Reining it in for 2025 - anyone with me?

[Christmasgonk]

So we’ve had a hugely expensive 2024 following an (almost) full house renovation plus extension. And we have overspent on Christmas (largely because we wanted to go “all out” this year as last year we were living in a damp and cold building site. However, we really really need to cut the spending in 2025 to build up a buffer/save for retirement.

Current plan is:

• quit drinking at least until May (when we go away) - I need to drop about 2 stone anyway;
• meal plan religiously and use as much from store cupboard as possible - we grow a lot of our own veg but obvs not much left this time of year
• stop any mindless spending, particularly Amazon habit!!!

Most of our spending tends to be on food/drink (even though we don’t really eat out anymore) so if we can cut that down we might be able to boost our savings.

anyone with me? What’s your spending weakness?

I just went to buy the paint for the kitchen as the decorator is coming next week, Dulux £42 for 5 litres but typically they don’t make the colour we’ve chosen in 5L tins. Therefore had to buy 2 x 2.5 litres @ £58 🙄

I could have written this myself - I've had my head in the sand for too long, our mortgage up for renewal Nov 2026 and ideally we want to move house. So we need to be in a good financial position, to do this in 2025 we are:

• clearing all credit card debt
• meal planning
• I'm hoping to increase my hours at work
• keep a closer eye on our budgeting

Hi everyone. Rang our lender today to check how to make overpayments and to make sure they'd reduce the term not our monthly payments (which would be pointless, we can afford the payments we just want it paid off quicker!). Got told I have to have an telephone call with an advisor before I can do that? Sounds odd to be, but fine, ring me 🙄

Knocking time off the length of the mortgage was going to be my motivator to rein things in. I don't see the point in cutting back to make overpayments if it just means pennies off the monthly payments

@BlueWhippetsForever - who’s your lender? We’re with Nationwide and I have the dd set up £100 higher per month and then just make extra payments on top via our bank account if we have any extra. I do it all through their online banking and can alter the dd at any time .

@Nearlyadoctor thank you. We're with Cumberland BS. Had the oddest conversation with them again today. They said I can make 10% overpayments, but that they don't automatically reduce the term (even though direct debit would stay the same). I said if eg our payments are £1k a month and we have 20 years left, if we over paid £1k today how can that not at least automatically reduce the term by a month? Apparently not and we'd need to discuss that in future. Very weird!!!

@BlueWhippetsForever - yes that is strange, with Nationwide when we increased the initial dd, they gave us the option to lower payments or reduce the term and we reduced the term.

Ours is 10% a year of the initial mortgage amount.

@Nearlyadoctor it's very strange. She agreed our DD would stay the same, but wouldn't agree that our overpayments would therefore reduce the term 🙄

@BlueWhippetsForever maybe maths isn’t her strong point 😂😂

Hahaha. It might be some weird policy that they just won’t recalculate the term unless you pay of a certain amount at one time (mine is 3x monthly payment). I have made several overpayments of smaller values and my term still shows the same.

@PineapplePizzaz thank you. I think I'll just have to keep a note myself of how much it's reducing the term by and wait for them to catch up at some point 😂

This is a handy thread!
A small thing I’ve found helpful is deleting companies’ apps from my phone (Amazon etc.). If I want to look for something, I’ll have to Google the company name, click on the website and then search for what I want & I can’t buy it instantly as I need to type in my email and password before I can buy anything. Unless it’s really necessary, I try and talk myself out of the purchase in the time in takes me to do all the above!

We have managed only to go around £30 over our reduced budget. Very happy with this as we had 2x lots of swimming fees to pay, plus a new car battery which we hadn’t anticipated. Hoping we can really pull out the stops this month as new budget starts today due to pay day.

Already told DH off who wanted to spend £50 on 2kg of beef as it was cheaper than supermarket - yes, but we don’t need it dear!!!!

Another win today. Refund of 9.99 on a rip off guess who game I bought the kids which was awful quality. Didn’t look like the pictures on Amazon! So 9.99 back in vouchers.

