How to spend £2000 a month

Hi,


So it's been all about saving money on this blog so far, why don't we take a step back and have a look through what really happens in life.

So let's have a look at Average Joe, he's a pretty cool guy. 10 years out of university and he's got himself a great job that pays the average wage for the UK (currently £447 per week), this gives him a lot of freedom. It's not like the old days of minimum wage jobs that let you barely scrape by, oh no. He's got money to burn!

In fact it's burning a hoe in his pocket right now. Let's have a look what he's spending it on over his average month.

That £447 a week turns into:

£1937 monthly gross - sounds pretty impressive, over a year that's £23,244. Not bad when you think we have only just got ourselves out of this double dip recession.

To make things easier let's look at a typical month.

So let's knock the tax off - £385.03 (I'm counting National insurance as a tax - because it is), this is 19.9% of his total, gone before it hit's his bank. Oh well, we do get loads of free stuff like the NHS to make up for this and schools and stuff too!

Woops, forgot about his student loans (he's 10 years out of University remember), which he technically had to pay for, although not as high as his cousins over the atlantic it's nonetheless a cost. It's not even taken out of gross earnings, oh well - there goes £51 - 2.6% of the gross.


So what kind of job has he got? Oh he definitely works in some kind of marketing/sales/HR/finance role probably in an average growth sector, that is approximately 10.2 miles for this man (6.7 miles if he was a she).

How does he get there? Well 10 miles is a bit of a pain you see, too far to walk/cycle safely (he assumes) and getting the bus is just lame right? So car it is. He obviously bought it with a loan, what 28 year old has £14,000 in spare change? So that's costing him £270.66 (I know it's not technically a loan calculator, but it works for my illustrative purposes), he also needs road tax and some insurance for this vehicle, £175 tax and £814 insurance (obviously he lives in the mid(dle)lands).

The last two are yearly figures so let's divide by twelve to be all good about it - £82.42 (rounded) per month for both.

Then some fuel for those 10.2 miles x2 per day - £3.47 (35MPG) so he goes to work mon-fri for 4 weeks a month (20 days), that's £60.94.

Then while he's at work he gets hungry so he has a nice lunch time sandwich, drink and crisps coming to a deal price of only £3.50 - so that's £70 a month, one of the lunches he goes with a few mates to his local nando's (or other chicken restaurant), because it's a Friday and  that's what everyone else is doing - this adds (probably more than this!) £6.50 to his normal £3.50 so a nice round tenner. So lunch total comes to £76.50 per month.

Clothing - he's gotta look sharp at the office to woo customers/clients/the boss/that girl in the other department so he get's some nice suits from a well known high street retailer 2 suits will cost £128 each so over a year, because he'll have worn them out by next year he will spend £256 and say £15 a week dry cleaning (that's probably really cheap haven't been to a dry cleaners in years!), so for a month he's spending £81.33 all in.

Then after work drinks each Friday, maybe a round each with two other mates at £3 a pint, that's £9 a week and a taxi home afterwards another £10. Over the month this comes to £76.

Then it's Saturday, lad's night out. This means Xbox / Playstation at home with a few drinks - Xbox £300 + xbox live membership £32, then a few cheap beers for say 5 friends, on a rotating monthly cycle so only 15 beers a month, that's about £10 for a large pack. Then the night out, taxi in and out of town, 4 bars with a drink in each, and two drinks in the club with club entry of £5 (cheap one I know!), average drinks of £3.50 each so total of £21 on drinks. Taxi come to £20.

Then mutiply this by 4 so £21+ £20 +£5 + £10 = £56 x 4 = £224 per month.

Then on Sunday he treats himself to a greasy spoon/ Mcdonalds breakfast at £4 = £16 a month.

All this socialising has got him somewhere at least - in the bad books with his Girlfriend! For spending too much time with his lad mates, so he promises to take her out for a date night during the week, which is discussed further over a Sunday lunch at their local carvery restaurant £8 a head (on a Sunday), not including large Soft drinks (still nursing the hangover a little) at £2.50 each, total £21 x 4 weeks = £84.

Oh no the weekends over, back to the grindstone Monday morning, Joe will definitely need a coffee to get htis week started and he deserves it right, he's getting into the office early after all. £3 per coffee - twice a week as a treat = £24 a month.

The Tuesday night blues come along once more, maybe a takeaway will help alleviate the drudgery, £15 for a local Chinese = £60 per month.

