Managing Mat Leave

FacelessNumber

I've been meaning to start a diary thread on here for a little while. I'm due to start mat leave in 8 weeks which was not entirely planned, meaning from a financial point of view it's a little tight. Definitely manageable but we need to keep track of a few things as we have some debts we're paying off as well.

I'm hoping that starting a diary here will keep me accountable as I keep an eye on our spending, and get back into the habit of using deals/vouchers/cash back and shopping around.

Rough outline of what we owe:
Family member £10300
CC 1 - 0% £4731 (£2900 of this has been ticking along for a while, we are about to add a £1900 hmrc bill to it in order to spread the cost out)
CC 2 - £666.30 - normally pay this one every month

In savings:
Easy to access - approx £3000
In long term savings - approx £3300

All of this is easily manageable when we're both working but as our income will be cut over the next year we need to be more active in managing our money.

My first job is to get a new 0% card as this one runs out next month, so I will be looking into that tomorrow. I'm hoping to transfer all of the current CC debt onto it so that we don't have to worry about interest, then I can just chip away at it as we're able to. I'll post more details over the next couple of days and posts so this first one doesn't get too overwhelming!

I've read diaries here for years, I find it so motivating, so am now joining you in the hopes of keeping track!

FacelessNumber

Well we already require a slight change of plan! I didn't realize we couldn't pay HMRC on a credit card so that will come out of savings instead. 

This means we really need to try and up our savings in the next couple of months, and then will possibly end up getting a 0% purchases credit card towards the end of mat leave when it's clear how much of a gap we have to bridge. 

A bit frustrating but doesn't really make a drastic difference overall, the money is just going out a bit earlier than I'd like it to!

FacelessNumber

Still haven't pulled my exact figures together to track where we are, but HMRC bill paid today so our easy access savings are down to £1000ish. Focus for the next 4 months whilst I have full pay is to build this up as much as possible.

Money Saving activities today:
*Reduced gas and electric DD by £70 per month, we currently have a huge amount of credit (around £800). Once we get through the next couple of months I will decide how much of a refund to request.
*Resisted buying a coffee twice today - definite win!
*Ate planned meals - we are trying to avoid top up shops as this is a problem area for us, my husband does the shopping though and is physically incapable of sticking to a list 100%
*Not today but inspired by another diary on here I decided to 'shop from home' and found a notebook to use as a planner for the year rather than buy a new one. We have loads of notebooks around so this is a no brainer really!

Could have done better:
*A bit of poor planning meant I had to pop into a shop to buy dog poo bags which were more expensive than I'd normally buy - £1
*Also poor planning meant I bought a bottle of water I should have brought from home - £0.80

Pollie

Apparently a lot of people use nappy sacks instead of dog poop bags but you need to ensure that you buy the thicker ones. Not a dog owner so can't confirm their efficacy.

Floss

Have you had a forecast of your income while on mat leave, and can you spread your pay across the whole period rather than having some months of no income?

FacelessNumber

Thanks for your comment, I'm not worried about having it spread out as I'm generally good at managing our money and can do this myself and keep on top of it. But would definitely be useful to get a forecast so I can get some accurate figures worked out!

I'm mostly just trying to focus a little more on money, as we are fortunately in a position where we don't need to most of the time so have got out of the habit of it. All of our debt has been planned for for certain things, it's just the unexpected need to take mat leave that has thrown us off a bit! Plus the inevitable extra costs of having a second child, such as childcare when I go back to work.

I appreciate you reading and leaving a suggestion, thank you!

FacelessNumber

Good morning to anyone reading! I have been keeping track of spending over the last few days, and updating my money spreadsheets much more frequently. I had got into the habit of only really updating once or twice a month which was fine, but now I'm really concentrating on it I'm hopefully going to reduce the amount of money that just mindlessly disappears!

So first here is what's been spent over the last few days:
11th Jan:
1.30 - crisps for packed lunch, definitely should have brought some from home!
1.10 - parking at the hospital, this is on street parking which is much cheaper than the hospital so happy with this
50.00 - paid off loan to family member

12th Jan:
18.75 - bought some storage drawers for crafting stuff, mine and my sons, reasonable price for what we wanted after keeping an eye out for some for a while
15.70 - takeaway, first one we've had in over 2 months so although it wasn't planned I'm OK with this spend. We had unexpected changes to our evening which meant that neither of us had time to cook our originally planned dinner.

13th Jan:
8.60 - was my turn to buy coffees with a friend, again no problem with this as an occasional thing
6.00 - gift for someone, managed to get this half price
15.10 - top up groceries, I'm struggling to keep grocery costs down, partly because I have to be on a very specific diet when pregnant unfortunately, more about this in a future post I think!
17.97 - toiletries - stocked up on shampoo, conditioner and toothpaste from home bargains whilst I was out and about, have added a new line to the budget for household / toiletries

Good things I've been doing:
*Keeping an eye on the budget much more closely, I've added a lot more categories which would have all been lumped together in 'misc' before in order to try and keep a better eye on what we're spending and what could be improved.
*Packed lunches every day - again the restrictive diet kind of helps with this as I can't just go and buy a sandwich
*Sorted some books to Ziffit, I'll be doing the first few today, having to do these gradually as I get boxes for them
*Sold a spa voucher that I bought mistakenly before Christmas, I have lost some money on it but at least I recovered some of it
*Contacted a subscription service as I tried to cancel it and there was a charge to do so, they've given me 3 months free which means when I cancel it the charge will be much less

I think that's a long enough post for now, I will make another post shortly with my updated figures on for debt, savings and goals.

