry and could have just sorted it.

anyway! Went to the garage and it turned out to be a slow puncture which could be repaired. £20 it cost me, which I used from the money we put in the emergency fund last payday. So sorting my tyre cost me absolutely nothing.

what an amazing feeling it was to just be able to pay for the problem without needing to worry about where the money would come from.

another reason why that kind of fund is essential!! Even if you can only put in £5 a month. That’s £5 less than you’ll need to find in the event of something like that going wrong. Be it the washer, fridge, your car or the plumbing. 

BellaLasagna2018

@leanne_3 you are not rambling away to yourself! I’m certainly reading your diary, just not very good at posting especially when others have much better advice than me. 

Very lucky that you had this emergency fund for your tyre! £25 is a good amount. Not too painful each month but your EF will grow quite fast. 

Andyjflet

leannes_3 said:

Another update! I do wonder whether people actually care about my journey or whether I’m rambling to myself.. anyway!

so we put £25 in the emergency fund last payday to make a start. I set one up after being convinced by you lot on here.

Well, my warning light for tyre pressure came on a week ago. We filled the air up, but back on it came yesterday. Naturally, you don’t budget for these sorts of things in a month so I felt a bit worried about having to pay £120 for a new tyre. Imagine if I’d set my emergency fund up sooner. I’d not have had to worry and could have just sorted it.

anyway! Went to the garage and it turned out to be a slow puncture which could be repaired. £20 it cost me, which I used from the money we put in the emergency fund last payday. So sorting my tyre cost me absolutely nothing.

what an amazing feeling it was to just be able to pay for the problem without needing to worry about where the money would come from.

another reason why that kind of fund is essential!! Even if you can only put in £5 a month. That’s £5 less than you’ll need to find in the event of something like that going wrong. Be it the washer, fridge, your car or the plumbing. 

Key now is to top up the EF as soon as possible, you do this by stopping other saving and investing and getting the money back into the £1000 EF. Idea is to stop you using the Credit Card for anything, I've been doing this for 2 years now and not used a credit card since then. 

RAS

leannes_3 said:

anyway! Went to the garage and it turned out to be a slow puncture which could be repaired. £20 it cost me, which I used from the money we put in the emergency fund last payday. So sorting my tyre cost me absolutely nothing.

what an amazing feeling it was to just be able to pay for the problem without needing to worry about where the money would come from.

leanne, well done so far

But your slow puncture did cost you - £20 worth of emergency savings. 

So this month you need to replenish back to £25 and add the planned £50.

With respect to baby stuff, you really need to start looking at charity shops, ebay and any of the other local second hand/swap shops. Do you have a community forum, facebook, whats App group where this sort of stuff is exchanged?

kimwp

RAS said:

leannes_3 said:

anyway! Went to the garage and it turned out to be a slow puncture which could be repaired. £20 it cost me, which I used from the money we put in the emergency fund last payday. So sorting my tyre cost me absolutely nothing.

what an amazing feeling it was to just be able to pay for the problem without needing to worry about where the money would come from.

leanne, well done so far

But your slow puncture did cost you - £20 worth of emergency savings. 

So this month you need to replenish back to £25 and add the planned £50.

Obviously it is good to have a decent emergency fund and that should be prioritised over non-essential spend to get it full or replenished, but I think if you are putting what you can in there, there is no need to cut back on essentials  to hit an arbitrary target.

Kakiste

In the tyre thing; I never buy new tyres for my car. I would be paying at least £95 new (for the most budget tyre) instead I buy part worn tyres from a local scrap yard (who fit them for me) for a grand total of £20 per tyre. 

No matter where you live, there will be somewhere selling part worn tyres near you. Its my top car owning tip.

comeandgo

TripleH said:

Congratulations,

To add: if people ask for ideas for presents, staircases are great (I bought my brother a couple) they may seem dull but you'll get more use out of them than a lot of the baby clothes  especially piece of mind

Can I ask where you buy staircases and to what use?  I have no idea what it is you are suggesting 

Andyjflet

Kakiste said:

In the tyre thing; I never buy new tyres for my car. I would be paying at least £95 new (for the most budget tyre) instead I buy part worn tyres from a local scrap yard (who fit them for me) for a grand total of £20 per tyre. 

No matter where you live, there will be somewhere selling part worn tyres near you. Its my top car owning tip.

Not for me thanks, I've seen crash damaged cars that have had tyres under enormous stress that then end up for sale, I work in the motor industry and couldn't think of anything more dangerous. The small patches touching the road are the only thing keeping you facing the right way. 

lemondrops69

comeandgo said:

TripleH said:

Congratulations,

To add: if people ask for ideas for presents, staircases are great (I bought my brother a couple) they may seem dull but you'll get more use out of them than a lot of the baby clothes  especially piece of mind

Can I ask where you buy staircases and to what use?  I have no idea what it is you are suggesting 

Someone bought me a staircase for my birthday, best present I've ever had! Makes getting upstairs so easy now and much safer