Eager Elephant's Effective Everyday Excursion ...

HairyHandofDartmoor

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

FIRE is financial independence retire early which is what DH and I have done. As I understand it FI is just financial independence which does not involve retiring but does involve doing something you enjoy maybe on a consultancy or self employed basis as and when rather than working full time in the classic 9 to 5 role and being dependent on an employer. Happy to be corrected on FI though as I am unclear whether the not retiring bit is because money is still needed to live off or whether the work you do still requires a degree of profit or can be looked on as a hobby.

Thanks for the explanation ES.

badmemory

Eager_Elephant wrote: »

We are having a massive sort out as we just have too much stuff, if I am up to date with the washing then some things just cant fit in the drawers and have to rest on the top of the drawers.
We still have hundreds of boxes of stuff from F-I-L which need sorting through and that is adding to the clutter in the lounge.

I am in total sympathy with this. My mother went into a care home almost 6 years ago & died 2.5 yrs ago, we sold her house 5 yrs ago. Every spare & non-spare space in my house has her stuff in it, even under the dining table, stuff which I can't quite bring myself to get rid of. I feel like I am throwing away her life. This on top of downsizing (almost 30yrs ago) from a decent sized 5 bed to a small 3 bed, I feel like I walk round my own home with my eyes closed because I don't want to see.

It makes all of life so difficult especially as you said if you ever need a workman in. But the worse part is the effect it has on your own wellbeing. This is what finally spurred me into action, 4 charity shop & 6 tip bags & I can't see any improvement. But I will get there & know you will too. We just have to stick at it.

Just to make others feel better about what they are dealing with! Last week I threw away 3 pyrex bowls, 1lg, 1med & 1sm leaving me with 2 of each (& who really needs 2 of each you may ask). 5 of these 9 bowls I had as a wedding present in 1969 (1969 is not a typo) the other 4 newer ones were my mother's. Interesting to see how the pyrex logo has changed over the years.

Eager_Elephant

HairyHandofDartmoor wrote: »

What a relief to get FIL's estate sorted EE.

Well done on getting a credit card paid off. When you pay off one of DH's credit cards does the account get closed? Is there anything to stop DH spending on it again and running up a new debt on it?

DH defaulted on all his credit cards and loans in 2012 when he became ill and was off sick from work for months and could not maintain minimum payments - it was a blessing in disguise really as the minimum payments took up his whole wage bar a bit he out towards bills and so each month he had to use his credit cards again to buy diesel etc and would often take out more credit to use to get by - by this point we had seperate accounts as I realised after a few years of a joint bank account that DH just liked spending and he didnt earn enough so used credit and I was having to contribute to paying his debts off.

All his debts are with debt agencies now so once paid off are not able to be used again but it does improve his credit rating:T

Can you use the proceeds of the estate to pay off some more debt or do you have other plans for it?

We could but F-I-L left the proceeds to be split between DH and I and I dont want my half going to his debts and also I feel we should do something beneficial with the money hence DH doing a course fits well with that ethos and as DH calls this an investment I feel I should do something with my money hence the premium bonds. F-I-L was very good with money and never believed in debt, its a shame his other sons fleeced him of all his money over the years, so I dont want his savings to pay off debt that DH was stupid enough to run up.

I'm not sure what FIRE or FI is?

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

FIRE is financial independence retire early which is what DH and I have done. As I understand it FI is just financial independence which does not involve retiring but does involve doing something you enjoy maybe on a consultancy or self employed basis as and when rather than working full time in the classic 9 to 5 role and being dependent on an employer. Happy to be corrected on FI though as I am unclear whether the not retiring bit is because money is still needed to live off or whether the work you do still requires a degree of profit or can be looked on as a hobby.

ES answered your question well, the reason mine would not be FIRE is because I want to run a smallholding and also a camp site, I wont be doing it to make loads of money, just to tick by and because it is a hobby of mine (smallholding) and I will then work my own hours and not have an employer.

Eager_Elephant

badmemory wrote: »

I am in total sympathy with this. My mother went into a care home almost 6 years ago & died 2.5 yrs ago, we sold her house 5 yrs ago. Every spare & non-spare space in my house has her stuff in it, even under the dining table, stuff which I can't quite bring myself to get rid of. I feel like I am throwing away her life. This on top of downsizing (almost 30yrs ago) from a decent sized 5 bed to a small 3 bed, I feel like I walk round my own home with my eyes closed because I don't want to see.

It makes all of life so difficult especially as you said if you ever need a workman in. But the worse part is the effect it has on your own wellbeing. This is what finally spurred me into action, 4 charity shop & 6 tip bags & I can't see any improvement. But I will get there & know you will too. We just have to stick at it.

Just to make others feel better about what they are dealing with! Last week I threw away 3 pyrex bowls, 1lg, 1med & 1sm leaving me with 2 of each (& who really needs 2 of each you may ask). 5 of these 9 bowls I had as a wedding present in 1969 (1969 is not a typo) the other 4 newer ones were my mother's. Interesting to see how the pyrex logo has changed over the years.

Its reading things like yours that make me realise mine isn't quite as bad as that:rotfl:

MIL went into a home in 2003 and we had to clear her house in 12 weeks as it was council and she could only get Housing Benefit for 12 weeks while she trialled the home. This was a large 3 bed house with loft filled, we were pretty ruthless and most of the stuff which was not usable got burnt and the rest we sold as this also included stuff of FIL (DH's father not FIL who died recently who is step FIL) which DH should have got a share off when he died but instead MIL sold loads of stuff and drunk the money away:mad:

We kept some ornaments and she took some ornaments to the care home, when she died 5 years later the ornaments all came to us and sat in a box on top of DH's chest of drawers and once a year he would sort through them and gradually got rid of what he didn't want until we were left with 2 ornaments.