FacelessNumber

OK, I wanted to update my overall figures:

Debts:
CC1 (0%) - 2830.41/2859.00 (28.59 paid in Jan, 1% paid)
CC2 666.30 (normally paid every month)
Family Loan - 10250.00/10300 (50.00 paid in Jan, 0.49% paid)

Total Debts: 13746.71/13825.30 (78.59 paid in Jan, 0.57% paid)

Savings:
Easy Access - 1245.26 (this has taken a big hit as we had to pay our HMRC bill)
Other - 3417.55

As a very rough guide, in order to take off the time we would like to (9 months for me, 2 months for my husband) we could do with approx £5000-6000 in savings. I don't want to use any of the 'other' savings as they are long term, so that means saving as much as we can over the next year to reduce how much we're spending and hopefully increase the savings too.

I've reduced card payments to minimum, and reduced what we're paying our family member per month as well. Energy direct debit has been reduced, we have a couple of months of no council tax / water bill coming up. We're going to cancel our cleaner whilst we're on leave as well. So really it's just a case of keeping a close eye on things, which I'm hoping this diary will help me with!

Our fixed mortgage will also be up this year, we're still deciding what to do with this as it will increase our payment quite a lot, we might add a bit more to the term in order to reduce our monthly outgoing in the short term. That's something I will re-evaluate nearer the time. We've been lucky to have been on a 2.09 fix for 5 years so the rate changes haven't affected us until now.

Actions for today:
*Get new 0% CC, hoping to transfer both cards on to this instead of paying off our normal one, in order to free up a few hundred for savings, will continue with minimum payments only over the next 12-15 months.
*Ziffit as many books as I can fit into the two boxes I have so far.
*Meal plan and shopping list for next week

FacelessNumber

I've been meaning to try and update at least twice a week but work is manic at the moment, which means I tend to forget about doing this! Will try harder!

I've got a list of spending from the last week, I haven't broken it down by day, and also haven't included bills.

20.00 - 2 hats and new socks for my son
9.90 - 3 coffees bought at work this week, 2 for me and 1 for a colleague. I normally try and keep this to 1-2 a week so I'm OK with this, I have a budget for buying food / coffee at work as it's more realistic than not buying any at all. It is an area that can always improve though.
1.10 - Parking at the hospital, parked on the road again which is cheaper
74.94 - fuel - I budget up to £150 a month for this, but this will be the only fill up this month so should increase the savings pot a bit
1.30 - crisps at work - husband packed my lunch and forgot them, I probably could have managed without but I bought some
0.65 - washing up liquid, we normally pay for refills but the cost is getting so high we're back onto own brand in recyclable bottles for now
64.22 - weekly food shop - we have ordered a TGTG bag today as well for 3.30 but we might actually come under £70 this week for the first time in January! 
18.61 - a 'new big brother' present for my son - baby is due in a couple of months and there's a very specific thing my son wants that I've been trying to get hold of for ages, found it at a reasonable price on Vinted so thought I'd better get it! Ironically another one on Vinted has since gone down to 1.50 cheaper, but at least I know I've got it!

Other money saving stuff:
*Got a pile of stuff for Ziffit from last week, waiting for my husband to sort his books but am going to complete it tomorrow whether he's done it or not as currently an extra 10% which runs out tomorrow
*Sold an item on facebook marketplace for £25
*New credit cards are both here, my next job for today is to pay off the final few pence from the previous 0% card, and sort the balance transfer for the other one - they both also have 3 months 0% on purchases so we might buy a couple of baby bits on those to delay the cost

FacelessNumber

Already got a couple of money management bits done this morning as I'm up early with my son.
*Nursery payment made for next month - he's started at a new nursery recently and they invoice a bit differently than his old one so I have to manually do this now.
*Standing order to childcare account changed now I have an idea of how much we need to be paying. This has actually reduced by around £220 a month now he gets some free hours so that's a bonus for saving. We won't see any of those savings this month though as I've had to pay 2 deposits for the new nursery, one for him and one for the baby who isn't even here yet!
*Managed to get internet / app banking sorted for the new cards, and also closed the old credit card - annoyingly it was a balance of under £1 which it won't let me pay off so I'll just have to wait for the direct debit to take care of that!

At some point this week I'd like to try and get a bit more of a budget for the year done, although there are still a few bills that I don't have figured for yet.

Today I need to finish the ziffit order, write a meal plan and shopping list and try and get some work done. Just got to wait for my husband to get out of bed so I can get in the office!

Hope anyone reading has a nice Sunday!

Aimingforthegoodlife

Sounds like you are making good progress, I like the way you are making notes of your spending each week, a good way to be accountable!