Stopping the backsliding… a family of four no longer living beyond their means

SecondStar

Sounds like Monkey had a great day! And very well done on the credit card / emergency fund! Celebrations all round.

Bluegreen143

Although they are savings we obviously already had, it’s never felt real as we couldn’t access them! So lovely to see our emergency savings account with the best part of £3,000 in it. I’d like to eventually have the fabled 3-6 month emergency fund (to cover 3-6 months of bare bone expenses, not income). So that’s somewhere between £7.5-£15k. I’d like to err on the side of £15k in that some can be emergency fund and some can be a car replacement fund, 

I think I need mini milestones though so my next step is to get to £5k emergency fund while also beginning to build up cash in the house/car/holiday/gifts pots. 

SecondStar

Mini milestones are a good idea, I think. I’ve also only recently hit my 3 month EF target of 3.5k, and working up to 6 months next, but taking it 500-1k at a time makes it feel more rewarding and successful when you hit each in between target

Squirrelz92

Amazing news on the credit card/ EF!!! Well done you x 🎉

Sarahwithlove

Wahooo that's good news about the card being cleared and savings being available. 

Moneywhizz

Good news that you are now free of credit card payments and have money in the emergency fund. Now would be a good time to add a car replacement pot to your money budget. A car is something you will always have to fund either with savings or a loan so it is better to see it as a monthly expense rather than part of your emergency fund. Lots of people just see a car loan as something they will always have to pay while the MSE way would be to try and have the money saved in advance so that you are not paying interest. Working out how much you need to put away monthly depends on how soon you think you would like or need to replace your current car. In the meantime you can enjoy Christmas without a credit card hanging over you. Great work over the past few months to get to this point. 

Bluegreen143

Thanks Moneywhizz! 

We’ve never actually had a commercial interest bearing car loan (I did borrow £5.5k off my mum interest-free last time and paid it off over about 1.5 years, we don’t currently owe anything on the car) so fingers crossed it is something we can avoid as I agree, it’s much better not to get in the habit as you then can’t save as much while you pay the loan down. 

I think I wasn’t very clear - £7.5k is what I need for a three month emergency fund so I’d like to save an extra £7.5k to be a car replacement fund (so £15k in total). Hopefully alongside selling the current car that would be enough. We spent £8k on our current car. Of course prices do rise so maybe once we have £7.5k saved for car replacement we will decide to increase it to £10k, but one step at a time! Likewise, maybe over time I’ll aim for the 6 month emergency fund, but one step at a time! 

Before this car we always had bangers that cost about £2k (weren’t very fancy but ran fine) but you can’t actually get a viable vehicle for that price now due to inflation. We had a costly mistake buying a £3k car two years ago which only ran for four months so we’ve learned our lesson! 

Bluegreen143

Right, knackered after Monkey’s party! Especially as I took him to someone else’s party this morning 🤣.

We took five boys (plus my two) climbing (£84 for entry plus £10 for the four of them who wanted to do the extra leap of faith bit). Really pleased with Bambi who took to it brilliantly, she’s never been before and isn’t normally much of a climber but she really pushed herself and did great. Monkey’s two best friends know her very well obviously but it cracked me up that one of the other boys kept calling her “that little girl”, not in a bad way but as if he was confused about who she was and why she was there 🤣.

Spent £68 on a Dominoes takeaway and about £10 on extra crisps/fruit/hummus & breadsticks. 

For party bags, instead of a few bits of tat I got little nerf guns on half price offer (£20 for five), some chocolate coins (£4 for 5) and put in lollies we had in the cupboard 😂. Plus £3 for the actual boxes I put the stuff in as the nerf guns were too big for the small paper bags, I still have some of these left. 

So I make that £200 for the party which I think is alright for a really nice party which was exactly what the birthday boy wanted. It could be several hundred for a full class party at a venue. We could have saved £ by buying oven pizzas and sausage rolls but since it was a small group we thought it was a nice chance to treat them to a takeaway and it meant no fuss for us. 

After we got back they had about an hour and 40 mins or so, so as well as pizza they got to play - the highlight was torchlight hide and seek in the garden.

Monkey’s best friend is now staying over so keep everything crossed for me that they actually sleep!!

Bluegreen143

Onto the next plans - Bambi’s party next weekend. 

It’s at home so no cost for the venue 😜 

Food - we’ll buy some oven pizza, sausage rolls, hummus & breadsticks, fruit/veg sticks, crisps, cocktail sausages. There are somehow 16 guests now (plus my two) despite the fact I originally said she could have 12 max… 🤦‍♀️. So it’ll probably end up costing similar to Monkey’s by the time we’ve bought food and party bags for that many! Also will need a couple of small prize for party games and possibly supplies for the treasure hunt Red is coming up with. Oh and a piñata and sweets to fill it. 

Floss

That sounds like a great party, especially torchlight hide & seek!