Harriet Smith would like to be consistently earning £100,000 per year and wants to retire with a £1m pension pot
In our How I Manage My Money series we aim to find out how people in the UK are spending, saving and investing money to meet their costs and achieve their goals.
This week we speak to Harriet Smith, 34, who lives in Wiltshire with her husband, Scott, 36, their daughter, Emmie, seven, and sons Fox, three, and Teddy, who is 10 months old. Harriet admits to being an impulse-buyer and has more than £40,000 worth of debt. She would like to be consistently earning £100,000 per year and wants to retire with a £1m pension pot.
Monthly Budget
My monthly income: My monthly take-home pay is around £3,500 from my full-time job as a digital marketing strategist at a company linked to the recruitment sector. The income from my user-generated content work varies, but since starting in May, I have made around £2,700 before tax. We receive £242.20 for child benefit every month and disability living allowance for our daughter, at £412 every month. We also have my husband’s job income coming in. He is the clubhouse manager at a golf club.
Our joint monthly shared outgoings: Mortgage, £1,525.83; estate service charge, £15; groceries, £600; kids fund for things like clothes and days out days out, £400; water, gas and electric, £213.38, council tax, £219; cat pet plan, insurance and food, £97.37, washing machine cover, £6.99, broadband, £32.99, TV license, £15; swimming lessons for Fox, £32.50; martial arts classes for Emmie, £36; Netflix, £5.99; Amazon Prime, £8.99; Spotify, £16.99; nursery, £450; birthday savings pot for the children, £50; money into Christmas savings pot, £100; money for emergency savings pot, £50.
My monthly outgoings: Debt repayments, between £1,000 to £2,000; car via personal contract purchase, £479.06, car tax: £16.62, car service plan, £33; business subscriptions: £55.32; mobile, £12; Monzo account: £3, petrol, £140; things like eating and drinking out, clothes and haircuts, £100 to £200; money into emergency savings pot, £50; money for Airbnb over Christmas, £18.22. I pay for my car insurance annually.
I met Scott on Christmas Eve in 2016 and we were engaged by Valentine’s Day in 2017, before getting married in the Easter of 2017.
I’ve worked in all sorts of different businesses within the field of digital marketing. I’ve worked at agencies and in-house, but have been made redundant three times in my career.
I’ve been in my current job as a full-time digital marketing strategist for three years and absolutely love it.
I’m very active on social media and run my own TikTok and Instagram channels via @itsharrietjsmith. On top of my job, I make money creating user-generated content, where I make videos for brands to promote their products or services for a fee. I’ve made about £2,700 from this work since May.
I don’t have a healthy relationship with money. This is something I am trying to improve and talk openly about on my social media channels.
I’ve always had debt and purchased what I wanted when I wanted it, while dealing with the consequences later. I buy things for the dopamine hit. If I’m sad, anxious, nervous, or happy, I buy things. I’m working hard to curb my impulse spending and try to use the 48-hour rule: if I see something I like, I have to wait for 48 hours to see if I still really want it.
I am in about £45,000 worth of debt in the form of a bank loan, four credit cards and loans from family members for half of our £31,000 mortgage deposit. The debt was all accumulated between September 2023 and now. I’m repaying between £1,000 to £2,000 a month from my debts each month.
I’m grateful for the new “free” childcare extension of 30 hours for children nine months or older from September. Without it, we’d be looking at spending more than £1,000 on nursery fees each month. Childcare costs for Emmie and Fox crippled us.
During my latest maternity leave, I received 90 per cent of my earnings for eight weeks and then statutory maternity pay (SMP), which was about £800 per month. I would like to see SMP rise in line with the national minimum wage or for employers to offer more paid time off. I wish women had the option to choose when they want to return to work and for the decision not to be based on money, as it is for so many.
I add about 4 per cent of the pay from my full-time job to a workplace pension, but think I need to increase my contribution. I don’t think we’d be able to survive solely on the state pension in later life. Ideally, I would like £1m in my pension pot by the time I retire, but I’m not too sure how I would achieve this and think I need to learn more about pensions.
We don’t put money into ISAs, but we do have an emergency savings pot with Monzo, which has an interest rate of 3.2 per cent. Once all my debts are paid off, I will be paying more attention to savings and investments.
Some of our accounts are separate, but we do have a joint one. Years ago, we just had one joint account and ran into conflict when someone wanted to buy something deemed extravagant. The way we run our finances now is much better.
We purchased our three-bedroom semi-detached new-build house in Wiltshire in September 2023 for £310,000. Our fixed-rate mortgage ends in 2028 and with our current rate at 5.58 per cent, I’m hopeful we will be able to secure a lower rate in the future.
I am massively motivated by money. For me, money means being secure, having a roof over our heads, food in our tummies, heating and water, birthdays with gifts, parties and cake, summer holidays, and enough savings for our children’s first cars and weddings. Money means not having to struggle.
While I don’t believe money buys happiness, I think it helps when you don’t have to worry about it. I’d like to be consistently earning £100,000 per year within a digital marketing role. Later on in life, I would like to have substantial savings, no debt or mortgage, a family holiday once a year and an adequate pension. This is a tall order and I’m not sure I’ll ever get there, but I think without all my goals I’d have no chance and be aimlessly wandering through life.
Want to take part in How I Manage My Money? Email money@inews.co.uk