DH has spent 11.98 on some guitar lead. But he’s allegedly selling some of his old stuff to cover that.

£9.45 in WR yesterday but was all essentials so don’t feel bad about that.

Sold another £11.50 of stuff on Vinted so pleased with that. Have been very good the last few days, total no spend weekend .

@Nearlyadoctor well done on a ns weekend, I find weekends harder than the week when I can go from work to home and not spend quite easily

Hope everyone’s had a good week. Overall not too bad here , decorator finished the kitchen and I still had one tin of paint left so managed to get a refund on that - did spend it on a new washing up bowl though 😂. Joseph Joseph identical apart from colour to the one we’ve had for 10 years.
Dd got a couple of lifts to sixth form so that saved some bus fairs.
It’s going to be a spendy weekend though as both cars are running on fumes and apart from a £14 top up shop , I haven’t food shopped for nearly 2 weeks.
My other concern is DH came home yesterday hobbling having pulled a calf muscle quite badly , if he can’t go to work he only get SSP ( nothing first 3 days ) . He’s a farm worker so lots of running after animals etc , hopefully after a weekend of rest and if he does more of the tractor work he’ll be ok next week.
How’s everyone else getting on?

So putting agreed long term things, loft spending and general spending on the same credit card has not gone down well. We are over our £500 budget for the month and we still have a dinner out today. That should be it though. And there is definitely things we haven't bought so I'm still taking the win there.
Next month we are going to set aside £500 on a different card and the discussions will be around if what we are buying comes out of the monthly spending or the longer term credit card (dd £140 payment for her year 6 school trip that's due in Feb for example!) ds £24 for a school trip coming up can absolutely be spent out of the general budget but £140 would be a big hit and then affect the rest of the month, especially a month with a half term in.
The loft spending is almost done too. All that is left is a couple of storage boxes, a chair for us and curtains/pole. So that should help calm it down!

Been quite a good week here. I find no spend during the week while working quite easy to do. I nearly got suckered into a few sales bargains but resisted those ! It does help that a friend is doing the same so I message her for accountability.

Sold a few bits on vinted, did buy 1 thing on there but have overall massively reduced my vinted activity. That's my only purchase on there this month and only bought 2 things on amazon which was another downfall. Feel so much more in control.

Just ordered new front tyres for my car to be fitted on Monday £261. The money is already in a separate account but not exciting spending unfortunately 🤦🏼‍♀️.
Dh’s also needs new fronts but they can wait until next month .

@HP87 - at least you know exactly where the moneys gone and are avoiding frivolous spending which is a definite win.
The loft was always going to be expensive but at least you’ve got something worthwhile for your money, and I’m guessing have increased the overall house value.

It's definitely about feeling in control isn't it. I have lost control a bit where we've had loft and bigger purchases all on the same card as the general budget. It's just turned into a mess! Can't keep track of it

@HP87 I 100% feel so much more in control mainly using my debit card and limiting use of the credit card. I can see in live time what I'm spending.
I had another credit card which I have paid off and got rid of.
I've definitely managed to save this month and generally feel so much more mindful about my spending.

New month! We have taken £500 and put it in our monzo account. Credit card is now only for agreed stuff we are OK to put on long term. (there is the hope that before we do a balance transfer we can use some of dh redundancy pay out to clear it - my limit is £3,000 so whatever the amount at balance transfer it won't be terrible!)

So far in Feb we have had - dd new ballet shoes, ds school trip (dds went on the credit card as its a large payment for her residential trip), McDonald's, dh got a loft purchase on the monzo (£17) so we've decided that it stays on there and suck it up!, I lost ds goggles so need to get a new pair today and 2 nieces birthday present. One of dd friends needs birthday present in a couple of weekends but her being out all day will make the day cheaper overall with the younger 2 😂.
Hoping for a good month so I can have a bit to spend in half term.

Not a bad month overall but not as good as I hoped mainly due to food/ fuel bill which I’d hoped to cut by 25 % which was possibly a bit optimistic but cut it by approx 12.5% so I’ll take that as a win.