Onwards to freedom!

savingholmes

Nice win on PB

Numbercruncher_mfw

Fantastic year end figures, can I ask for tips on how you've grown your cash and S&S pots so big? Is it just a case of regular saving month on month? It must feel really reassuring to know you have that money behind you whatever life throws your way. 

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks for posting KC, SH, and NC ☺️

@Numbercruncher_mfw I think you're probably already doing a better job than us - a 15k annual mortgage reduction is incredible!

We don't do anything special, but here's a brief summary of our approach to finances:

• Avoid interest accruing debt (we haven't bothered stoozing in a while either)
• Minimise the monthly nut (repay mortgage asap, keep an eye on subscriptions, consider ongoing costs when buying cars and appliances, etc)
• Pay ourselves first (automatic transfers to savings and investments at the beginning of each month)
• Zero based loose budget (I allow myself a certain amount of money each month to spend on fun and boring stuff - a separate pot for each)
• Sinking funds (one for month to month running of the home, the other for lumpy annual spends like christmas and holidays and car costs etc)
• Try to keep lifestyle inflation under control (we allow ourselves some nice things and treats, but try not to take any of them for granted)

All of that is ingrained, so the finances pretty much take care of themselves these days. I used to set targets for myself to help push things forward, but that's no longer the case. My focus (if you can call it that) is now on growing my ISA. I pay a set amount in each month and have no control over the value of my investments, a target these days would be nothing more than a wish/hope/dream, and that's what PBs are for 😀

I've stopped measuring how long we'd last without an income as I don't know exactly how much we spend as a household these days. I have a rough idea, but not an exact figure. We'd be ok for a long time though, and you're right - that is incredibly reassuring!

I think a lot of where we find ourselves today is rooted in fairly negative "what if" style thinking in the past. Having paid a fairly substantial deposit as first time buyers the thought of possible repossession and the losses involved was incredibly unpleasant, so we wanted to ensure that would never happen. Then there was the feeling that I was in a reasonably well paid job but what if something happened to that job and I had to settle for a minimum wage job as a stopgap, or if impostor syndrome got the better of me - forever. Defending against unreasonable (all too possible but none too likely) fears brought us to where we are today. I find that hoping for the best and preparing for the worst tends to work well for me in general.

Sorry, that was a long way of saying "yes, regular saving month on month" and "yes, very reassuring" 🤣

You made fantastic progress on the mortgage last year, best of luck with the savings this year!

SuperSecretSquirrel

I'm just going to leave this here as a reminder for myself next January, once we're sick of cheese boards, ploughman's lunches, and baked cheeses…

Heart attack on plate tartiflette:

• 1kg white potatoes (peeled, whole)
• 2 heaped tsp olive spread (or butter)
• 150g brown onion (peeled, chopped)
• 250g cooking bacon (<1cm diameter pieces)
• Some salt and pepper
• 300g creme fraiche
• 220g pont l'eveque cheese

1. Boil and simmer potatoes for about 15 minutes, then drain and leave to cool.
2. Heat 1 heaped teaspoon of olive spread in a lidded frying pan at medium heat, fry onions for 5 minutes, add bacon, fry for a further 5 minutes.
3. Slice the cooled potatoes about 1cm thick.
4. Grease a deep oven tray (I used a 26x22x5cm enamel baking dish) with the remaining olive spread.
5. Cover the baking tray with a layer of potato, then sprinkle on some salt and pepper, spread over half the bacon and onion mix, then half the cream.
6. Add another layer of potato, salt and pepper, remaining bacon and onion (and pour in the melted olive spread too), and the remaining cream.
7. If there are any potatoes left, spread them on top, add a little salt and pepper.
8. Slice the cheese into two thirds of a centimetre slices (I got 12 slices after discarding the rind ends), then spread over the top.
9. Bake for 30 minutes at 190c.
10. Serve with broccoli (and a light beer for me 😁)

That makes more than enough to fill two adults and two children to an almost uncomfortable "I'll be needing a little snooze after dinner" level.

I imagine a brie or camembert would also work well, but wouldn't pack the same punch (some might prefer that). Baking the cheese did mellow it out massively. The children weren't impressed by their little taste of the cheese pre baking, but loved the finished product.

It was absolutely delicious, and such a simple recipe with very few ingredients. I was amazed at how tasty it was with none of the usual suspects involved (herbs, spices, garlic).