When stepFIL died recently we had 4 weeks to clear his flat and luckily I managed to rehome lots of things direct, I put them on Facebook and some of my friends who were starting again in new homes came and got things so that was good. I also did numerous charity shop runs and runs to the tip.
What we have left is 000's of CD's which I am putting on Facebook and loads of books which I am checking prices on before we get rid of them.
There is also 00's of vinyl which we are gradually sorting through, most of it is common as muck so we have been recycling this rather than donating as I think it would just clutter up the charity shops.

We donated the majority of the kitchen equipment to various family members and then the rest went to charity.

It was a hard 4 weeks but I am so pleased the majority went to new homes although we do have a 2month old fridge freezer in our shed - the problem is that it has lost so much value I cant quite lower the price but I will soon as the longer it sits around the more damage could be done.

I really feel for you badmemory and hope you can continue with your clearance - remember its all baby steps and although you cant see a difference you know you have made one as so much has left your house/.

HairyHandofDartmoor

Eager_Elephant wrote: »

All his debts are with debt agencies now so once paid off are not able to be used again but it does improve his credit rating:T



We could but F-I-L left the proceeds to be split between DH and I and I dont want my half going to his debts and also I feel we should do something beneficial with the money hence DH doing a course fits well with that ethos and as DH calls this an investment I feel I should do something with my money hence the premium bonds. F-I-L was very good with money and never believed in debt, its a shame his other sons fleeced him of all his money over the years, so I dont want his savings to pay off debt that DH was stupid enough to run up.

That's a relief that DH can't run up the credit cards again and I quite understand that you don't want to pay his debts with your money. It's great that half of the money has been left to you :T.

badmemory

I was pleased to read that FILs will reflected the effect BOTH of you had on his life & think it is an excellent idea to use that money effectively/beneficially rather than disappear down a black hole. I'm sure FIL would be pleased.

I've found it interesting that having some money behind you can significantly reduce the stresses of something going wrong & does actually seem to reduce what may go wrong. It may well all be in the mind but can have a very real effect nonetheless.

HairyHandofDartmoor

badmemory wrote: »

I've found it interesting that having some money behind you can significantly reduce the stresses of something going wrong & does actually seem to reduce what may go wrong. It may well all be in the mind but can have a very real effect nonetheless.

That is so true. It gives you confidence and reduces stress which makes you perform better in everything you do.

Sun_Addict

I suppose, as you're unsure about leaving DH, you should see how it goes for now. If things don't improve then you can revisit the situation. Just before Mr SA got ill, I'd had enough of him and his constant moaning but had no idea of the way out. Talk about be careful what you wish for! I feel awful admitting this but that's how it was. Sad as it sounds, there's no way I would want to retire early and be stuck at home with him 24-7, it would be awful.

Good that you've sorted FIL's estate though.

Eager_Elephant

Sun_Addict wrote: »

I suppose, as you're unsure about leaving DH, you should see how it goes for now. If things don't improve then you can revisit the situation. Just before Mr SA got ill, I'd had enough of him and his constant moaning but had no idea of the way out. Talk about be careful what you wish for! I feel awful admitting this but that's how it was. Sad as it sounds, there's no way I would want to retire early and be stuck at home with him 24-7, it would be awful.

Good that you've sorted FIL's estate though.

I know what you mean SA, there have been various points over the years that I have finally been ready to leave DH but then something happens like he gets ill or someone dies.

I still believe his head issues from 2012 were a blessing in disguise, I am not sure where his debt would have ended. It might have taken 5 years to get him fixed as much as he can be and mainly he is back to how he was before albeit stress and loud noise affects his head badly and he has to stay in bed for days afterwards but we manage and I know he is so much better off than a lot of people.

Eager_Elephant

Naughty EE had not updated YNAB since the start of March so have brought that all up to date and transferred money from pots to where it should go.

End result is that the bill account somehow has £105 left in it so have transferred this to errant credit card bringing balance down to £452.
Its amazing what 'spare' money is there when you really look for it.

I have also set up standing orders for all the pots each month - normally I move it all manually but if I am a few days late then often DH will have purchased bits off Amazon and so there isn't enough in there but that will no longer happen.

I have also told DH he needs to claim his work expenses back asap as last month they came to nearly £200 plus he is crazing me for a radio so I have told him if he claims his expenses back he can have one (the money has already been moved to work expenses in YNAB so technically doesn't exist anyway but don't tell him that!!)

Forgot to mention that also this week I read an article in the newspaper about £43k being the lower end of the salary ladder for happiness and they did some case studies on 4 families who have that as an income - it was an eye opener to say the least.
I have never spoken to anyone who earns the same as us to see what they spend so this was a good way of seeing that. One of the families is running up debt as they have a lifestyle that is above their income and other families either just get by or manage well and save quite a bit (the further north the cheaper the cost of living).
It really made me think about what we spend as a family when our income from wages is £46k and its made me more determined to actually save and have aspirations rather than just pootling along.
I read the article again today online and the comments are quite good.
I also went to find the original science article behind the theory and actually the £43,000 is just for one person so apparently we need quite a bit more as a family for happiness but it got me thinking that actually I am quite happy with my lot and in an ideal world we wouldnt have debt and would own our own home we arent doing too bad.

I think thats enough pondering and assessing life for one week!!!