Has anyone any advice on what a good safety buffer savings amount would be. Like what are people comfortable with? 2021 is my year for getting sorted financially!
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I’d never want to be below 5k in an emergency fund
My student loan but I don’t earn over the threshold to pay so I don’t even think of that as a loan. No other debt, just trying to save by putting a certain % of my wages after bills into savings and I also have ‘save the change’ set up on my bank account so that all the small change from purchases I make builds up. It’s a brilliant way to save without even realising it.
I think it depends on a lot of things. For example, I don’t drive so I never have to factor in needing emergency funds for car repairs.
I try and have a minimum of £2.5K as a safety net. I think that would be plenty to cover a new boiler or two, one way tickets to Peru should WWIII break out.
I have quite a bit of debt, I’m using a dmp with StepChange I’m paying £750 a month and will be debt free in Jan 2023
Wow £750 a month sounds like a lot but I’m assuming you can afford it or they wouldn’t have done it like that!
Contact Step Change they will help you sort it all out. They will advise you to either do a repayment plan or bankruptcy. Once you speak to someone about it that's when the weight will start to lift.
I have a student loan but not paying it back currently and it doesn’t affect my credit rating so (as bad as it sounds), I ignore that for the time being. I have around £1300 debt from my student overdraft, regret ever using it but it’s taught me a valuable lesson 
. I don’t have any other debt so I can’t wait to pay the stupid thing off!
. I don’t have any other debt so I can’t wait to pay the stupid thing off!
We have our mortgage of about £240k. We borrowed £17k of my parents for renovations and a new car (husbands set fire the day we completed!) and finished paying that back last year.
We have about £30k in the bank, we did have more but we’ve just paid a hefty vet bill
Neither me or my husband like to borrow money and everything is paid for outright or we don’t have it. I have multiple income which that plus having those saving was a godsend as I’ve earn about 12 days income since April!
We have about £30k in the bank, we did have more but we’ve just paid a hefty vet bill
Neither me or my husband like to borrow money and everything is paid for outright or we don’t have it. I have multiple income which that plus having those saving was a godsend as I’ve earn about 12 days income since April!
I am a sahm and hubby has his own company, We have a mortgage of about £250k left to pay.
£250 on a credit card.
I am insistent that if we need or want anything we save first.
£250 on a credit card.
I am insistent that if we need or want anything we save first.
Don't worry about paying it back, it gets written off after a certain amount of time and student debt isn't treated like other debts. Never overpay, it's throwing money down the drain.
Unrelated but-
I get overwhelmed when I think about our mortgage. We have a 35yr 135k mortgage on a 50% shared ownership house which cost 315k (3 bed so we never need to move). Seeing so many people on here managing to be mortgage free and it seems so out of reach for us with our less than average wages. I'm making small overpayments every month but it seems like it wouldnt help much when I see how much interest adds up. Who knows how much our monthly payments will be when we purchase the rest of the house, although at least we won't be paying £500 a month rent aswell.
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There are 3 main Credit References in the U.K:
Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.
There are free services that show you a credit report e.g ClearScore. Lenders don’t report to all 3 credit references which can mean one service will not show you everything. For example, payday lenders only really report to TransUnion so if you were to view the Equifax credit report it would not show you any payday loans you’d had.
You can access your credit report(s) through a service like ClearScore. I’d suggest creating a ClearScore account, a Credit Karma account and Martin Lewis Credit Club account.
CS reports from Equifax; MLCC reports from Experian and Credit Karma reports from TransUnion. Having all 3 accounts will mean you see entire view of your credit history.
Hope that makes sense! As an aside, NEVER PAY FOR A CREDIT REPORT / SERVICE / ACCOUNT! All 3 above are FREE and any site or company that says they offer more information or credit building tools etc are 100% a money making scam.
It really depends on your circumstances but as a single person with no dependents I have 3 months’ salary as the absolute minimum amount... currently my savings pot is more like 5-6 months.