This was a very cheap January meal for us as I was using up the last of the Christmas cheeses (I spent about £2.25 between A**i and T***o, plus £4.35 for the cheese at waitflower though I'm sure it was cheaper pre-Christmas), but it felt and tasted decadent as hell 😋

Karmacat

That *does* sound great!  I'm thinking how I could (eventually) do it, as a vegetarian - instead of the bacon, I might use a new treat my sister found me - chargrilled aubergine in sunflower oil!  Might just chargrill my own instead of buying it at Waitflower, but I'm currently just chopping up a dessertspoonful onto my ordinary veg, and its lovely.

SuperSecretSquirrel

This qualifies as a vegetarian meal in our house KC 🤣 Whenever we make a meal with just a little bit of meat in (often a quiche with a few rashers of bacon chopped up in it, or a veg heavy pasta bake with just a little chicken in it, or a vegetarian stir fry with some duck spring rolls on the side) that counts as a meatless meal on the weekly planner 🤣

We do have real vegetarian meals too. We actually prefer vegetarian burgers to shop bought meat burgers, so have them every couple of weeks or so, and I love a good chickpea and cauliflower curry.

Your substitution sounds good for a true vegetarian. I'm happy keeping it vegetarianish over here 😆

Karmacat

SuperSecretSquirrel said:

This qualifies as a vegetarian meal in our house KC 🤣 
.....

Your substitution sounds good for a true vegetarian. I'm happy keeping it vegetarianish over here 😆

With a full family like you have, I think I'd be keeping it "ish" too!

greent

I love tartiflette - I have to eat it relatively slowly, so that my brain and stomach are aligned as to how much I've eaten - it's so yummy, but sits so heavy if you over indulge! 😋  It's good with gammon crumbs if you do a gammon joint and have little bits (especially chewier edge bits) hanging around 😁

savingholmes

Looks tasty to me

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks for posting KC, GT, and SH. I should probably post more often about tasty food 😋

We had honey glazed gammon last night - there was a bit more than we needed, but "not enough left over to be worth keeping" according to OH, so she just heaped another large slice onto my plate 🤣 I didn't exactly protest at the time, but that extra piece probably would have been just right for adding to something like a potato or pasta bake. I'll try to remember to hide it away next time, or even build the expected leftovers into the meal plan.

We've been getting our main weekly shop from A**i for quite a while. We swapped from Mr T and the savings were huge. Some of the prices at A**i have shot up recently. I had some time on my hands so decided to browse around Mr T to see how they compared these days. There are definitely still plenty of extortionate prices at Mr T, but quite a few items are price matched, and if you are careful some items can actually be had cheaper from there than from A**i. I ended up doing half a weekly shop there, which I never expected to ever happen again.

I've repeated the exercise at Mr A, Mr M, and L**l. I'm satisfied that A**i is still almost certainly cheapest overall for a full shop for us, but there are definitely some cheaper (or better at a similar prices) items to be had at each of the other shops. If I'm low on time I'll stick to A**i for the main shop, but if I have time on my hands I think I'll probably shop around a bit, not just for the cash savings, but also for the extra variety on offer.

In other news, inspired by @LadyWithAPlan I have kicked off a transfer to bring all my S&S together on the one platform (Vgd). I'm hoping it'll all go smoothly 🤞 I've started eyeing up my old work pension now too. I should probably look into the costs and see if I'd be better off transferring to a SIPP. There's no rush, but the thought has crossed my mind so I'm sure I'll start doing a little research soon.

January flew past, no bad thing in my book since it's my most hated month 😁 We underspent from the monthly boring and fun pots, but the annual pot has taken a bit of a beating thanks to some annual bills, booking a short uk break, and applying for passports.

We were happy to see a particular decluttering show back on TV for a second series. Watching that kind of thing always helps kick start a bit of spring cleaning and decluttering of our own. I'm going to have another pass of my wardrobe to see if anything in there should really be donated or binned, then I might consider braving the junk we have stashed in the spare room, or maybe even - *gasp* - the cupboard under the stairs 🤣

I'll be digging into our winter energy use figures soon too. It feels like we've had a very good winter in terms of fuel costs, all things considered. The actual spend probably won't be low compared to previous years, but I'm sure the consumption figures will be.