What are your financial goals for 2023?

[TTCm]

I thought I’d start a light-hearted thread for those who what to share their financial goals for next year. I know money is tight right now, so people sharing their goals may give some encouragement to meet them.

I will be on maternity leave for 10 months next year, so my goals are:

1. to save £3,000 by the end of next year from my salary before mat leave and a bit of my enhanced pay.
2. save on Christmas / birthday gifts by being organised and buying in the sales and planning early rather than panicking last minute and spending more on presents!

Here’s to a good year next year 🙂

I want to change pension providers, my current one is completely screwing me over with extortionate fees.

Cut down on frivolous spending.

Continue saving to upsize our home.

@glamourousindierockandroll @Sergio11

[goes to Google limited access saver accounts…]

I've set up 4 savings accounts:

1. long term (can't be touched)
2. Accidents/breakdowns and annual bills - boiler breakdowns, car insurance and road tax etc to not disrupt monthly cash flow. Calculated annual costs and divided by 12 to get a monthly amount to transfer
3. Nest egg (planned large purchases)
4. Fun Fund minimal amount for the occasional guilt free treat.

I want to work on building each on up. But account 2 for large bills and expected breakdowns is a godsend. I'd highly recommend having one, it doesn't set your finances back and keeps you out of credit card debt and overdrafts.

A tip I got from a friend to spread the cost of Christmas was when buying a birthday gift during the year, buy that person 2 presents. Put the second one aside as their Xmas gift

@Speedmacarons

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/best-regular-savings-accounts/

Build up my emergency fund - there’s £100 in there at the moment which isn’t going to get very far.
Finish paying off an unexpected funeral by September.
No more cc spending.
Get back into putting £100 a month into my Monzo sinking fund pots - I have ones for car/hairdressers/dentist/holiday/house&garden/clothes/presents.

Get a promotion to civil service G7.
Finish renovating my house and downsize.

For those of you who would like to get a handle on your spending, I really rate the app called moneyhub. It was a real eye opener for me and tells me exactly where my money is going. Just looking at it has brought my spending right down. It basically scrapes all your data, accounts, mortgage, savings, investments and even pension and tells you all you don't want to know.

Is it free @declutteringmymind ?

Free for six
Months

Managed to get 2 credit cards paid off this year, my goals for 2023:

1. Pay off Credit card 3 (£525, 0% til October)
2. Transition from using Credit card 4 for daily living to Debit card/bank account. (Current balance £700, i pay that £700 off through the month but build up roughly the same for the month after)
3. Start building up some savings!

I am part time at the minute and in my final year of uni so should see a decent rise in wages once I’ve finished in the summer so until then I just need to keep scraping by.
my aim until then is to make a list of my debts and the order they need paying off. I have 3 cc’s and 2 credit accounts and estimate I owe around 4k which I am paying minimum payments on whilst part time.
As soon as uni finishes and I go to full time I will have much more disposable income to start to tackle the debt. Although I don’t expect to be debt free until the end of 2024 I would like to be organised and on my way by the end of the year.
I learnt on another thread about the government help to save scheme and have opened one with the aim of putting even as little as £10 a month in and have managed to save £40 so far which is a huge achievement for me with money so tight and just going through Christmas so I will continue to put into that each month and then forget about it.
Good luck to all x

Paid our mortgage off in 2022, so need to look at reinvesting that mortgage payment - likely a combination of increased pension, S&S Isa and cash Isa.

I like to have firm goals rather than general but our fixed rate mortgage is up in the spring so that will affect everything else!

We have a big holiday to pay off (stoozed on a 0% credit card for another 12m) and DH would like to do a medium sized home project (about £3k) so that's about £10k. We have more than that in savings but would rather fund from revenue than capital such an accountant!
We also have a destination wedding in 2024 so need to get that budget category fully funded for flights and accommodation. YNAB is so helpful for this stuff.

I'm self employed and have 3 credit cards left over from covid, when I lost a lot of work and wasn't eligible for any help. My aim for 2023 is to pay all 3 off. I've got two new projects on the go and if they come off I'll be able to pay the cards off with the money, so my aim is to work hard in the first few months of the year in particular, and get back on my financial feet.

It's been so stressful. Credit card payments are currently hundreds of pounds a month and totally unsustainable so I have to get on top of it now and I will.
Good luck everyone.

What’s YNAB?

@Sergio11 i started with an ISA just £10/month (used quidco so got £50 for opening it!). I didn’t even look at the balance for a few years and was shocked when I finally checked. I now put additional funds in.

If you’re claiming any type of UC/tax credits - check out the hmrc “help to save” scheme. They match your savings by 50%! 😲

Covid taught me to ensure I always had minimum 6 months net salary in the bank as a fall back, which I've managed to actually get to a years worth this year, plus have paid off my credit card debt of c4k, which I did by switching to a 0% card. Just by being more sensible and not buying yet another pair of shoes, clothes, etc. I just don't need, and being better around meal planning.

This year I'm going to divert extra money to my mortgage, plus relook at savings to ensure they are tax efficient too - as a higher rate tax payer, i need to be mindful that I will be taxed on interest earned over £500 in the year. That sounds a lot, but with savings rates also rising, I've realised unless I'm better at using the right type of savings e.g. ISAs, I may have to pay tax.

We’ve got an expensive once in a lifetime holiday planned with the teens (c£15-£17k?) so my aim to limit excess spending in other areas so we can do that without reducing existing savings too much.

https://www.youneedabudget.com/

I have the legacy software, I used the web version for a couple of years then reverted. When the software is obsolete I'll switch back up the web version. There are threads on here about it if you search

1. Increase pension contributions

2. Increase savings

To help with this, I will:

3. Stop buying snacks and food at the office (Will hopefully also help with my weight loss goals!)

4. Try to have at least one “No Spend” month, and a few other “No Spend” Weeks.

I’d like to get my LISA up to £15k, get out of my student overdraft (will start earning in September probably), and save another £3k

Try and overpay the mortgage even if not by much (thanks Kwasi for making my interest rate shitter).

Want to save £5000 this year (and for next 4 years) so I can retire in 5 years!

Pay off credit card . We’re only a few years away from finishing our mortgage and I can’t wait for the day I can say we don’t owe anything

Thank you - this is such a helpful thread. I’ve been rubbish with money in the past but YouTube is a great place and Meaningful Money has helped me loads.

I have only recently come across the concept of sinking funds - cannot believe I never thought of this. I have to pay thousands in fees every January, have been doing so for years and I have never had the foresight to save up for them throughout the year. Likewise for tax bills, although they are not predictable at all unfortunately.

So my goals are:

• Sinking funds for fees and bills
• Holiday and Christmas funds
• Pay myself first - S&S ISA, increase the amount by a fiver or so each month
• Make sure I negotiate my salary properly like a bloke would, rather than being nice and agreeable and doing stuff for free like I’ve been doing for years
• Mindful spending, so enjoying spending money on truly nice things for me and my two DC and nice experiences for us.
• Not overpay the mortgage as I have been doing - invest that instead
• Will a million on PBs - the most realistic and achievable of all my goals!

What are sinking funds?

I've set "round the pennies" up on my current account which will go straight into my savings pot.

My bank account has an option to hide the pots from view which I have done, so I'm not tempted to keep looking at what I have. Out of sight, out of mind