Pensions Planning: The NUMBER

tigerspill

bigfer said:

tigerspill said:

bigfer said:

Keeping your outgoings lower? Try brewing your own beer. If you can boil a kettle, you can brew beer.....which does question the competency of the manufacturers of John Smith Smooth.
Beer kits are far superior to the dodgy rot gut of the 70/80s. Remember, "craft beer" is just a hipster's name for homebrew.

Would you be able to give a recommendation for a light/pale ale type kit?  Currently drinking Hop House 13 and like it a lot (I know it is classed as a lager). 

I use Ritchie's Simply kits, dirt cheap. They do a pale ale. I've done four of these now and are bomb proof. They make a good base for trying stuff out. I've dry hopped with it and used American West coast yeast and even chucked in a jar of liquid malt extract from Holland & Barrett which gave it more legs. They are a tenner. At the other end of the price scale, I did a Mangrove Jack's Craft Series American Pale Ale, the grapefruit one which is supposed to taste like BrewDog Elvis Juice.... absolute belter.
I have only the basic equipment and reuse 500ml beer bottles. It's great...I haven't been to the pub in weeks....oh hang on......
..

Think I might give this a go.  Used to brew wine years ago, but never beer.

Thank you

bigfer

Basic stuff. 23 litre plastic fermenting bin with lid and tap. Plastic stirring stick. Collection of empty PET sparkling water/tonic bottles. Sanitising powder, but at a pinch thin bleach or Milton fluid.
That's all the hardware you need to try out.
Beer kit, bag of sugar or brewing sugar if you are flash and Robert's your Father's brother.
You should be able to get it all at Wilkos but if you have a local homebrew shop, I'd go there. They always give good advice.
In this weather fermentation will only take 7/8 days, but in cooler times you may need an electric heater.
As I said, cheap as chips and keeps me from under the wife's feet. I was once told drinking homebrew is very much like drinking pi$$, you can tolerate your own, but probably best to avoid other people's. Well as Patches O'Houlihan famously quotes in Dodgeball when asked why he drinks his own urine...."it's sterile and I like the taste"
Chin chin.........
 
 

Gatser

bownyboy said:

The one thing I wish money dashboard would do is show your categories of spending over a 12 month period, seems only to do it for current and last month.

This is why I have always used good ol' Excel spreadsheets.
Fine tuned and tweaked the sheets over the years but from age of around 30 I was planning for retirement... it was a much bigger spreadsheet in those days!

tigerspill

Gatser said:

bownyboy said:

The one thing I wish money dashboard would do is show your categories of spending over a 12 month period, seems only to do it for current and last month.

This is why I have always used good ol' Excel spreadsheets.
Fine tuned and tweaked the sheets over the years but from age of around 30 I was planning for retirement... it was a much bigger spreadsheet in those days!

I used to use MS Money and t was the best money management application out there.  I have tried a few over the years and none comes close to MSM.  I moved to a Mac so MSM wasn't supported.
Noe I use spreadsheets as they give the flexibility I need that none of the apps give these days.

cfw1994

tigerspill said:

Gatser said:

bownyboy said:

The one thing I wish money dashboard would do is show your categories of spending over a 12 month period, seems only to do it for current and last month.

This is why I have always used good ol' Excel spreadsheets.
Fine tuned and tweaked the sheets over the years but from age of around 30 I was planning for retirement... it was a much bigger spreadsheet in those days!

I used to use MS Money and t was the best money management application out there.  I have tried a few over the years and none comes close to MSM.  I moved to a Mac so MSM wasn't supported.
Noe I use spreadsheets as they give the flexibility I need that none of the apps give these days.

I’ve been Mac for many years now......but still use my trusty Quicken 2000 in a small Win7 virtual machine 
Old habits die hard.....
Liking the idea of home brewing, may need to move down that way....on a 4 pint takeaway beer run once or twice a week right now, that ought to save me some money!

savingmore

Many thanks for reviving this thread
, one of my favourites.   one thing this lockdown has shown us is we def. want to retire sooner than later.  we decided we would retire once we got our sp, first one in 36 months.  for quite a while we thought we would go somewhere between 66 and 70, but def. sooner now.  age 66 seems a long way off, however 36 months doesn’t!  like one of you i didn’t dare look at my figure in first few weeks of lockdown, but eventually peaked from behind the proverbial cushion.  wasn’t as bad as feared.  had annual review with FA and overall came out feeling good.  invested some more near the low point (well the lowest so far) which william help to offset some losses.  he was telling me of some of his clients who had sold out in panic against their advice, and of course have locked in the losses now and have missed some of the bounce back.  hard lessons.  and who knows what is to come.  our figure is based on three government pensions, £27,000 give or take a few hundred.  we can live on that well we know, andy that’s leaves money from our investments, if they have not been all wiped out by then, as bonus money, good holidays and we hope to buy a new house and sell our current one so need around £130,000 for that’s at today’s rate.

