Budgeting and moving house

We are a thirty something couple with two children aged 2 and 4. We bought our first house two years ago and have a mortgage of 1200 per month. We are wanting to move out of town and buy a house which will be about €2000 per month. We appreciate that our house will not gain what it would have last year so will not have a lot of equity in it.

However our wages have risen over the last few years. 70,000 for him, and part time wage of 27,000 pa for her.

Take home we have 5500 a month. Mortgage 1200. Creche fees 740 (will half by september). Car loan of 390 per month. Loan of 4000. About 300 on mastercard. Then the usual expenses.

We have been overspending and think we will be able to start saving after this month. We would appreciate any advice on managing our finances over the next year, specifically budgeting and moving house.

Would this not be better in Money Makeover section and you could follow the template for information. Just a suggestion.

I moved the thread.

We're hoping to do something similar this year, and are like yourselves with small kids and a not insignificant mortgage. We're bringing in good money, but I am very prone to serious overspending from time to time. We've also started the new year afresh. Some things that we are doing/have done. Go through your last 3 months bank statements and try to get a fix on your essential spending, ie. mortgage, childcare, food, utilities, travel, insurance. These are a given. Then allow yourselves some discretionary spending, maybe 30 per week, or some figure that you're comfortable with but on the understanding that once it's gone that it,you get nothing more til the following week.(bringing packed lunch to work and giving the coffee shops a miss means your money goes much further, allow a bought lunch once a week) After that put the balance into a savings account on pay day. If it's gone out of your current account, your much less likely to dip into it. For us most of our wasted spending is on grocery shopping, takeaways and diy shops. Now we allow ourselves a takeaway once a month (might have been 2-3 nights per week before, pure laziness really), we just don't go to the diy shops, and we don't go near the supermarket without a shopping list. Also when you do your food shopping make sure you don't go when you're hungry. You'd be amazed how much extra rubbish you buy when you're hungry. We do allow ourselves a couple of bottles of wine per week as we don't go out much, so some small luxuries are essential in my opinion. On paper you have a good surplus, so none of the above should be much of a struggle, it's just discipline (at least that's what I'm telling myself)

Here's a good case study of what you want to avoid.