Jopo1 wrote:I think I'm struggling to get my head around the planning of:
-How much can we afford to spend on a holiday and doing up the living room this year?
-How much do we need to put by for the known calamities that will happen in the next 10 years (my car is 9 years old, hubbies' cars are 18 years old, but as he has 2 he can afford to lose one without rushing to replace it!!)
-How do we track that and allocate it when cash is spread all over the place?
-How do we make sure we have enough long term savings to retire on?
So that's 3 pots to manage plus the general day to day expenses. I started using Moneyhub yesterday and it's helping me get some clarity on those questions.
Jopo
Ah, the true work. Seriously this is too much work for me, or I suspect Dod to do. I dodge the issue. It's easy, if you don't have to justify why you don't do the work.
There is a really great and really BORING book that sets out 9 things that you need to do to achieve "Financial independance".
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Your-Money-Lif ... 860&sr=8-1OK, let us make a start. Surely you know what you spent upon the things that you listed. After all you point out that the situation has been going on for eight years. You MUST have eight years of records. No? Well I honestly didn't expect you to have.
Seriously it is worth doing at least that once, or for a few years. You soon get an idea about your spending. I have kept records of what I spent on the car and at the supermarket. You should also include the things that I have little idea of, as my wife pays council tax, gas, electric and supporting a child at University. Past history of spending can give you a clue about future expenses. Though I confess that it's one of my faults and I regard it as a great luxury to not have to record or think of such things.
With a joint account and everything going through it, it is probably easy to simply download the info from the bank. I can't because I have no access to my wife's account (It's how we work). The upside for me is that I can invest how I choose.
With respect to investment:
We are a couple and our savings/wealth is joint. However we find it a LOT easier to not live in each others pockets. She has/had a thing about cash savings, while I love investing. That said, if she had felt that it was "her" money at risk she might have suffered from the vapours during the dot-com crash, the financial crash and last year.
It's a bit bracing to lose a years salary in a matter of months. It is however likely when you have managed to invest multiples of your salary. Or indeed worse, when you retire and will have no salary. If you rely upon a DC "pension" then you will eventually have to deal with it, even if you choose to ignore the fact until you feel a need to. Though you could of course just convert it to cash and buy an annuity, or even just try and live upon the cash.