Money is the one major consistent stress in my life.

We own our own home, have a decent car and both work full-time. We are both pretty sensible with money my more than oh probably but I worry that we don't have any life savings money set aside for a rainy day.

I know this is going to stress me out more when i get my bfp. I worked in a job which dealt with enforcing ccj's for years and I think this has made me more obsessed with not getting into debt. I have a credit card which has quite a small balance but even that stresses me out majorly. We remortgaged several times during the property boom and have lost about 80k in equity in the last few years grrr.

How do people manage to save, we don't have a frivilous lifestyle and both work bloody hard, we don't own a flatscreen tv and I think we are in a minority there. I just hope that when oh gets his student loan cleared and we get our personal loan paid off that I can relax a bit more.

I am so scared we won't be able to afford a baby and will not manage on a reduced salary as we had to use most of our loan to keep us afloat when I was on long term sick leave.

In the nicest possible way hon nobody can afford babies. We have hardly owt in savings and i earn fairly well. You suddenly find some of the stuff you used to think was important probably isnt. You will be fine hon

Ok..first off let me just say..you, I, or noone I know can afford to have kids...so that stress is a non factor. Second..savings go up and down during the 20's to 40's range because of how shit happens unexpectedly and you spend a lot trying get out of holes that you fall in. The only way to save..is to have the bank..or even your employer take X amount of your cheques and put into an RRSP or some mutual fund..right off the bat..so you don't notice it's gone. Then make sure it requires both signatures on the acct for transactions..that way..if one has a weak moment..the other can talk some sense into the offender. Money is a pain in the ass!

I've never really had any savings hun. In fact I have £50 in my savings account!!

Having been a mummy for 15 years nearly, I've never had the chance to save. But like Mario said, you'll be fine. We do somehow manage x

i have £100 come out of my wages every pay day (monthly) and put into a savings account so i don't even notice it's missing. the most we've ever managed to save was about £1500 and that's cos we needed new windows. we're sitting at about £400 just now which isn't any great amount but it's a wee just in case!

Do you remember the Movie - UP. I was laughing so hard..when they had to break their savings jar over and over again.

ive gotten to 300 but itll be gone again bhy new year

the old saying you cut your cloth........... couldn't ring truer, we went down nearly £800 on maternity leave, you just learn to cope. (and we have no savings apart from my secret stash shhhh!)

I agree with the ladies...if we waited til we could afford a baby the majority of us would be still waiting at 60!

Financially we would be very comfortable right now, had it not been for us losing £10k when that company that owed us went bankrupt - we have coped somehow, although I don't know how we would if we didn't rent off my parents cos we are still behind on that!

Life throws allsorts at you - its how you cope that is the important thing, yeh if we'd saved £10k up we wouldn't have struggled the last few months - but we might have been bored stiff for the last 6 years not going on holiday and going out etc! You just have to tighten your belt and would be surprised what you can actually live on!

we have been saving really well just now but when we have a deposit for a house it will all be gone again. we saved 7k and are now down to just over 6k because of unexpected bills and oh being unemployed for about 3 weeks there. we are slowly but surely getting there. we have been saving 3 year now and the amount we save has been up and down so much.

x

jenshayne wrote:

Do you remember the Movie - UP. I was laughing so hard..when they had to break their savings jar over and over again.

That's us!!!!!

xx

LOL! That's us too Pepper! xxx

Aw hun, I'm very lucky in that my hubby is a saver (although I have no idea how much he has saved up, but I do know it's in the thousands ), I don't know how he des it because together we have dropped £800 a month since having Libby but it goes to show it can be done.

We too have our own house and both have decent cars so please hun, don't stress yourself out - like the other ladies have said once you have a baby certain things don't seem as important as they did before.

Fingers crossed for that BFP very soon!!! xx

what are these savings you speak of???

jenshayne wrote:

LOL! That's us too Pepper! xxx

Jen it took me over a year to save for a new cooker as there was always some thing else to spend it on!! In the end I had one given!! LOL

x

That's what happens with us Pepper - we manage to save a little bit and then something breaks down or needs replacing etc. Last month I was saving for Christmas and then it cost me £150 to get my kids out of the car so that's gone now! Trying to save again now but car tax is due this month and we have various birthdays and occasions coming up.

It is very true though that you do cut your cloth accordingly. I feel as if we are really skint right now but this time last year we were £500 a month less than we have now and we managed fine - weird!

xx

Our savings just go you save and like debs said things happen/break and its gone and u have to start up again x

I agree with the others theres no right time with money to have a child x

we have no savings at all - both got credits cards with probably a bit too much on but we arnt really too worried - we are managing just fine - we pay our mortgage and every single bill every month, bits off our cards ad we still have a small amount to play with, i wish we could save but we just don't earn enough
x

we have 0 savings. worrys me sometimes as for example last christmas our boiler broke.we had to lend the money off my mam to get it fixed ad pay her back monthly. im hoping that come Jan when i go back to work well be able. to save as were going on holiday in June and will need spending money.

When i did save - i used to take watever money was left in my bank at the end of the month and put t in another account. So each month i was starting with a clear plate. Worked out best for me. Think i managed to save about £500 in about 6 months which isnt gr8 but better than nothing. Needless to say that went when i fell preg with alfie.

x

I have no savings at all just what I have in my bank for week to week use which is around £300 at the moment. But that will drop when I start buying xmas pressies. In reality we probably cant afford a baby but we will manage.

I used to be a huge spender and had tons of credit cards and loans. Now I am a right little saver and dont spend anywhere near what I used to.

My OH is a bit of a monkey and is happy to spend, spend, spend, so we have come up with a new arrangement, where he pays for everything in the house (mortgage, bills, etc) and I pay for the food, Aimee's stuff and the fun stuff.

This is the first time in my life that I actually have some savings behind me. Although my OH would happily spend it given half the chance.

x