He'll also need normal food shopping for the rest of the week - say £50 for the week including some hair products, shower gels etc. that's £200 a month.

Let's give a quick check as to where we are

Income: 1937

Taxes: (£436)
Car (£352)
Fuel (£61)
Work Clothes (£81)

Entertainment:
After work drinks (£76)
Saturday night (£224)

Dining/Food:
Sunday Breakfast (£16)
Sunday Lunch (£84)
Coffee (£24)
Takeaway (£60)
Supermarket Shop (£200)
Work Lunch (£76)


Now you think I've forgotten about housing haven't you, but look at the list of abundance above, it's terrifying. If this is what average Joe's life is like he has something like £245 a month left after all this. With heating and electricity prices at an average of £108 a month, water at £20, how the hell is he going to afford to even rent a shack? He would have £117 a month available for housing.

Yes there are many asssumptions in this but I know plenty of people this age who are doing exactly this and renting a house and living in London(!), or nearby or in any of the other major cities in Britain with their much higher than average cost of living.

No wonder the young can't afford to get on the property ladder!

Data:  Google docs

I've split this down to wants/ needs and it breaks down like this: 47% wants / 53% needs.

Again there are a few assumptions in here, so it's not 100% accurate - the data is on the google docs above if you want to have a look.

If Average Joe simply cut out his spending on the weekend he would save £324 a month, cutting out work related expenses (clothes, drinks and lunch) a further £234 a month.

These costs all seem to be terribly trivial and easily replaceable, yet time after time I see people overspending in these areas every month and then being surprised that they have no money left at the end of the month.

It's such a waste and can be quite dangerous, especially if an emergency comes along and you don't have the cash to cover it.

This road can take you into the languishing feeling of debt spirals eventually ending up with some kind of payday loan, where more and more of your paycheck each month goes to the interest rather than getting you anywhere near clearing your debt.

Hopefully me pointing this out is helpful, if not to you to someone close to you. Feel free to use the data provided or input your own to try and figure out where you may be overspending.

Take it easy.

Dom

Selfish plug

Hello,

How are you today?

I'm fine thanks, been keeping myself busy (although my bathroom is still not finished, story for another day!).

So you think you've got life pretty summed up at the moment, you have your financial life under control, you save plenty each month.

Okay, let's step it up a gear. There are some expenses you just can't get away from (or shouldn't), death and taxes they always say. Well there are some others  as well. Home insurance, life insurance, food shopping, the occasional treat (woah there, are we going a little too far now?). Insert your own list of "needs".

As these costs cannot be avoided it's often cited to look around for the cheapest deals. But sometimes the cheapest isn't good enough. Another casual saying is "buy cheap, buy twice"!

So you may want to look elsewhere, this is where a new idea has come forward to me, Cashback.

I've heard about it before but never utilised it fully. My sister was the first to point this out when she bought her home insurance. She told me her renewal was X, she used a comparison site to find the best deal for her, then went through a cashback site and basically halved the cost to her of the insurance.

Pretty snazzy I thought, but maybe too good to be true?

So I checked it out, there does seem to be some pitfalls, the cashback isn't instantaneous, it is never guaranteed until it's in your bank and it scares me a little too.

By scaring me what I mean is, I've used it so far to reduce the cost of my home insurance by £70ish which is pretty good, but I was never 100% sure I would be getting that money until it hit my bank account.

Therefore I would only ever recommend using sites like this when you definitely want the exact service that the company is offering cashback for. To clarify, it seems some service providers have very similar products, with similar names, with one being available to earn cashback on and the other you cannot. The pricing on the products can differ wildly, so make sure you double check before signing up for any new products.

Always remember spending money on anything other than necessities is a luxury! You will always be better off keeping the money in your pocket!

Even with these warnings I still think cashback sites are worthwhile and definitely worth a browse, if you'd llike to help my blog then you can sign up though my affiliate link for Topcashback here,

PS goodbye winamp, you served us well :'(

Cider insider 2: the cider strikes back

So after my somewhat brief description of home cider making without an apple press today we'll be finishing off.

You'll need some bottles handy and the bungs or a straw (more on this in a minute).

So if you leave your pulp in the muslin hanging over a bucket overnight the weight of the pulp will squeeze most of the juice out a bit like cheese making.

Give the muslin another squeeze then discard the pulp (any ideas for uses other than recycling/ animal food?).

