Plenty of income, nothing ever left!

siobhank83 said:
Good news today coincidentally that I am now getting a 10k pay rise so instead of going on a mad one to celebrate we are treating ourselves to takeaway and that's it.
Click to expand...

Well done you, enjoy the takeaway but don't forget to put it in your spreadsheet
 
Monbretia said:
I'd be going into lockdown for a while until you get control. Even 200 a week for casual spending is a lot, or maybe that's just me showing my age! I'd live on that much in total for a week.
Click to expand...
.

Agreed. E200 per week or E800-1000 per month it's crazy spending. It's hard to take someone seriously when saying they have no money left at end of month when they're freely admitting to blowing this much per week on unknown spending!
 
It's interesting to hear that most think 200-300 per week is crazy spending. I am looking forward to examining our receipts and so on to categorise things. E.g. last week we were passing Woodies and decided to get paint and rollers and paint the hallway. So that was 100 euro. Maybe we should have a small household fund etc for such things. I would put a few things on Amazon and ASOS frequently too which I need to cut out.
I am a public sector worker; I passed exams which puts me on a higher increment - being the public sector it will take months to get it but it will be back paid. And I took out a loan of over 100k to get my current job so I always think of my job as 'costing' me 275 euro per week til that loan is paid off. I made it my business to do the exam ASAP to increase my income. 54,000 at the moment as as per my p60; includes quite a bit of overtime.
 
Yes - 25k per year for four years, 13k for fees and 12k for living expenses. Getting approved for a mortgage together with that loan hanging over me was a huge struggle. Others who have it and aren't in a two-income household can't manage it and most have had to emigrate for better salaries.
 
siobhank83 said:
It's interesting to hear that most think 200-300 per week is crazy spending.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't agree that it is crazy spending, I would agree that it is crazy that you don't know what you are spending your money on. I think we would all agree if you went out one night a week for a meal with friends and then the pub and or nightclub you probably wouldn't see much change out of 200.
You're both young, both on relatively good salaries paying all your bills/loans and saving, I would agree with you "live in the now" but keep an eye out for the future which I think you are doing anyhow.
 
I don't think you should be tight just for the sake of it , I would never collect receipts or count what i spend each week , I work hard and make a lot of money , I save what's left after I live how I want first . I think it's just a burden having to fill a spreadsheet in for your spending when your on a decent wage , why make life more difficult , chances are your in a job for life and never will go poor so socialise enjoy yourself and don't worry about money , the best thing about having loads of disposal cash is never having to worry about what your spending . if I want something I will buy it i don't worry about it , i dont shop in lidl or aldi I see not having to worry about what I spend been the biggest perk of years of study hard work to get where i am now .
 
I wouldnt agree with the above from Fella. The above definitely reminds me of the famous Charlie McCreevey speech "when I have it I spend it". Im sure lots of people in 2008 thought they were jobs for life and we know that didnt work out. Living "in the now" is perfectly fine to some degree, but some forward planning is always prudent.

I note down what I spend on my phone each week and think its quite handy to know where cash is going. Its not about being "tight" its about being in control. I have no issue with going out to dinner and spending E100 quid or whatever but I want to know that I spent in on dinner and drinks - I dont want to be wondering at end of week why my wallet is empty when I was sure I took out E100 quid on Thursday.

I shop in Lidl and Aldi as they are cheap, have good quality stuff but are also convenient for where I live. I dont think its seen as a downer to "have to resort" to shopping in Lidl and Aldi (as it once was). Its a choice, not a necessity. Just because someone earns good money doesnt mean they wont be poor due to bad money management which is exactly the problem the OP is facing. Hence, telling them to buy whatever and dont worry about it doesnt really sound like good advice to me.
 
Hi Siobhan,

Based on what you have posted I think your focus should be getting that student loan down. When you get your pay raise put all the increase in wages into the loan. I would do the following also. For 6-8 months of the year I would live very frugally and save every penny I can for the next 2-3 years. For the other months spend a bit more, go out etcetera. We are expecting our first children, the costs associated with having babies are not cheap. There is going private with doc, buying all the stuff that comes with babies, saving for their education, paying for childcare, having no income if you take unpaid mat leave. We are expecting twins but are lucky that we had all debts cleared and have very good savings. When you get the 40k I would hold back 10k, I personally hate being without some savings. Best of luck with it all.
 
