How To Get Your Finances Back On Track With Saxton Associates

Money is currently at the forefront of all of our minds during this lockdown situation. On Tuesday my husband will be returning to work for the first time in seven weeks. He does not want to, but as a self employed builder he has not been paid since March 27th and we are worried about our finances.

It can certainly be said that the lockdown situation has been unreal when it comes to finances. We are not currently paying our mortgage or our full Sky TV bill, we are spending little in petrol, entertainment, eating out and general shopping not related to food, so we are managing to survive on savings and the little I earn, but this is a unreal, almost surreal situation. However, it is one that we can learn from once the lockdown is over in order to keep our budgets and finances manageable.

Here are a few of the things we will be looking at post lockdown.

Our Credit Cards

When shopping out and about we have used our debit card, but when we have shopped online, we have called on the credit card to ensure there is some protection if items haven’t arrived (a case in point was my husband’s present from Debenhams which was lost in transit.). When this is over, we are going to look at changing all our cards for one low interest credit card like the one offered by Saxton Associates so the bills will be as low as possible each month, with a view to paying them off.

Handling the Mortgage

When this 3 month period is over at the end of June, we will have to begin paying the mortgage again. The extra months missed may be split over your mortgage term which could mean the mortgage monthly payments could go up. An alternative suggested to me was that the extra months could be added onto the end of the term, hence avoiding that extra expense at a time when you are just getting back on your feet. I will be finding out about this.

Food

We are a family who not only eat out a lot, we also enjoy far too many takeaways. My food shopping bill has gone up during this period, but that has been balanced by not buying lots of takeaways. This is something I want to continue after lockdown, we have finally discovered the joy of a home cooked roast dinner, that a fakeaway costs half the price of a traditional takeaway and yet tastes wonderful with a film and a craft ale on a Saturday night. These have been positive ways that save money and I want to continue to embrace them.

Making Use of your home and local space

Every weekend pre lockdown, we would spend lots of money on entertainment, from cinema tickets to entrance to theme parks and attractions. We would rarely stay in and enjoy our own garden, and certainly hadn’t made must use of the many local beauty spots that exist in our area. This is something else that will change. Sure we can’t wait to get to the cinema and theatre again, but this has made us appreciate what we have got already.

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