You should then have a bucket of icky apple juice probably with a lot of bits still in it and very cloudy.

Taste it. It should taste like the most Appley thing ever. (Better than a 5s anyway!).

So you're going to want to pass it through another sheet of muslin, just to get rid of most of the bits.

Then decant into some bottles.  

At this point you can dilute it if you feel its a little strong. You can also add shop bought apple juice if you think you haven't made enough.

Then grab a hydrometer. This piece of kit tells you the gravity of the situation (the Apple juice). You dunk it in a sample of the juice and record the reading somewhere.  This is your original gravity (og) and we'll use it later to calculate the alcohol content.

I then added a crushed campden tablet (read the instructions for quantity). This kills off any bad bacteria. Shake it!

You can then add your yeast. I'm using a champagne yeast, although cider yeasts are readily available.

Then add a bung and an airlock* and you're ready to go.  I couldn't find one of my airlocks so I fashioned one by making a hole in the bottle cap, feeding a straw through then connecting it to a pipe which leads to a cup of water.

*The airlock is there to let carbon dioxide out of the container which will be produced by the yeast, whilst not letting anything into the bottle like flys, bugs etc. If you don't put an airlock on and screw the lid on the bottle will expand with the trapped gas and explode! If you just leave the cap off crap would fall in and spoil it.

So then just leave to ferment.  It'll probably take a week or two,  I'll do another hydrometer test in a week or so, if it's the strength I want 4%+abv then I'll decant to smaller bottles to try and remove most of the sediment and then chill and drink!

If you're thinking of trying this at home here are a couple of resources and links to where I bought stuff,  I'm not affiliated with these companies/people I just used the stuff and liked it.

The Brewmart - got my starter kit from here, great site but the basket is a bit naff

Beer-kits.co.uk - got my champagne yeast from here worked quite well

Basic cider recipe (you need a cider press) 

Have fun!

Dom

Update:

The cider is great, if a bit on the sharp side (should that be cide?), so I have diluted it down with about 1:4 ratio of apple juice to the cider. I did this much after a few tasting tests also that was how much room I had left at the top of the bottles I used.

Good luck if your going to try it and let me know how you get on!

Getting out of your head

Ever feel like your  stuck?

You have plans to change but you never really get anywhere with them.

You feel like you have the best ideas but never seem to start any projects.

You're doing well at work but not receiving the praise or promotions of your colleagues and peers.


I think everyone has felt like this at some point in there life. I used to feel like it all the time.

I want to share with you a couple of tips  to help get you moving along the way and get yourself out of your own way.

Over Analyser.

So first let's start with the over analyser. This is someone who fears making decisions at worst or at best thinks through all the possible eventualities before cautiously putting their toe in.

I don't mind being cautious, risk is risky! But there comes a point when you have to realise even the most important situations in everyday life will not cause major harm.

It is almost always better to make a decision and then do it than to sit on your hands until they become old and tired.

Get out of your head

As I said I used to struggle with this a lot. I would think about things day and night, decisions to make, decisions I've made, what to do for the nest, long term plans, short term plans, money worries etc.

It all builds up to a mess and just creates frustrations.

So get out of your head, do anything otherwise your going to explode!

Talk to people tell them what's on your mind, feel like no one will listen? Speak to a professional - doctors, peers, your boss. If you don't feel like you can talk to them, how about throwaway people, ones you meet in everyday life, don't just bulk unload on them though otherwise you may be labelled the crazy guy on the bus!

Get it down on paper, it often helps me to mind map a problem I'm working on, get those ideas on paper and properly evaluate them. Properly quantify the money troubles your having, nine times out of ten it really isn't as bad as you think. If it's worse, get help!

Just do it! This is my favourite way to get out of my head, you've been worrying about doing something for a while, get over yourself, nobody else really cares what you do with your life, so just break free of the worry and do it. Move to America, you don't like it? Move back.

I've noticed (whilst doing up my bathroom) that any mistakes you make you can rectify pretty easily, and if it goes completely disastrously (everyone has their own SHTF moment), you can start again and you'll have learnt from your journey to be better next time.

The Underachiever.

So you've had an alright kind of job for a while now, maybe a year or so but you don't feel like you're valued enough, you feel underpaid, tired of the strain and like maybe it's worth jumping ship. You don't feel like the company wants to promote you.

Well you're right, the company doesn't want to promote you. You have to make them!

You have to become the best at what you do. This means working smarter AND harder than everyone else.

