Gallygirl's "A journey of 121,226.67 pounds begins with a single penny" diary

gallygirl

Friday

Plan for weekend:

• Car in at 8am for £400's worth of work _pale_
• SORT OUT A PLASTERER FOR LIVING ROOM CEILING!!!!!
• Make Xmas list :eek: (have actually bought 2 pressies so know I can tick some off )
• Sort out finances - pay day Monday
• Sort out study - paper monkeys have moved in again
• Sort out winter/summer clothes (can you see a theme here)
• Menu plan for week, shop (once I get car back) & cook
• Take top I bought last week from East back
• Garden, i.e. dig out tree stump*. Tree was about 15ft so it's not exactly a small job :eek:. So far have cut through arm-size surface roots & it's not showing any signs of wobble .
• Research new fence panel - how much including delivery & can I buy those groovy clips to hold it in place? Around £19 & clips are 88p, but can't find someone who will deliver cheaply - may have to have to call in a favour
• Car cleaned as per last week

If I get through all that I'll be chuffed

* This may involve blackmailing DS

gallygirl

gallygirl wrote: »

Friday

Plan for weekend:

• Car in at 8am for £400's worth of work _pale_ DONE
• SORT OUT A PLASTERER FOR LIVING ROOM CEILING!!!!! REPOSTED ON MYBUILDER
• Make Xmas list :eek: (have actually bought 2 pressies so know I can tick some off ) NOT DONE BUT DID BUY ANOTHER PRESSIE
• Sort out finances - pay day Monday DONE
• Sort out study - paper monkeys have moved in again DOING IT (SINCE 9AM..........)
• Sort out winter/summer clothes (can you see a theme here) NOT DONE, AS FORECAST IS FOR WARM WEATHER
• Menu plan for week, shop (once I get car back) & cook DONE
• Take top I bought last week from East back NOT DONE, NEED TO DO NEXT SAT OR TOO LATE
• Garden, i.e. dig out tree stump*. Tree was about 15ft so it's not exactly a small job :eek:. So far have cut through arm-size surface roots & it's not showing any signs of wobble . DONE BY DS, TRUNK OUT AND I AM MAKING GOOD PROGRESS WITH ROOTS - GAVE UP AS TOO DARK
• Research new fence panel - how much including delivery & can I buy those groovy clips to hold it in place? Around £19 & clips are 88p, but can't find someone who will deliver cheaply - may have to have to call in a favour DIDN'T GET ANY FURTHER WITH THIS
  
• Car cleaned as per last week OOPS AGAIN

If I get through all that I'll be chuffed

* This may involve blackmailing DS

Quite a bit of progress made, worn out now! Have also today:

• Written to C&G about changing mortgage (in Mr GG's name) to joint.
• Written to little girl I've started to sponsor
• Made pots of soup & mince
• Tidied out car
• Reported bump to car, excess is £400 :eek: but would cost me more than that as needs bodywork to bumper & boot and respray to bumper. I think I know what hit it but could never prove it so haven't mentioned it.

Think I deserve my glass of wine :beer:

susiejq

Hi,
I like your thread so hope you don't mind me joining in. I sometimes feel that I need the companionship of others who are struggling to reduce their outgoings and debts.
We don't have any debts other than our mortgage which I am overpaying by a couple of hundred pounds a month at the moment.
We are looking to retire in three years time but unless the mortgage has gone we can't do that.
The trouble is we also want to help our daughter through uni. She gets hit by the high fees next September and although we can't pay them I want to pay her accommodation costs.
I earn a reasonable salary but my husband is self employed and his wages vary enormously and he often waits weeks to get paid. So that's all about me.
Everyday I try not to spend any money except for food, and petrol when needed. I take my lunch from home.
I have a shared allotment and also grow veg and salad stuff in the garden. I shop at Lidl and Costco.
Today we have cleared out the garage and found a few bits to e-bay.
I love looking through the forum for ideas to make and save money and find it inspirational and comforting to think there are so many of us.
So my plan, inspired by you, is to try and stash as much money every month as I can in either the mortgage or the ISAs.
:beer:

gallygirl

Don't be inspired by me for goodnes sake, I go out & accidentally buy a house . I feel your pain with regards to your daughter though = I had 2 at uni and on the overlap years I was shelling out over £400 a month _pale_. It must be awful waiting for hubby to be paid - I always pay s/e people immediately.

I'd like to retire in [STRIKE]5 years [/STRIKE]4 years 11 months and was just checking the figures last night - seems a lot to clear across our various mortgages, but also seems doable as long as jobs stable etc. Fingers crossed.