The first thing I do when I get paid is to round my current account down to only having what I need for mortgage/bills plus an allowance for the coming month’s spending. Everything else goes in savings and I have to live within the allowance.
I have this niggle in my head ALL the time as we are shared ownership too! However our rent is only £190/month as it was a resale property and we’ve got 30 years and about 135k left. Great but during those years/ when our time is up we’ve still got the other half to think about and quite a short lease on it. We will never sell as we love our area and house so much!
Other than that we did take a bank loan for new car and home improvements at beginning of lockdown of 15k over 5 years but can overpay. Never owe on ccs and I didn’t go to uni, husband has student loan but pays pounds a month on that so not worth worrying about!
It’s the mortgage that gets me the most and worrying about where we will get the money to buy the second half!
I manage to pay the minimum amounts of my debt each month - a loan and a couple of credit cards but don’t make any dents in them . If I spoke with Step change could they still help me as I’m not behind on payments and would this damage mycredit score? I do have a mortgage and my current rate runs out in March, if they offer me a further low rate will they do credit checks etc then? My income has also reduced after being put at risk of redundancy and accepting a lower paid role
£27k ish student loan (I don’t really think about this though as the repayments each month are so small and it won’t affect my credit score).
Car was paid off in February and renting at the moment so no mortgage.
£3.5k on an interest free credit card. I got married 2 years ago and paid the wedding instalments using the card and would transfer the money from our wedding savings account to the card. There wasn’t enough money in the savings account for the final payment and I went over budget on other things as well. I have been making payments each month but last year when my mental health wasn’t great I was finding money management difficult and kept putting things on my card because I couldn’t handle trying to work out if I had enough money in my current accounts (I have 3 - one joint and 2 of my own, one is for bills and the other I transfer a small portion of my wages for fun stuff). I have stopped using the card unless I absolutely have to. It was 5k at one point so I am making progress and providing I continue to only use the card in emergencies and make the same repayments as I currently am (300 a month), I will have cleared it by this time next year
Car was paid off in February and renting at the moment so no mortgage.
£3.5k on an interest free credit card. I got married 2 years ago and paid the wedding instalments using the card and would transfer the money from our wedding savings account to the card. There wasn’t enough money in the savings account for the final payment and I went over budget on other things as well. I have been making payments each month but last year when my mental health wasn’t great I was finding money management difficult and kept putting things on my card because I couldn’t handle trying to work out if I had enough money in my current accounts (I have 3 - one joint and 2 of my own, one is for bills and the other I transfer a small portion of my wages for fun stuff). I have stopped using the card unless I absolutely have to. It was 5k at one point so I am making progress and providing I continue to only use the card in emergencies and make the same repayments as I currently am (300 a month), I will have cleared it by this time next year
Yes they would still help even if you aren’t late with any payments. Only being able to pay the minimum payment on credit cards will mean you can never get out of the trap of having debt unless you get help with a company like Stepchange or get yourself a higher income (which obviously isn’t really an option for most of us).
It will affect your credit rating if you use a service like stepchange as all your creditors will state on your credit file that you have defaulted with them (stays on your file for 4-6 years and then gets wiped).
I’m not 100% sure about your remortgaging question but I would assume they would credit check you. If they can see your income has deceased and you are on a DMP trying to sort your debts out then they would be stupid to try and make you pay a higher rate. They would probably want to see details of your incomings and outgoings to make sure you can definitely still afford the mortgage payments
It will affect your credit rating if you use a service like stepchange as all your creditors will state on your credit file that you have defaulted with them (stays on your file for 4-6 years and then gets wiped).
I’m not 100% sure about your remortgaging question but I would assume they would credit check you. If they can see your income has deceased and you are on a DMP trying to sort your debts out then they would be stupid to try and make you pay a higher rate. They would probably want to see details of your incomings and outgoings to make sure you can definitely still afford the mortgage payments
I put it up from £650 to get it paid quicker , I was paying a lot more before I started with StepChange though