Start taking pride in your work, whether it's delivering letters or counting broad beans. Be the most efficient most trustworthy candidate.

When you've created this value, then you have to work some more, this time at marketing yourself. Are you the person who's too shy to tell everyone how good you are? Or are too much of an introvert to go to parties? Get over yourself!

I know it's easy for me to say, but only because I've been there, the most successful way to move forward in your career is to get confident and use your new found confidence to ask for things. People won't just give you more money, you have to show them you're worth it and then ask for it.

Don't feel confident? Just fake it. After a while the confidence will become second nature and you'll feel like a new person!




Photo: The Monnie

The cider insider

So the bathrooms taking a little longer than planned although coming along well. I thought I'd take a break from it though to make some cider!

I've never made it before so it's a little adventure for me. 

This is only part one as I did this after work late night and didn't have time to add the yeast yet.

What you'll need:

Apples
Yeast
Patience

Equipment:

Knife for Chopping
Muslin cloth for filtering
Hand blender for blendering
Covered bucket

Method:

Take apple

Chop apple

Repeat lots

Blend apples




















 

Stick into muslin and squeeze. So far I have about 3-4 litres!
 

This is as far as I got last night so I'll update with more method and pics soon.

With this method you don't need a cider press either, which makes it a lot less expensive!

 

Dom

Homebrew and bathroom dalliance

Relaxing Saturday

Ah Saturday mornings, a time to rest those weary arteries after a week of hard slog at the office. 

As much as I would love to put my feet up work beckons me once more, back to the office? I don't think so, something a little more hands on for me.

After moving a few years ago our bathroom has been in slow decline and it has come upon me now to start the rather swift process of updating it. do I have any experience in changing a bathroom? No. Have I done a lot of manual labour in the past? Not a lot. Am I confident I can complete this job to a high calibre, hells to the yes!

Once you boil down something like changing a bathroom suite, it's nothing more than removing the old fixtures, getting new ones and reconnecting all the pipe work. After tinkering with the ceilign light the other day I also noticed what bad shape the ceiling is in, another thing for the to do list it seems.

Better get a plan ready!

Oh and the homebrew is coming along nicely :) Very please with the samples I have tasted and it is ready to bottle today. Another two weeks afterwards and I can sample my very own homebrew.

I do have one challenge for you, names. Any awesome names for my brew will be welcomed, I'm thinking something along the lines of inspiration or kingDOM Beer, although the first sounds like a perfume and the second is just my ego talking :)

Anyway whatever you're up to enjoy the day, rest recuperate and get stuck into something amazingly awesome!

Enjoy.

Dom

PS plans for Christmas lunch are under way  looks like we're hosting this year, bring on the pasting table!

Pic by: Hector Alejandro

The shopping hobby

What are your hobbies? Video games, scalextric, football, couch surfing?

I'm pretty happy to count some of these and more as hobbies I enjoy, along with some healthier ones!

One hobby I cannot abide though is shopping. Now I don't count shopping in general as abominable but shopping when there is no purpose.

I'm not exactly sure when shopping started becoming a hobby, it was probably something to do with the startling 1950's after the frugal war years, coupled with everyone being pushed to keep up with the Jones', it's just not needed - think back, can you even remember any good times you've had shopping. Even big purchases like houses and cars are plagued with feelings of buyers remorse as soon as the deal is done.

So I'm putting this forward, the shopping hobby must be bleached from our collective consciences, out with all the Next's and John Lewis', in with the local butchers and bakers somewhere where you can really buy something that has heart in it! (especially at the butchers, maybe some offal recipes soon?).

To make this clearer I'll break it down.

What is allowable:

Food shopping, essential toiletries, cleaning products, purchasing assets etc

What is not:

Shopping with no detailed list, window shopping, shopping on lunch breaks, shopping whilst hungry, buying stuff because you have money in your bank, buying crap you don't need anyway, shopping because it's the weekend!

Basically any kind of shopping where the item purchased is pretty much going to simply add to the abundance of crap you already have.

I'm saying this from deep personal experience. I have shopped for no reason, it leads to no good. Do something better. Leave your bank balance be, or use it in better ways that don't simply fill landfill and the pockets of sleazy chain stores.

So why don't you break your weekend routine of going to the nearest shopping centre / mall?

Instead go for an amazing nature walk, drag the kids along, or someone else kids, or both! They'll love it, you'll all make some memories that will last longer than the junk you would have bought anyway.