I find the biggest motivation is spreadsheets. There are various ones knocking around on here which show the impact of overpaying = I have my own which I'd be happy to send you if you pm me your email address, but there are more sophisticated ones around.

Having said that though, you do need to live a little! Don't cut out all pleasurable things! It would be easy to deprive yourself of little luxuries along the way, but 3 years is a long time so don't deprive yourself of all life's little pleasures. It's all about striking a balance (I was way too far on the strict side but seem to have lurched too far the other way at the moment and am gingerly climbing up the seesaw to get back to the middle )

Good luck!

GG

TallGirl

Well done on getting all the jobs done that is some list.

I agree spreadsheets are a great motivator. We cut out 9 years on our mortgage and we did not really go with out we had a new bathroom and holidays too. I think its just a mindset for us it was the small things like shopping cheaper (going down a brand), waste less (meal plan), get the best deal on anything or even haggle to get it, use cashback sites, sign up for freebies and MysteryShop instead of paying for your own dinner/drink.

I wish I could retire in 4 years and 11 months.

susiejq

Yes, I totally agree that you still need to live for now as well as save for the future. We have a motorhome that we use for holidays and weekends away. It's a luxury in some ways but an essential in others as we have quite stressy jobs and being able to get away allows us to unwind. We also have a little dinghy that we sail on our local lake at weekends and we belong to the sailing club there. It's a great social life and cheap drinks! We can also camp there for nothing and it's like being on holiday although it's only 6 miles from home.
At the moment I'm stashing any spare money in to our ISAS as the interest rate is more than our mortgage rate. I would like to see the mortgage decreasing as that would be very satisfying but financially it wouldn't be an advantage. If I manage to fill both ISAS, which I doubt, then I would start paying sums off the mortgage.
Didin't spend a penny on anything today but the Lidl shopping list is getting longer each day.

gallygirl

Quote of £160 for celing, same price as guy who ended up not doing it last time! Have sent him a message to see when he can do it

Team day tomorrow. One of the young guys who works for me announced today he is buying choccies to celebrate he has one more payment to make on a loan. 3 years ago he was a gambler and 40k in debt. Now he will be debt free and goes to 'special meetings for special people' as he puts it :cool:. Very, very proud of him for what he has achieved, and for having the courage to talk about it in such a matter of fact way. Well done young man :T:j:kisses3:_party_:dance::beer:

gallygirl

Well, lovely relaxing weekend in the sunshine over. Also sunbathed for 1/2 hour at lunchtime today, I have sunbathed more in October than the rest of the summer :cool:.

I did manage to list 19 things on ebay yesterday, with prices starting from 99p up to £9.99. Bids on 2 already - I'll let you guess the starting prices . Lots of watchers on others, but mainly things I think others are watching to see what they go for. They need to go for around double the listing price to break even overall.

Spendy spendy continues. Ceiling guy coming next week. Now toilet light not working. DS has taken apart, also light switch, but can't see what's wrong so I have asked my electrician/roofer/builder to have a look next week. Have reminded him I asked for a quote for painting fascias etc so hopefully he won't charge too much for light .

Deposit for holiday on ccard bill. Remainder needs paying, on Halifax ccard so I get my £5 .

Speaking of which, no £5 from Halifax current account today. I gather they are in the process of changing to LTSB system and that has delayed things :mad:. I want to make an OP NOW .

SW tonight and have lost 2lbs :T (of the 7 I put on ). Still 3lbs away from target range when I don't need to pay so that should be a good incentive :rotfl:.

Regular monthly OP made to own BTL, 1 month off end date (projected to be April 22 :eek:. Em, I think you'll find that's Dec 12 actually ). Have had mortgage just under 13 months. 77 overpayments made, 639 days knocked off in 2010 (included a lump sum of 1k), 710 days on 2011 so far :T.

I have a small with(out!) profits policy maturing this month. I'll be happy if I get the 3k I've paid in back . That will make a tidy OP (and so far I have managed to resist keying it into spreadsheet to see what it will do ).

I want Michelle's little dog

gallygirl

:eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_ eek :eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_

Mr GG and I are currently trying to sort out wills. Complicated because we also need to sort out IHT & didn't know which order to sort out - in the end our solicitor has said do the will, then if we get IHT advice & need to change he will do free of charge, as long as we get our finger out .

So, wills drafted and thought I'd have a look at calculating IHT.

:eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_ eek :eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_

Very roughly, Mr GG 187k, me 130k.

:eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_ eek :eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_:eek:_pale_

Really, really, really, need to get advice on this. NOW

TallGirl

Sounds complicated best to get advice I would say. Luckily we don't have such problems not enough dosh for it even to matter. Good luck with getting it sorted.