Diary of a home owner wannabe (my 6 year journey)

pennyforthepot

Housework all done and just come back from taking DD out for a cuppa and a piece of cake and a quick drool round the shops. I haven't really seen her all week as she's been away with a friend and now she's at her dads till Sunday evening. A lovely couple of hours out definitely worth the spend of £7.20

I had a moment, just a little one yesterday when I dropped the kids off at their dads McMansion with heated swimming pool and gymnasium - a tiny smidgen of jealousy popped into my head. No one was in and the kids wanted to show me some stuff so I popped in for a few minutes. They bought the place around 5 months ago about the same time we moved here. I've been in before as I have a good relationship with my ex. It was when DD rolled out the plans for the bespoke 30 ft kitchen that they are having built in the Summer that made me swallow hard and dream about what I could do with that £75k they were about to spend:eek: i came back down to earth pretty quickly when I looked around and saw all the stuff cluttering up the place, thought of all the rooms I would have to clean and realised that with my minimalist approach to life there would be nothing to put in the kitchen cupboards - and I walked away happy (though I could certainly fill the wine fridge thingy) :rotfl:

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

Enjoying the sunshine

Daily food budget is around £12 as DH bought and cooked dinner last night as well as making me a belated birthday cake Not sure of the exact figure as DS has taken her laptop to her dads so I'm without my spreadsheets :eek:

Off for a mooch around the charity shops in a bit - only window shopping as we don't need anything.

Enjoy the weekend

PFTP X

pennyforthepot

Woken up at 6.30am this morning by DSS2 at his mate ringing the doorbell. They went out to a party last night but failed to arrange to stay somewhere so when they trawled back without a key they decided to sleep in the mini (not sure why they didn't just ring the doorbell). Bearing in mind they are both 6ft I suspect it wasn't the best nights sleep. After a session in the toilet calling for Godo DSS2 as slumped off to his bed leaving his mate to sleep on the sofa in the den. I am so glad I've been there and done that :eek:

Off for a walk this morning but I think we will avoid the fry up as we had massive bacon butties yesterday. I need to get a few bits from Mr Ts once it's open but hoping for another LSD.

Missing my spreadsheets. DH took my laptop to be fixed yesterday, waiting to hear how much it's going to cost. Having binged on some personal finance blogs and the ERE book yesterday I'm thinking about writing down my plan and the strategy I will be using to get to my financial goal. I'm also going to do some research on P2P lending and high return dividend income shares as this is where I think I will eventually put a large percentage of my savings.

Have a good Sunday.

PFTP X

slowlyfading

I've been looking at dividend shares; would be interested in your thoughts when you've decided on them

norfolkdream

pennyforthepot wrote: »

Lists keep me sane and reduce any anxiety I may feel. I do cheat sometimes by writing down something I have already done then crossing it off immediately :rotfl:

PFTP x

I do this too, to the point where I try hard to think of extra things I have already done so I can add them.

pennyforthepot wrote: »

Couldn't agree more Edinburgher - I love clothes and have been lucky enough in my past life to have afforded some high quality, high expense clothing that has seen me through the last 11 years. In fact only the other day I made the decision to throw away a pair of boots I had worn for 11 years that had just given up the ghost. I rarely buy clothes anyway as I'm also lucky enough to have my daughter's cast offs (though she never seems to want mine!)

PFTP x

I cant wait til my DD is old enough , she is the same shoe size as me already

pennyforthepot wrote: »

Six months ago today I came out the closet and started this diary. In that space of time I am £9,000 closer to my dream of buying my flat in London and becoming Financially Independent - (well if I eat lentils and become a hermit I will be :rotfl:)

I do this already haha

norfolkdream

pennyforthepot wrote: »

I had a moment, just a little one yesterday when I dropped the kids off at their dads McMansion with heated swimming pool and gymnasium - a tiny smidgen of jealousy popped into my head. No one was in and the kids wanted to show me some stuff so I popped in for a few minutes. They bought the place around 5 months ago about the same time we moved here. I've been in before as I have a good relationship with my ex. It was when DD rolled out the plans for the bespoke 30 ft kitchen that they are having built in the Summer that made me swallow hard and dream about what I could do with that £75k they were about to spend:eek: i came back down to earth pretty quickly when I looked around and saw all the stuff cluttering up the place, thought of all the rooms I would have to clean and realised that with my minimalist approach to life there would be nothing to put in the kitchen cupboards - and I walked away happy (though I could certainly fill the wine fridge thingy) :rotfl:

PFTP x

I know how you feel here PFTP, when my ex drops the kids off in his flash car and the kids come in and say that he states where we live (the town) is trampy it really gets me down. Its like he is saying we are trampy and it really winds me up. Cannot wait for the day I move into a lovely village away from it all

pennyforthepot

slowlyfading wrote: »

I've been looking at dividend shares; would be interested in your thoughts when you've decided on them

I haven't done a great deal of research yet but understand that it's a good way to go if you are looking for a regular income from shares rather than relying on the volatility of share price movements. Will keep you updated though I must admit -understanding the workings of shares and investments doesn't come naturally to me

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

norfolkdream wrote: »

I know how you feel here PFTP, when my ex drops the kids off in his flash car and the kids come in and say that he states where we live (the town) is trampy it really gets me down. Its like he is saying we are trampy and it really winds me up. Cannot wait for the day I move into a lovely village away from it all

Thanks Norfolk Dream - divorce can be tough in that respect. I do wonder what my kids think of leading two very different financial lives. They are pretty good though - they never ask for anything from me and anyway if they did I would suggest they try their dad

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

We had a bit of a scare yesterday as DSS2 ended up in hospital after his night out. He is type I diabetic and the effects of the alcohol in his system ended up messing with his blood sugar levels and keytones quite dramatically so DH ended up taking him down to A&E. He's fine but as they put him on a insulin reducing drip and kept him in overnight and he won't be out until tomorrow. A lesson learned I do believe - it's not a bad thing for a young lad to avoid the alcohol binging that you see so much nowadays.

On the MS front I have spent an hour on the phone trying to sort out my car insurance refund which had been put onto an old card. Trying to talk to a real person at the credit card company proved difficult but finally all has been resolved.

I have been thinking over the weekend about how I came to the number of £250,000 that I am aiming to reach and how realistic it is for me to achieve my goal. I seem to remember I liked the number - quarter of a million more than anything else and I did the calculations based on two monthly incomes rather than just one. It was only a couple of months after I had made that decision that DH no longer had his job which has meant that for the last 16 months I have been £1000 a month worse off as he used to give me maintenance for DSS2 and also paid the utility bills and his mobile bill. Since then I have worked really hard at reducing our outgoings to match that £1000 but it has still left me with a shortfall in my monthly savings target. I am not going to change my target of £250,000 but as each month rolls by I see that I am not able to reach my monthly target.

As it stands with my current monthly income (excluding any interest earned) my monthly savings requirement is £2200 and I can only save around £1400 per month, so I am relying on future interest payments and reduced future costs to cover me for this shortfall. I am determined to get there though and once I set my mind to something I will do everything I can to achieve it.

I am going to post my monthly outgoing to keep me on track :eek:

Daily food budget £11.71

PFTPx

pennyforthepot

So this is my spend for January. Some outgoings are not monthly like holiday payments etc. Gas and electric for January is D/D rather than actual cost which I haven't had a chance to work out yet but I know that it is higher than the D/D. For the month of January my savings to income ratio is 30%, over the year it averages out to be around 34%. I would like to see this rise to 40% over the next 12 months:

OUTGOINGS: JAN

£178-kids allowance
£230-council tax
£129-mobile phones x 5
£38-internet and landline
£100-gas
£80-electric
£43-water
£192-car loan
£6.50-Red Cross d/d
£261.59-food
60.05-fuel
£0.00-car maintenance
£676.14-kids costs
£102-entertainment
£84.19-house
£578-holiday deposit
£122-birthdays
£0.00-christmas
£135-contingency
£15-miscellaneous

£3031.37-TOTAL

30% - savings to income ratio

The highs are from having to pay 2 months of programming fees for DS in kids costs as well as gym fees and the holiday deposit.

Food is based on spend rather than cost as I did an annual storecupboard shop in October of which approx £100 was carried over to January so my cost for the month was actually £366 (I think!)

I have excluded the cost of rent as this is funded separately.
I will post February's at the end of the week.

PFTP x