I'll even let you treat yourself to a Sunday roast at the local pub on your way home, it'll be bliss, pint of mild, turkey / veggie roast (delete as appropriate). Go on I dare you!

Got any better plans to escape the weekend shopping centre? Whack them in the comments section, I'm always looking for inspiration :):)

Pic by Charles J Sharp

Cycling for freedom

I have to say that moving house has been the biggest money saving idea I have ever done.

I used to travel for 45 mins to do 15 miles.
Now I travel 25 mins to do 3.5 miles.

Seems strange, but in the first I drove, in the second I cycle!

I do still drive, unfortunately I haven't been able to give it up completely quite yet, but it is definitely an ongoing process to reduce how much I drive. On the occasions I end up driving to work due to PURE LAZINESS, I do feel bad as I step out of the car.

And I feel it in my pocket too. Let's run the numbers:

A mile in my car which kicks out a pretty crappy 35mpg costs me 18pence with petrol at its current crazy price of £1.37/ litre

Therefore:
15 miles x 2 x 18p = ~£5.40 near enough

3.5 miles x 2 x 18p = ~£1.25 pretty much

So even if I drove everyday to work I would save (5.40-1.25 = 4.15)

£4.15 x 230 (working days)  = £954.50 PER YEAR!

That's with no cycling whatsoever, so everyday I get in that car I waste £1.25 or £287.50 a year.

Better get on me bike then!

And if you're not impressed by saving a grand a year, just think if I did this for the whole of my career, that's 40-45 years or £40-45 THOUSAND POUNDS.

Even only ten years is £10K, not too shabby I say!

PS: ordered my brewing kit today, will hopefully have my first ale in a few weeks :):)


Loving the cycling shorts! Pic By Nova

Making do with two

I've heard three is the magic number, however I've found two to be more than ample.

I'll explain what I mean. I've been getting interested in brewing recently.

I haven't quite taken the plunge into buying a barrel and some yeast yet. But for my birthday my significant other bought me a book on the subject. I had a great time reading through it and feel much more educated and ready to take the plunge.

There were various helpful hints in the book, I now know what a mash is and that getting bladdered isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The best tip I got from the book was contained within a sloe gin recipe, as a lot of good things are, as you can imagine it went through the process of making the sloe gin (basically adding the sloes to a jar, covering them in some gin and leaving it to steep for a year), it was the last part that caught my eye. You have to leave it for a year!

This is where it added a handy tip, if you can't wait that long for your sloe gin, why not make two, then you can leave one to steep for the year and drink one pretty quickly to alleviate the pain of waiting.

I know this seems dumb, but I'd never even thought of doing this and then it hit me, some kind of internal revelation rushed through me, a resonation of sorts. This tip could be applied throughout life.

Looking to build up a handy store cupboard / freezer stock? Cook up double the amount for dinner one night, it's no more hassle than usual, then freeze/store half of the finished product.

Looking to create a savings pot, every time you go shopping for something, put the same amount into a savings pot (maybe it falls down a little here, as it's probably a little too aggressive, perhaps putting the change you get from the purchase into savings is more likely).

Looking to get ahead at work, create your monthly reports in one batch, then simply fill in the relevant data when you get to that period, rather than completely recreating the report each time.

So I'm going to look to put this into practice in other ways.

Any others you can think of just whack them in the comments, I'll admit this is not an exhaustive list!

if you'd like to pick up the book I got this from, it's here on amazon - but I think you can get it cheaper in your local  "The Works" bookshop.

Enjoy!

Pic by Malcom Murdoch

Turn it up a notch

It's time to turn it up a notch!

I don't know how you've been feeling recently, I've felt like life is passing me by a little. Who's fault is that, mine of course. So time to take the reins Muchachos!

Let's get started, my budgets all in a mess.

We've recently moved from budgeting separately to budgeting as a couple due to our beautiful addition to the moneybeta family. He's brilliant and I wouldn't have it any other way. but it has meant I am now the main bread winner. this is all well and good, I am earning enough to cover all the bills with a little left over but its really affected our saving rate.

I'd been tracking it in the upper 30-40% of gross income which was the highest it had ever been at the start of the year, then bam, maternity pay. I'm not complaining that it's low in fact its probably massively too high. Considering our situation with one person earning enough to cover all the necessities, the maternity pay has become more of a "wants" money pot.

