# struggling to manage money



## beaker (30 Aug 2009)

Hi All,

I am 34, single & renting a room in shared house. Have never really been a saver but now starting to think about house/future/etc and am worried that I am in financial trouble.

Work in private sector - approx E2850 p/month
rent E472.50 p/m

car loan E300 p/m - o/s bal E2100 - car mostly used for driving home once a month, and other infrequent short trips

sterling visa bal £4450 (approx E5300) - pay min bal by DD from stg bank account which i fund by bank draft every month

mobile bill aprox E100 p/m - on bill to avoid roaming when home/out of ROI

sterling credit union £20 p/m - bal £1400
roi credit union - E25 p/m - bal 800
savings a/c E850 - trying to save E500 p/m
tracker fund E800 - E100 p/m
2 sharesave schemes (3yr) with work for E75 p/m each - 1st started jan 08 & matures in Jan 11; 3rd one starting for E75 p/m in Jan 10
shares held - approx E950 - spread of companies & no intention to purchase more at present

dont think i have an expensive social life - out maybe 2/3 weekends per month, rarely during the week - or eating habits 
tend to get luas to work but walk home 2/3 evenings per week
subsidised work canteen & tend not to cook at home in week - takeaways cut way back recently

but still find myself raiding savings routinely 

worried 
1) that by the time i have saved enough of a deposit that i will be too old to qualify for mortgage

2) cause i dont appear to have any real budgeting skills - maybe also enough willpower/determination to say no to people/possessions

feedback/advice/opinions welcome


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## so-crates (31 Aug 2009)

At the moment you are attempting to save €775 + £20? Am I right in that figure? You are expecting to add another €75pm to that in January?

Am I right in guessing that you have only recently started saving seriously? Judging by the balance on your savings account I would guess in the last three months (depending on how hard you hit it! I am guessing it is the savings you are talking about dipping into).

 Why are you maintaining a CU savings account in sterling? It is very likely costing you more to transfer money into it than it is making in interest. I would stop this immediately and redirect the money more beneficially.

Why are you only paying minimum on your UK CC? You should be able to pay off more. Again this is costing you dearly. You are paying to convert small sums of cash to pay for this as slowly as possible, added to the interest rate, this is a pretty expensive way to pay off a debt. It also completely negates the interest earned on your savings. You would be far better served paying larger sums off this and getting it cleared as quickly as possible.

I think perhaps until three months ago you were managing comfortably financially and decided you needed to start looking to the future. You set up an account and started saving into it. Trouble is you are after lopping off a huge percentage of your take home pay. Without adjustments to your spending this was going to become immediately obvious. I think you just bit off too much. It is best to ease your way towards a target savings amount rather than try to hit it in one go. Go back to the drawing board and start with a smaller amount (I'd suggest maybe €100 - seeing as how you will also be paying off more on the credit card). Get comfortable with that readjustment first and then start to increase it slowly. 

You aren't terrible at budgeting - you have debts of about €7000 and are comfortable repaying them. You are already doing some saving and you have not been living beyond your means. You have just tried to do too much in one go.


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## spursman (31 Aug 2009)

you pay 300 p/m to drive the car a few times a month. sell this and buy a fiesta for 1k


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## Complainer (31 Aug 2009)

spursman said:


> you pay 300 p/m to drive the car a few times a month. sell this and buy a fiesta for 1k


Or just rent a car (<€100 for a weekend rental) and use taxis.


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## deadlyduck (31 Aug 2009)

Unless your sterling credit card is at 0% interest, I would prioritise paying off it ahead of making the  €500 savings monthly contribution. If possible, try a card balance transfer to a 0% issuer.
If you feel that you absolutely must continue paying into this savings account, maybe reduce the monthly contribution to €50 and use,say, €300 per month towards the credit card. That way, your total outflow is reduced by €150 [€500-350] ,reducing your need to dip into savings, you continue modest monthly savings for the rainy day and you save on credit card costs. I'd also recommend that you cut up the credit card to ensure that you get it down to zero.


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## beaker (31 Aug 2009)

Afternoon All.

Thanks for the replies.

My target is approx €15k for house deposit by Jan 2011 - wouldnt want to put off trying to buy my own place any later than 2011 - my own fears are that my age is going to be against me when applying for mortgage

counting existing savings/tracker fund (cu €2400 + fund €800) & 1st work savings scheme maturing Jan 2011 (at least €2700 depending on share price at maturity) I reckon I have 17 mths to save approx €9k

car loan has 7 mths to run and after that the plan was to divert that €300 p/m to savings so leaves me with approx €6k over 17mths - 

I work it out at about €210 plus the credit union (€25 + £20) & tracker fund (€100) debits - also contemplating cancelling fund payments till deposit target has been met with €100 redirected to savings

uk visa has been cut up and working within the above I reckon I can pay another €100 p/m to it - leaves me with approx €200 p/m (€500-€310) - some of which I can redirect to my rainy day fund (originally mentioned savings account which I dip into)

posibility of apr 2010 bonus also remains (at time of writing anyway) & intention would be to clear a chunk of credit card debt 

will cancel stg CU debit & redirect it to euro CU

feedback/opinion/suggestions welcome


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## so-crates (31 Aug 2009)

In terms of the mortgage term, generally it is preferred that the mortgage is fully paid by 65, insofar as I understand anyway. So you are not yet up against it in this regard.

If you are looking for an assured sum at the end of that period, I would probably avoid unit funds, they cannot guarantee a return or even the capital so you would be gambling on the fund holding or gaining in value. As you are looking to build a deposit it is probably best for the moment to focus on that.

What return are you getting in the CU? It might be worth your while checking out the best buys thread in the deposits forum to find the optimum return for your regular savings account. As you are not planning to touch the money for a period of time you can let it build up in such an account. Also look at the deposit rate you are getting for your lump-sum savings, are you getting the best rate available? These won't add up to massive sums of money extra but you may as well take every advantage you can find. I'd still suggest building up to it slowly. You can, for example, open an Anglo Irish deposit account (which I think is 5%) and put gradually larger amounts into it since the amount does not have to be fixed.

Best of luck!


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