Hi Siobhan,
I have just looked over the thread there and I am somewhere in the middle of the two camps. I have two young kids, and the idea of spending 1200 euro a month on socialising would frighten me senseless right now ! Not so much from the spending, but from the recovery time

That said, you are both at a milestone in your lives, and your lives will probably change a bit over the next while in any event. You also like the idea of having kids (which is not cheap as many said) and also want to upgrade the house (potentially). All of these cost money, and this will all need to come from your earnings (or inheritances) ultimately.

Instead of looking at things like socialising from a weekly budget, try moving it to a monthly budget instead. Try using cards, including contractless, for most of your transactions (once you move towards a more fee friendly bank), so its easier to track and categorise them. I am not a fan of keeping every receipt, but using contactless (for a period) will at least show you where the funds are doing.

Why not half your socialising budget, by adopting a week on/week off approach to it - so every second week is a quiet one - watch a movie at home or go for a walk etc. It still gives you 2 decent nights out each month. Call it 'part of your settling down' phase

Most of the rest of the stuff can be tackled, but I would agree to reduce your debts as quickly as possible - any overpayment wil have large benefits in terms of interest paid on the money. I imagine you are paying ~4% on the loan given 7 years/275 a week/87k. If you were to divert 500 a month from your socialising budget towards it, you would save 4270 on interest and have it paid 2 year 3 months earlier. Paying 20k of your inheritance against it (in addition to the 500 a month), would give you an interest saving of 7300 and pay it off 3 years/5 months earlier.

I know it may not be the 'cool' thing to do, but remember by the time your loan is paid off at the moment, you will be hitting 40, and hopefully other priorities in life !!

I agree that if you are planning to have children, you should hold back some of your inheritance - probably 10k to cover an extended maternity leave and other incidentals. The other 10k you can put as a reserve fund, which is always good to have.

Hope this helps and try and have a nice balance between your current outlook on life, with your future plans and reach a happy medium that allows you to plan for your future.
 
youneedabudget.com has the best spending diary that I know of. Because it's got a phone app, I can record a spend between the checkout and the exit of the shop.

You are making too much money to have no money. Treat the student loan as a financial emergency and it'll be gone by the middle/end of 2017. From that point forward, you'll have an extra 14,300 a year of after-tax cashflow to work with. It'll be worth about three times as much as the 10k raise you just got!
 
hi Siobhan, just wondering how you have been getting on with this new leaner lifestyle since Feb? Are there any tips/tricks you could post/things that surprised you the most etc.?
 
Hi all
Well, we got married and had a great few months (by that I mean we spent a fortune!)- all the bills are paid so the past month I did up a revised budget to see where we are at.

Net income is now 6300 pm plus any overtime I might do.

I used some inheritance to pay off the loan so now it's at 63,000. I pay 1200 off per month plus divert any of my overtime which is usually 200-600 per month net. (The overtime used to be spent on ASOS!)

I used some more inheritance to start a savings account which is now at 17,000 in the credit union. That's topped up by 1100 per month. The reason we didn't put it all off the loan is that we want to save for a mortgage deposit for a bigger house in a few years.

The alternative is to put ALL that money off the loan, it'll be cleared in under 3 years then but we have no savings at all. If we had a kid or anything we would definitely need to move then. There is about 150k left of inheritance coming but from a foreign country where I couldn't guarantee everything will be sorted by then...

The only cool tip I picked up was to use contactless on the debit card instead of the ATM or cashback! It keeps a great record of all your spending without losing the runaway euros at the bottom of the handbag and only costs 1c per transaction! The Mastercard is paid in full and cut in half - kept only should we need to book something big online.

I'm not sure we can drag ourselves away from the two or three nights out each weekend yet but I'm conscious they might come to an end soon -so the 300 per week is still being squandered I'm afraid.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register