This is where the budget has fallen down, with boredom setting in after a few months of being stuck at home and a lot of stir craziness to boot (!), I completely understand why this has happened, however I like to be in control of the cash and it feels like a massive leak is forming one drip at a time.

Not to mention that in the next few months the maternity pay will end.

So what to do, what to do. Well as I said earlier, take the reins dear hart and off we go. We have to trample this budget into a small enough pile to fit our requirements. This means unfortunately putting an end to a lot of the fanciness that has crept in.

Our meal plan will have to be carefully considered after the monthly costs have risen from a budget amazing £275 per month to a belly bulging £350 per month. This is an easy win here, if we get back to the usual weekly food plan and go shopping AFTER having eaten (true fact: if you're hungry you buy more, doesn't everyone know that by now?) we can easily cut this down, possibly even further than what we had done before.

Cancelling TV services. Again an easy one, tried to cancel SKY but am tied in til December, so netflix will have to be cancelled, that's a paltry £6 a month saving, but every penny is a winner in this game.

Clothes shopping, with the change in seasons almost upon us, it's time to stop nipping to the shop and look through all those old winter clothes, get them clean get them washed, chuck out the ones with holes (armholes are ok), this will have a two fold affect. Our wardrobe will be a little emptier, our bank will be allowed a rest from all the clothes buying. This goes the same for shoes, does a man really need two pairs of flip flops? Ebay I hear you calling.

Lunches out / weekend shenanigans, this is probably where we've fallen down the wayside the worst, driving around especially on the weekend, then getting expensive lunches out whilst we're there. It's a killer, real killer. E.g. a 150 mile journey we took not too long ago to see some friends, in my (low mpg) car, almost cost £100! freaking Nora, that's a massive potential contribution to a savings pot that has been negleccted for far too long.


So with these 4 simple plans I'm hoping to slice ooh maybe, £250 into a savings pot, what's that I hear you cry, luuuuuurrrrvvvveeelllllyyy, that's what I was about to say!

Stay well.

Dom

Pic by Gnome icon

Living Differently

My wife and son are napping at the moment so I thought I would take the time to type something up that I've been thinking about over the last two or three days. 

It all started with Maria's post over at the Money Principle, a great article that made me look differently at the Marxist theory. I then stumbled upon the art of non-conformity, another great article about how people don't understand, from flicking through Maria's "Money blogs" links.

I still love the fact that Maria is flustered by my milk and caviar comment from one of her old posts. I still can't understand how she thinks £120k is "enough". That's where the second article came in. Maybe she just doesn't understand the route a lot of people are now taking. 

People aren't just looking to make small changes anymore, a lot of people really want a wholesale upending of everything they do. Maybe because they're bored of their work, or where they live or they are just sick of the day to day of broken Britain. 

So maybe it's time to take the advice of the non-conformists. Maybe looking at life from a different angle is required.

A zero based budgeting approach comes to mind, whereby we scrap the budgeting tools we've used before and start with a blank page. What do we really NEED in our lives.

Humans usually need a few basics, water, food, shelter. Everything else are things we add for comfort or at the extreme greed. 

So maybe we shouldn't start looking to reduce our mortgage rate, or look to save on our car insurance, we should probably look at cheaper places to live other than houses and maybe start thinking about getting rid of the car altogether.

These are the kinds of changes that can turn an ordinary person into an early retiree or at least someone that is not forced to go to work to fund a lifestyle beyond their own means.

That is the kind of person that for me has really got life sorted in their own head, they’ve no need for superfluous items and their comforts come from within.

This kind of lifestyle leans itself to one where families spend more time with each other and learn how to do things for themselves rather than outsourcing at higher costs. Where skills are nurtured from an early age and progress with each passing project, without being put aside because we’re “late for Corrie”!

I looked at my own budget took out mortgage, car, and media costs and immediately my spending went from 80% of my wages down to 42%. This budget still leaves room for luxuries. With a savings rate like that I could retire in 11 years, which seems like a long time, but I am earning a sixth of that £120k and supporting 3 people!

Sounds pretty awesome to me, just imagine if I could double my salary… it drops to 6 years! As Paul Whitehouse once said… BRILLIANT!!

Of course this is unfortunately a pipe dream until I can convince the other half to move to a narrow boat and cycle everywhere ;)

Looking for a side hustle

What a week it's been. The weather has been crap, mostly. So like a lot of people it has made me look inward. 

