Stronger, Smarter and Saving

loobidoo

Thanks everyone. 

Not much to report but another £1,100 towards debts this month so that's all good. 

I bought pizzas from Morrisons - no take aways here tonight!  

Need to do a proper shop. Maybe I'll go out later on this evening. 

Reading a free kindle book.

Reconciled YNAB. 

Need to tidy round and clean the whole house. 🫣

I changed bank accounts recently and there have been a few times where something I've been going to pay for doesn't have my new card details saved so I've ended up putting it on my spending credit card. Need to get that sorted asap. 

Right, I'm going to tidy my office - the smallest room in the house. Hopefully a doable target and will make the most difference to me. 

Wanna_Bee_Free

Hi Loobidoo, another £1,100 towards the debt in August is fantastic! Well done on avoiding the takeaway temptation last Saturday too. 

 Good luck on your last week and a bit until payday. Keep the faith, you're doing well. 

loobidoo

Thank you! This is definitely the hardest time for me - Get paid on the 7th but most of my bills have just come out. Recent change to paydays has been a killer as I 'skipped' a month and have never felt like we've got out of arrears. 

loobidoo

Righto... Good news stories 

Money coming my way: 
Sold 3 things from my shop: £20 
Sent invoice for job #2: £60 
Sent timesheet for job job: £4,000ish 
Packed hubby off to work today (does that count?! ) 

Today I need to sort the house out in prep for back to school tomorrow. 

I'm off to sort YNAB and get a clear picture of my life! 😲

loobidoo

Downloaded the debt payoff planner - i like how it works. The snowball is saying 2y 4m to pay this off so let's see if I can get it under 2 years. 

Thinking about my side hustle - I make about £2k per year. Then I get £1k expenses allowance then 40% tax on the rest. I can pay the tax through a change to my tax code next year so I should put any payments I receive towards debt payoff. I've always tried to keep all money separate etc and see where I am at the end of the year, but that seems silly with my credit cards stacked up. I've also got some additional training to do for it but I'm thinking I'll leave it another year rather than having to pay more for exams, professional subscription etc just yet. 

What else? £9 sales on Vinted 🙌

All food from stores and OH took a packed lunch too. 

Applying for jobs tonight - probably less take home pay but better benefits and pensions. Sensible but also hesitant. But anyway, no decisions to be made yet as I haven't been offered the jobs yet! 

Wanna_Bee_Free

You sound very motivated - good luck with your two yesr target. Well done on your Vinted sale and food from stores. 

The side hustle plan sounds good but part of me was sad when I read you were putting off the additiinal training. Then I read about the job hunting so it is difficult to know. Getting these things under your belt is always good otherwise it can take yonks. I used to reclaim some professional subs and fees on my tax return each year. Now it's probably via your tax code. Not sure about training too. Might be worth exploring?

loobidoo

Thanks @Wanna_Bee_Free. Yes, I'll get £1000 expenses so I do have the money for it, but I'm just trying to figure out if I need it or if it'll be an expense for no reason. I probably won't change job and it'll always be a side hustle and that being the case I probably don't need the additional training as I'm already doing the job without it. Hmm. Will see how far I get without touching it. 

Spoke to OH about how tight things are. He's on board with cutting down in certain areas but I just feel like it won't make a dent in the big expenses we've got coming up. Yep, chip away, but what is your plan for paying £300 car insurance next month or putting £100pcm away for Christmas? Alas, he has no plan. Selling his car would be my idea (exactly what I did when I wasn't working) but with him I imagine it'd put us straight back in the red - he'd get rid of his car he's just about paid off and then get a cheaper one (thinking he's doing the right thing) but then end up with finance! 

loobidoo

Oh well, made it to payday for another month. 

I can’t get my head around these mid-month paydays even though I’ve moved most of the bills to fit. I get paid on the 7th/8th. I update our budget for that salary, but it’s not enough to cover everything. OH then gets paid on the 15th and his salary gets split between covering the rest of the month and then all the bills that come out on the 1st-7th (before I get paid the next month. 

It sounds simple enough but I keep feeling like we’re chasing our tail. We’ve played around with saying my salary will cover bills and OH’s salary can go towards debts, but that doesn’t 100% work because then the credit card bills come out before his salary goes in. And because we’re chasing for the previous month it feels impossible to get ahead. 

I’m realising how I’m the enabler in this whole mess as OH is so used to telling me the joint account is empty and then ‘magic money’ appears. But now we’re really at the bottom of the barrel so this can’t go on. 

I made this clear and the only solution is for him to get a new job. He earns minimum wage part time, and his lifestyle hasn’t changed since he was earning £55k. What a mess. 

I told him we have some short term options like selling his car but that will only buy us about 6 months’ grace, so after that we need to sell the house and downsize to get bills under control permanently. He doesn’t want to do either of these things so the penny finally dropped that his job isn’t sustainable. 

Fingers crossed he gets a few interviews lined up ASAP

Ordinary_Yet_Unique

I always assumed most people get paid on the last or first day of each month. In teaching payment on the last day of the month is always the case. The only exception being if the last day fell over the weekend it was paid on the preceding Friday. 

Now retired, I receive my teacher’s pension on the 14th of each month and my state pension every 4 weeks on a Wednesday. 

To ensure funds are there for bills between those dates I always check that on the last day of the month I have £1200 in my current account. It has worked well for quite a while now. 

That way the 13th 4 weekly state pension payment is just a  bonus that usually goes to savings.

Organgrinder

Teachers get paid on different days in different authorities. Many authorities either pay on the 28th or 14th of the month.

I've worked in four local authorities, none of which pay on the last day of the month.

There used to be a list online.