Edinburgher gets cracking!

slowlyfading

Happy holidays! :beer:

I've got one more day to go - can't wait!

I've got a similar thing to your freedom fund in my mind, which I'm hoping to focus on a bit more next year. Do you put your freedom fund monies in a separate account?

edinburgher

I've got a similar thing to your freedom fund in my mind, which I'm hoping to focus on a bit more next year. Do you put your freedom fund monies in a separate account?

I don't SF, I use 2 spreadsheets (one for household budgets and savings, one for my pocket money/spare money). Whenever I pay money into my EF, I deduct it from the spare money and add it to the household budget.

I then give myself the highest interest rate on cash from our various accounts (best is currently c. 4% after tax from Nationwide).

The plan is to roll the pot into a S&S ISA at the start of the new tax year.

slowlyfading

Thanks for your reply - I may have to pick your brains re: S&S ISAs at some point, I'm finding the whole thing a bit confusing but it sounds like we have similar plans

edinburgher

Thanks for your reply - I may have to pick your brains re: S&S ISAs at some point, I'm finding the whole thing a bit confusing

Happy to discuss, although my plan is quite straightforward, cut expenses, save (maximising interest), while buying and holding diversified index tracking funds as cheaply as possible. The end

Payday today :j

• Interest calculated, 70p to Freedom Fund
• All pots updated for 2014
• Money shuffle to 2 N@tionwide accounts and back, the same for H@lifax account (both N@tionwide accs full now, Mrs E needs to open one in her own name)
• £119.73 to Freedom Fund
• £4.94 to Remortgage Pot
• £2.87 to Kitchen Pot

Calfuray

edinburgher wrote: »

Happy to discuss, although my plan is quite straightforward, cut expenses, save (maximising interest), while buying and holding diversified index tracking funds as cheaply as possible. The end

I love how you say it's simple when I understood about 1 word in 3 :rotfl:

slowlyfading

edinburgher wrote: »

Happy to discuss, although my plan is quite straightforward, cut expenses, save (maximising interest), while buying and holding diversified index tracking funds as cheaply as possible. The end

I like straightforward plans! are index tracking funds the only things you buy?

edinburgher

slowlyfading wrote: »

I like straightforward plans! are index tracking funds the only things you buy?

Yes, there are 2 funds in my pension and 1 in my ISA. The total return on shares is the combined value of all gains minus all deductions (fees). As I don't think it's possible to reliably (and consistently) increase gains, the only way to 'beat' the market is to reduce your costs. Cheap index tracking funds are the way to achieve this.

slowlyfading

Thanks for your reply

edinburgher

Now, this is a bit of a spendy post, but I think it will save me lots of money in the long run!

Today I drove to my 'local' Wilkinsons (about 10 miles I think) to pick up my home brew kit. While I was in store, I managed to get a giant plastic spoon (essential) and 4 beer kits (I couldn't get these online as they sold out almost instantly once the sale kicked off). This set me back c. £33.

In my defence, I now have enough gear to make 160 pints of beer, which is about as much as I can drink in a year. Not too bad for c. £61? :beer:

Most of my spare money goes on consumables (i.e. nice events, food and drinks with Mrs E), while Mrs E is a bit more into her nice clothes and fancy makeup. I noticed from my spending tracker (now almost 9 months of data), that booze is a pricy constituent part (maybe £30/mth)? So hopefully this will allow me to grow the Freedom Fund faster in the new year.

• Mrs E transferred me money from payday, balances all looking healthy
• Mrs E won a *mahoosive* box of chocolates (actually, it's a box with about 10 boxes in it!)
• £4.80 to Freedom Fund
• £2 to Remortgage Pot
• £1 to Kitchen Pot
• Completed YG survey on how healthy I'm not...

Happy holidays all :snow_laug

lulabelle1

A spendy post, love it!