I've pretty much got my budget in order, so what next? 

Well as MMM says, it's spending and income or income and spending. So income then. I'm pretty settled in my job. Ha guess what I'm not paid enough though! So I could either work harder on cutting my costs, or get a side hustle!!

Side hustles can range from a fully blown part-time job, which works well for some, to earning a few quid filling in questionnaires.

I've done both in the past and enjoyed neither very much. Probably because I have this little thought constantly ticking along in my head that I'm worth more!! $25 doesn't seem like that much though, I was thinking more like £50. 

So what side hustles could stand up to my (probably inflated) sense of worth? Well  £50 translates to £104k a year. I think earning that much is probably a little out of my league at the moment. Unless I break it down.

So today I did some painting. No, I'm not the new Van Gogh, it was more for decoration purposes. So what's this got to do with side hustles? Well I had a look on myhammer and to paint a four bedroom flat they were quoting £1000! Shit I thought, I effectively saved that much today. Although we did only one room, so only £250, but how long did it take us? 5 hours, woohoo that's £50 an hour! Where's the champagne?

Yes, this is simplistic, it ignores the cost of the paint we bought and there was two of us doing it. 

So maybe not quite living the dream yet, but I guess it depends on your dream.

In the long run, you're going to be ok

I've noticed a bit of a theme on a couple of blogs, house buying and it's associated costs. I agree with them both, buying a house is one of the biggest decisions you'll make in your life. That's why you should take your time over it. Don't be put off if someone swoops in and buys the one you had your eyes on from under you. 

It's not the end of the world. Also, although it is relevant to have a sizeable deposit and cash available for fees. This isn't the most important thing.

So what is? You have to make sure your buying a HOME, put aside the money for a few minutes (it won't make you happy anyway), this building you're buying is going to be the place you spend most of your life in from now on. Yes a lot of it you'll be asleep for but nonetheless it needs to be right.

Growth

So your buying a place with your new husband/wife, maybe your going to want an extra room or two? What's that I hear the distant patter of footsteps? 

Got a love for cars / building insane stuff make sure you have access to a garage. Or even better some space to build one!

Training to become an Olympic swimmer? Maybe an indoor pool would be of use. 

The point

Anyway the point is don’t get too wrapped up in the price you pay for a home. Yes, ideally you get it at market rate, but paying a few extra thousand isn't going to break the bank, as long as you are happy to stay there for a long time.

This is the kicker. If you are forced to sell the house due to having / wanting to move in a short space of time you open yourself up to a whole host of bad things.

Like the market moving in the wrong direction, or having to lower the price to bring a quick sale.

Moving again will also add on the transaction costs. Mortgage fees, removal vans, solicitors, it all adds up. It can really be a drain on your short term finances and stop you getting where you want to be.

Holding on to the property for a bit longer can help you increase your net worth as well. Paying down your mortgage will reduce your liability whilst the general increase in the value of property over the long term will increase the value of your asset.

At the end of the day, your probably quite intelligent and you know this all ready, so it’s really down to me to say, don’t take the first quote given for anything, always shop around and remortgage to a lower rate whenever it is viable to do so.

These methods will help you to reduce your mortgage expense as quickly as possible. Then when your mortgage free, the fun begins! 

Well that's the plan anyway :D

Do you have any other tips I've missed?

If you got stuck having to sell at a loss what would you do?

Picture by: Rempstone House

Introduction

Hello there and welcome to Money Beta!

I'm happy to say the blog is pretty much up and running now, it's very exciting.

I just wanted to write a quick introduction to the themes of the blog.

This website is going to be all about Money, how to work with it and how to get along without very much of it.

I'll also be doing some Money Experiments, such as tracking some index funds, breaking down some money saving ideas and testing to see if these things are really worth your time and effort.

I'll also be touching on some other features that are close to my heart such as new ways of learning and developing your skills. I always think it is very important to learn as much as you can on as many subjects as possible, if this new knowledge can make you some money all the better!

Along with these I'm hoping for some guest posts from authors who write on similar themes. These will hopefully give another viewpoint and help to give perspective.

It all sounds pretty succinct but I'm sure I will diverge from this plenty of times and come back close to it at other points. Most of all I want it to be fun.

If you have any questions or would like to contribute or suggest ideas for experiments please feel free to get in touch via the Contact Money Beta Towers tab.

Thanks for stopping by and see you soon.

Dom