I was having a disagreement with Boyfriend the other day.

It all started because I have been taking part this month in the Great British Budget challenge and have been using Money Hub in the new YourWealth app to get my finances in order. If you are the sort of person that likes lists and charts then you’ll love Money Hub. You can test out all sorts of different scenarios to see the impact of certain financial decisions on your future wealth, as well as budgeting for the day to day stuff.

For example, based on my current earnings and level of spending it is projecting my net worth at retirement to be -£173,962.

*whistles casually* View Post

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Have you ever thought about how being in a relationship can save you money?

I’ve been taking part in the Great British Budget challenge this month, so have been forced to think a lot about cashflow, and it has struck me how unfair life can be to single people sometimes, especially single parents.

When you’re young and child free it’s a bit different; you can simply share a house with friends, split the cost of all the beer and takeaway and generally have lots of fun. (I’ve never been an adult without children, but I’ve been led to believe this is how it works.) As a single parent though, it’s not as easy as simply finding a room mate – you need the same space and privacy as any two parent family, and yet somehow you have to find the money to pay for all the bills, toys and gin yourself. There is always the option of sending the kids up chimneys, but this does tend to be frowned upon nowadays.

Of course you could argue that a partner often just adds to your costs, insisting on meat with every meal rather than cereals and making you feel like you should do things in the evening other than just watch back-to-back Jonathan Creek, but overall surely the financial impact of a partner should be a positive one? (I say this with an air of hopeful optimism, having been in a relationship in the past that somehow always left me with less money than when I started.)

What are your top tips for saving money as a single parent? Are there any things that you find are actually cheaper when you’re single?

Find out more about cheap electricity suppliers.

Disclosure: this is a sponsored post.

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How do you feel about debt?

From a quick survey of my friends, debt seems to have the marmite quality – you either love it, or you hate it.

For some people, the idea of being in debt is terrifying. Holidays, cars and treats are carefully saved up for, and only when there are enough pennies in the pot can you splash out. For others, juggling a fistful of credit cards and loans is a normal part of everyday life, a way to manage unexpected expenses, or simply a way to get what they want, when they want it. View Post

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This month saw the arrival of my second post-Christmas credit card statement. I felt rather pleased with myself opening it, because I knew that even though I accidentally spent about £1,500 on it on Christmas presents, I paid off the balance almost completely in the first week of January.

*looks smug*

So self-satisfied was I in fact, that I almost wanted to punch myself in the face.

My eye was caught though by the line telling me I had ‘£13,416 available to spend’.

Hmm…

£13,416 is quite a lot of money…

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