trying to juggle where’s i keep my cash.  got a 1.6% one year bond with vanquis set up, will try this weekend to see what their current rate is, as my cynergy one matures in june at same rate.  now too for 36 months of preparing for R-day!  clearing out old paperwork, decluttering (we will move at this point, can’t before), and planning what R will look like.  

tigerspill

cfw1994 said:

tigerspill said:

Gatser said:

bownyboy said:

The one thing I wish money dashboard would do is show your categories of spending over a 12 month period, seems only to do it for current and last month.

This is why I have always used good ol' Excel spreadsheets.
Fine tuned and tweaked the sheets over the years but from age of around 30 I was planning for retirement... it was a much bigger spreadsheet in those days!

I used to use MS Money and t was the best money management application out there.  I have tried a few over the years and none comes close to MSM.  I moved to a Mac so MSM wasn't supported.
Noe I use spreadsheets as they give the flexibility I need that none of the apps give these days.

I’ve been Mac for many years now......but still use my trusty Quicken 2000 in a small Win7 virtual machine 
Old habits die hard.....
Liking the idea of home brewing, may need to move down that way....on a 4 pint takeaway beer run once or twice a week right now, that ought to save me some money!

I have actually have something similar running MSM using a Parallels VM, but dont really use it.  Maybe I should try again.

garyuk89

Ive been saving in a workplace pension since I was 18 and have a deffered contributions one with old employer (run by Aviva My money) and my currently employers one which i contribute into every 4 weekly paydays (run by L & G)
Due to my partners disabilities i only work part time and having children as well we now claim Universal Credit. With UC they allow me to earn £292 per month and then take 63% of my remaining earnings off our benefit after any Tax NI and Pension Contributions. 
My employers match whatever % of my total wage I contribute upto 7.5% but the contribution % you choose includes the tax relief (even though i dont pay tax) so as I decided 9% , Im actually deducted 7.2% from my pay  e.g. I earn £620 I pay 7.2% = £44.64 but with the tax relief makes 9% = £55.80 . My employer puts in 7.5% = £46.50 so every 4 weeks £102.30 goes into my pension fund. Being on UC the £44.64 i paid into my pension fund is not included so if i didnt pay into the pension fund I would only gain £16.52 after they deduct 63%. So basically i m only paying £16.52 every 4 weeks for £102.30 every 4 weeks to be invested. My point being that if your on UC and have an income thats reducing your benefit by 63% there is a huge benefit to put some in a pension pot as your likely to have at least 3 times more go in than what you actually contribute even without employers contributions (legally i believe they have to put in 3%).


 

Peterrr

In answer to the original post, my number (for a couple and using today's prices)
Food £6,800 (includes a cheeky takeaway or two each week)
Car/transport £7,000 (two cars, includes £3k depreciation/contribution to replacements)
Bills/Utilities £7,200 (includes house insurance, council tax, elec/gas, TV/broadband, mobiles)
Holidays/Leisure £15,000 (includes club/gym memberships, weekend breaks, pub visits & holidays)
Clothing/Cash/Xmas/Other £2,000
Repairs/replacements £2,000 (does this include haircuts and dentistry?)
Total £40,000
Oh dear, that won't be happening anytime soon!

Stubod

Peterrr said:

In answer to the original post, my number (for a couple and using today's prices)
Food £6,800 (includes a cheeky takeaway or two each week)
Car/transport £7,000 (two cars, includes £3k depreciation/contribution to replacements)
Bills/Utilities £7,200 (includes house insurance, council tax, elec/gas, TV/broadband, mobiles)
Holidays/Leisure £15,000 (includes club/gym memberships, weekend breaks, pub visits & holidays)
Clothing/Cash/Xmas/Other £2,000
Repairs/replacements £2,000 (does this include haircuts and dentistry?)
Total £40,000
Oh dear, that won't be happening anytime soon!

...putting a positive spin on this I think you have plenty of opportunities to save money if you ever wanted to!