Throwing My Hat in The Ring

Lois_E

Iced_Bun wrote: »

I will be using this thread to track my success and my even one day work out how to put a signature in

Posting often is the way to stay motivated, as many others have pointed out on other threads. To do a sig, go to the green bar near the top of the page and click on "User CP". You should then see a menu down the left side of the page, and part way down that menu you will find "Edit signature".

Iced_Bun

Thank you again for all your replies I am really keen to tap into all of your experience so will definitely be posting lots to keep the goal in mind.

bbh30 - Thank you for your thoughts on packing in the dreaded weed and I like your thinking - its so true. In the past I have been an expert at giving up - I have done it so many times!!! sadly I am no expert at staying that way. The money really is a massive focus now as I cant even look at how much I spend there (yet but I will)

So major step 1 - I have visited my doctor this morning and asked to be referred to our smoking cessation clinic where they will help me decide the best route :j We ended up getting into a long conversation around paying the mortgage off and she was sold

elantan yes I think thats a good idea linked to how much extra I can pay in a month.

I am also going to look into setting up a second "virtual" savings account to which seemed a great idea.

i am not bad at budgeting in that I never spend what I dont have and I have a good system for tracking all my regular outgoings - where that falls down for me is the spending of the money left after the essentials have gone. I am fairly cheap to keep though bar the cigarettes that is:D

Lois_E Thanks for the signature advise I will be sorting that out today. Working from home so have a little spare time for these things

So todays plan

sort the smoking appointment out as soon as possible
Investigate the virtual account
Put a signature in to track success

Iced_Bun

Managed to open another e savings account (only 5 withdrawals per year allowed but a much better interest rate)

This is going to be my "save to overpay" account so will focus me to fill this when the existing one is at a certain level

On my way I guess

elantan

Well done and good luck

Iced_Bun

Well I have an appointment today for the smoking cessation so if I can sort this out that will be a lot of extra for my MFW account

Lois_E

Iced_Bun wrote: »

Well I have an appointment today for the smoking cessation so if I can sort this out that will be a lot of extra for my MFW account

Good luck with it. Hope the appointment is helpful.

Iced_Bun

Thanks Lois_E and yes it went well.

I will be getting some Champix in the next couple of days then its a week or so before I stop.

Once that happens I will start to put a weekly amount into my savings so that I can really see the benefit.

So thats that challenge under control now I need to do some more calculations I guess

Iced_Bun

Thought it was time I updated.

Lots of thought around how I can squirrel money away to achieve this goal. So I now have my second savings account up and running and it has the grand total of £10 in it.

My plan is to use my normal savings (easy access) to gain an emergency fund of 6 months living which would be about 10k then any extra money to go into the "dont touch" account which will then be the virtual mortgage pay down. (thank you Lois_E for that idea)

Yesterday I paid £200 off my O% card which just leaves £200 to pay in March. I have been paying off £200 a month for a while now so it will be easy to just redirect that money into the savings accounts.

I have £12K in the easy access account now but £5K of that is ear marked for my bathroom rennovation (it really really needs it )
So that means I have £7k against my £10k target.

So I now need to look at the normal budget and find those extra savings

I havent started on the champix yet but will be very soon so that will make a massive difference.

I have also started up my ebay selling ventures again and will be funding my savings rather than just using it to buy more useless things.

Onwards and upwards

Lois_E

Oooh - somebody found something I said helpful. I feel all warm and appreciated now, Iced Bun. Thank you.

Good luck for the next bit of the journey. Do tell us more about your bathroom. When do you think you might do it? What would you like to put in it when you have it done?

Iced_Bun

Lois_E wrote: »

Oooh - somebody found something I said helpful. I feel all warm and appreciated now, Iced Bun. Thank you.

Good luck for the next bit of the journey. Do tell us more about your bathroom. When do you think you might do it? What would you like to put in it when you have it done?

yes it was very useful Lois_ E and I went and did it so there you go :j:j

Its my ensuite that is in the intensive care required phase at the moment. Basically its 20+ years old, in a very unattractive grey and I need to run around in the shower to get wet.

So the plan is to have a very large shower with lots of force, white fittings and black tiles and a real nice place to be just for me it will need building work and basically taking back to a bare room so wont be cheap.