Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

greent

Ooh - good loss, ng!


xx

pennystretcher

Good evening, it has been interesting to read your progress so far - thanks for posting.

About your electricity bill - it seems a bit high - have you thought about getting LED bulbs for at least the most used fittings? Yes, they are more expensive to buy, but over time save you a lot of money. Just buy from reputable retailer e.g. B&Q so that they will last.

Also, freezer, freezer, freezer...and a toaster with defrost function.. Buy sliced bread that is about to go out of date, freeze and defrost when needed.. Obviously best time to visit shops to find discounted items is later on in the evening, but you can get cheap yummy bread even in Waitrose if you are there late in the evenings

Also on the business front - maybe you should consider introducing so called staff benefits - if staff can buy additional leave at face value, say anything between 1-10 days a year or possibility to take short sabbatical or study leave without having to worry about losing their job? Works both ways, staff feel they have more flexibility and you save in salary?

newgirly

Hi pennystretch, thank you for popping in and posting
You have made some good suggestions there, we do already use low energy bulbs everywhere,goodness know how high our bill would be otherwise! I don't use the dryer and if its not snowing i try and get away with no heating I think its the fact we have three teenagers who like their tvs/Consoles etc. and long showers that does'nt help.

The staff leave would be perhaps more suitable for the other end of the age range spectrum, sorry if it sounds ageist but we are talking about people in their seventies who want to retire soon (but with a redundancy payout first) so i can't see that going down well.

Ds2 off to thorpe park on the train today , £20.99 with clubcard vouchertop up, its £50 on the door now, shame he was too young to go with friends when we had the annual passes!

getmore4less

pennystretcher wrote: »

Also on the business front - maybe you should consider introducing so called staff benefits - if staff can buy additional leave at face value, say anything between 1-10 days a year or possibility to take short sabbatical or study leave without having to worry about losing their job? Works both ways, staff feel they have more flexibility and you save in salary?

Extra holiday is a tiny* saving and you still have to pay, as does getting them to use their holiday.

if you have lay off/short working clauses much better to use them as you save the full amount.

If the layoff** law does not give enough time then the situation is serious.


* an extra weeks holiday over statutory saves about 2.1% on annual salary

** The trick with the layoff law is to use short working and put people on just over 50% time so they can't claim redundancy***.

if you lay off you still have guarantee pay to fork out(not much max £130 for 5 days in 3month).

You also get to lay off for 4 weeks or 6 weeks in 13 but then you can't for a further 13 weeks if the employee has opened a request to get redundancy.

If this level of layof is required then things are really bad.

*** Do short working for long enough and the weeks pay goes down so the redundanacy can be lower if you get them below the cap.

smallholdingsister

How glad I am to be a reviled public sector worker.

Wombatchops

newgirly wrote: »

Cold dark Monday morning again! today is my aunts birthday and she is going to the local shopping centre with my mum and me (if I go!) they are having lunch at p*zza express, which I have declined.

These sort of situations make me feel a bit uncomfortable as my mum has offered to pay. I have bought a few nice presents which she asked for (about £25) but I really don't want to spend on lunch today. The family are all going for a resaurant meal friday to celebrate too so it will be the same situation then.

We have a small family, one aunt, no cousins etc. but the rest of the family have a lot more money than us (except younger brother, but my parents pay for him)

In the past when in debt we would have gone and put it on the cc, but I am certainly not doing that. Its just a bit hard sometimes as I don't want my parents to know how little money we are living off at the moment.

These things are just going to crop up more and more on the run up to xmas, and virtually all our family and friends are well off. My mum is keen for us to go and see micheal buble next year and take dd for her birthday , the tickets are £130 each (those are the cheap ones!)

I don't know, I read other peoples blogs and diaries and sepecially the blogs seem to have a never ending stream of super frugal people baking for their friends to come over for a cuppa, and mooching round charity shops. That really does not fit with many of my friends and family.


Does anyone else find it difficult to cut back without looking like you are:

1. A skinflint
2. are about to lose your house
3. are bonkers

Sorry for the long moany post

Hi newgirly, I came across your diary a few months back, and am only as far as November 2012, so I don't know how things have panned out in the intervening years, but I can't wait to find out. However, I decided to say hi because this post from November 2012 struck a chord with me.

I hope you don't mind me bringing this back up, and I hope things got better and you haven't had to say no as much recently. But I am currently going through what you went through, and it is really getting me down. And yes, I am finding it difficult to cut back without looking like I'm a skinflint, facing repossession, and have gone totally bonkers. But, do you know what? Not having a mortgage, and not needing to rely on tax credits and child benefit will be so worth it and so much more satisfying and sweeter because I have had to struggle when my friends haven't.

Anyway, I am really enjoying your diary and have another three years to catch up on, so I'll go now.

newgirly

Hi wombatchops (great name !) can't believe you are trawling through my years and years of ramblings

Its a bit strange reading what I posted three years ago, to be honest not much has changed except our financial situation is more unstable. However i've very recently had to share much more of this info with close friends and family to try and take the pressure off a bit.

I'm sorry you suffer from the same issues as I've posted about above, thats why mse and the mfw's have been so important over the years ,sensible sometimes bossy friends who understand what you are aiming for and have your best interests at heart

I love what you said at the end about appreciating it all at the end after the long journey, very true :T I'm off to see if you have a diary

norfolkdream

I've always been a skinflint and xmas and birthdays I start having palpitations!! I do put some money aside each month but I just hate buying things for people that might not even like them and they just end up wasteful clutter!

Wombatchops

I'm pleased you have been able to unburden and share the load with your loved ones. That must make it easier. As for "trawling through", your diary has really resonated with me.

I don't have a diary. I'm thinking about it, but I don't actually know how to start one up. I think I'm a bit dosey like that.

newgirly

Hi wbc you should definatly do a diary, on the mfw boards there is a "new thread" tab, i am still on the oldstyle green background though so i don't know if its different on the new white background. Best of luck, i will read if you start one

Diet ok today, have worked out there are 100 days from now until fri 11th dec so thats the target, me and my best friend set out targets (mine 39lb now, as ive lost 3 already) then when we are lovely and slim we will buy new xmas dresses and have a night out on sat 12th dec :beer: Total calories today 1233