Learning to budget to make future adventures happen

crunch_time · 26 November 2017 at 8:47PM

Nicnak wrote: »

You’ve made lots of progress. Are you glad you’ve managed to get so much sorted? X

Do you think? I suppose I have really so yes I am glad - thanks Niknak!

So...

Christmas shopping update

I had half an hour is sains whilst the husband distracted the children at home-pets-at. It felt a bit like 'supermarket sweep' but once I was home and totted it up it was actual quite restrained and I'm quite pleased with myself.

Clothes - there was a 25% off so i bought slippers for myself and the children, a pack of 3 tops for DD, a shirt for DS and pyjama bottoms for myself - which, with discounts all came to £47.25. All of which is needed and was on the clothes wish list for next year anyway. Because of this it will be paid off with clothes money when husband gets paid at the end of December so won't even go towards the Christmas present total but will be wrapped and put under the tree!!

Stocking fillers

I stuck to my budget as much as possible and bought glue (£1) and pens (£2) for each child and then a showercap (£2) and two pairs of gloves (£1) each for DD.

For me I bought make up remover pads (£1.50), hand cream (£1), face wipes (75p), a choc bar (85p), nail polish remover (£2), face mask (£1) and body lotion (£2). I also bought some much needed razor replacements for £4.50 which will go in the stocking too.

For the husband I bought a bath lily (£1), bath salts (£1), chocolate (85p) and deoderent which should have been £2 but the receipt said 20p so winning there!! I also bought him some more of his favourite mans face moisturiser at £6 but he is worth it and it will make him happy.

From January DD will get her free hours at nursery (15 a week) which will be split over 2 school hour like days and a morning. Annoyingly we will have to pay for an hour a week so she goes for a whole half day session which will cost us roughly £20-£30 maximum a month depending on how terms fall in a month. I was going to pay for her to have lunches there since DS gets them free at school to make my life a bit easier but I don't want to pay another £20 a month so on her full days she will be having packed lunches and I have decided that DS will too to save arguments. So I also bought them each a lunchbox costing £8 each.

I used my £20 of nectar points and I am thinking that that has paid for the lunch boxes and the set of pens each.

So I have spent £47.65 so far on stocking fillers!!! The standard toiletries I'm considering covering with my food budget as I would normally buy them in my weekly shop anyway.

So I've made a little progress and off to a good start me thinks. I think my stocking is the fullest so far.

Next stop is using my amazon voucher on secondhand books.

Crunchy xx

Willowtree222 · 26 November 2017 at 8:49PM

Do you buy your own gifts?

Xx

museumworker · 26 November 2017 at 11:23PM

Just popping in to stay hi, read your diary from the beginning and really enjoyed it. I’m late 30s and our family incomes are very similar, I have a 5 and 3 year old so can identify with the stress of working, juggling family life and getting ill as a result. You’ve done really well and I look forward to hearing how your course and freelancing go.

crunch_time · 2 December 2017 at 8:51AM

Nicnak wrote: »

Do you buy your own gifts?

Xx

Yes I do - Husband would be useless.

crunch_time · 2 December 2017 at 8:58AM

museumworker wrote: »

Just popping in to stay hi, read your diary from the beginning and really enjoyed it. I’m late 30s and our family incomes are very similar, I have a 5 and 3 year old so can identify with the stress of working, juggling family life and getting ill as a result. You’ve done really well and I look forward to hearing how your course and freelancing go.

Thanks museumworker! Ive subscrived to one of your diaries to read at Christmas. xx

crunch_time · 2 December 2017 at 9:39AM

Morning diary!

What a busy week!! Very glad its the weekend. We have a child free morning as the children have been at grandparents overnight so I'm intending to get as much as I can done so I can focus on them completely once they get home. Husband as taken the dog for a walk and I'm sitting on the sofa having a lovely cut of tea!! I have a lot to say as I've been working stuff out this week.

Sooooo......the HMRC bill has been paid off!! I would have loved that money in my savings account and it annoys me that we have to go backwards as such but I'm also pleased that I don't have to worry about it anymore It is done.

I'm also now at the point where we know where we are financially after the move.

My aims for December are to make sure we start the new year with only £7500 of debt - all on 0%.

My aims for 2018 are to pay off this debt at £200 a month and not get into anymore debt. If we manage to do this we will end up with £5100 of credit card debt by the end of the year.

Whilst we are doing this I'm going to build up our savings so we have a nice cushion. We have £1393 left over from the house move. I'm going to transfer £1000 of this into my ISA to make it £1700

Husband needs to reactivate his ISA so he can transfer £300 in. When he has done this we will have an ISA balance between us of £2340. I might round this up to £2350 as I like rounded up numbers. This will then increase by another £1200 over 2018 as we have £100 a month budgeted towards this so will be £3540. This the start of our 3-6 month emergency fund. £3000 would cover our bills for a month with a little bit of spending money so that is a great start. I'm going to be bold and see if we can save £9000 in 2018.

I'm going to do this by visualising a pyramid of champagne glasses. (bear with me here). The first one is going to be put in our joint account and will be filled up to the value of £500. This will be our buffer for the month. Like a mini emergency fund. This must always be topped up to £500 on pay day. After a brief detour where we save up £500 for our 2018 family holiday, we will then concentrate on filling another glass up to £500 and then another and so on. Once we have 3 champagne glasses full then I can transfer £500 each into our respective ISAs.

I will need to find a way to record our progress but this seems like a good way of switching from paying down to saving up which is key if we are going to tackle to debt monster once and for all!

Crunchy xx

Willowtree222 · 2 December 2017 at 10:03AM

That sounds like a fab idea to build up funds.

How do you feel about finishing work in a few weeks? X

crunch_time · 2 December 2017 at 10:15AM

Also, £1750 of the approx £7500 of debt is my course fees and new laptop for my new venture. I have decided to pay that off separately with a proportion of my income per month. At the moment after tax I’m thinking 50% debt and 50% savings. Roughly I will need to earn approx £300 a month from January in order to get this cleared for the end of the year.

I can already feel my mindset changing. The £7500 is neither helping or hindering us. It’s not stopping us from moving forward in life like all the debt before.

Part of me though wants to be debt free as soon as possible after coming so close this year. I’m going to try not to second guess myself and just go for it.

Crunchy xx

crunch_time · 2 December 2017 at 10:17AM

Nicnak wrote: »

That sounds like a fab idea to build up funds.

How do you feel about finishing work in a few weeks? X

Like a massive weight will be lifted and I can get on with my life. Very weird. I also worry about the nations children if there are so many teachers out there like me who are struggling. Maybe it doesn’t affect them like we think.

Crunchy xx

Seasidegal58 · 2 December 2017 at 6:32PM

I love the way you are visualising your savings plan! A RL bottle of champagne will be the order of the day once that £7500 goes!

Learning to budget to make future adventures happen

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