The march to financial freedom

millionaire_in_training

I hope we all do too. Would be fab if this time next year we all have fab achievements to note down. You have done amazingly well this year. Good on you :T

AlexLK

Ali, you really are far too organised. I hardly know what happened last month, never mind over the entire year!

Ali-OK

millionaire_in_training wrote: »

I hope we all do too. Would be fab if this time next year we all have fab achievements to note down. You have done amazingly well this year. Good on you :T

Thanks MiT. Feels good rounding off the year with those and heading into the New Year with a fresh list of goals and plans.

AlexLK wrote: »

Ali, you really are far too organised. I hardly know what happened last month, never mind over the entire year!

Well I missed out 'going LED on all our lighting' at a cost of £125 on the 'Home' section, so not as organised as I look Alex :rotfl:

I just looked back over my monthly budget spreadsheets and debt tracker and mortgage schedule tracker for my figures. I do note down every outgoing and incoming. Bit geeky like that but it's one of the first things I learnt I needed to do when I joined MSE in 2006 and have kept up - even during the intervening years when I wasn't on the site much. YNAB has sort of taken over as the app of choice though it's not really worked for me, I'm happier with spreadsheets still :rotfl:

AlexLK

Ali-OK wrote: »

Well I missed out 'going LED on all our lighting' at a cost of £125 on the 'Home' section, so not as organised as I look Alex :rotfl:

I just looked back over my monthly budget spreadsheets and debt tracker and mortgage schedule tracker for my figures. I do note down every outgoing and incoming. Bit geeky like that but it's one of the first things I learnt I needed to do when I joined MSE in 2006 and have kept up - even during the intervening years when I wasn't on the site much. YNAB has sort of taken over as the app of choice though it's not really worked for me, I'm happier with spreadsheets still :rotfl:

£125 on LED bulbs? :eek:


A bit geeky is an understatement with all those spreadsheets. You are my accountant, AICMFP. :rotfl:

Brogden

Ali-OK wrote: »

A bit of a review of 2014....

Key Money Areas
A combination of £co, Qmee, P!necone, Inbox £s and eBay earnt me free money totalling £356.46

A total of £4,465 was paid off the Credit Card in 2014.

Overpayments to the mortgage totalled £2,101.65.

Sports car was sold.

End of year emergency fund £5,800 and Savings in other pots total £2,485.

Home
£640 on replacing the garage side window and door in uPVC and £400 on the washing machine. £160 on spare bedroom refit.

Kitchen, utility and spare bedroom redecorated.

£982.31 on the works in the back garden - gravel, grid system, sleepers, edging stones, hire items and sundries. To be completed in 2015.

Lots of small jobs completed by the DIYers - I don't have a total cost on those to hand, but probably @ £250 mark with insulation, taps, lead flashing, door bar, etc.

Health
I haven't kept a track of the number of prescription items this year at £8.05 a time :eek: That would have been a useful figure to have in order to work out if a pre-paid card would be cheaper.

Work
Office move - lent money to the business to do that, but all paid back to me now. New car moved to being a business expense. Increased income and overheads being covered.

Relationships
Erm...blank :rotfl:

It's been a year of some big changes, steady financial progress but health issues.

Thank you to everyone in 2014 for your help and support, thoughts and ideas, guidance and humour too. Here's to a great New Year, I hope everyone has a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2015 :beer:

Ali, that is absolutely awesome !!

I know you are not the sort of girl who needs people to tell her how good she is but if one sees something that is brilliant then one has to say.

I am a complete shambles in comparison . I will do my own end of year 'status report' in the hope that in 12 months time I will look back and be 10% as pleased with myself as you should be with your performance.

There's serious promotion waiting for you .......Chief Financial Officer :rotfl:!! I will put it to the shareholders :rotfl:!!

Brogden x

Ali-OK

Thanks Brogden and your words do spur me on. It's more a meander to the CC finish line than a sprint, though I've set up a CC payment of £280 (rather than the usual £260) for January to get me to a round £1,200. Jan to March are usually less income wise and will be with our holiday end of March so it could be tight around there. But will keep chipping away.

I've set myself some new goals for groceries and clothes:

Groceries - £1,300 for the year or £25 per week. I think this might help with the pattern of last year (lower spends first half, higher in second).

Clothes - I've doubled this to £240 for 2015 as DS needs everything in bigger sizes this year. VAT pushes the cost up being man size now, and Clarks shoes are expensive. We know I need undies already :rotfl:, aside from that I think probably a second pair of jeans (£15 M&S) and maybe a couple of t-shirts in the summer and the sandals I didn't buy last year.

Ali-OK

AlexLK wrote: »

£125 on LED bulbs? :eek:


A bit geeky is an understatement with all those spreadsheets. You are my accountant, AICMFP. :rotfl:

30 bulbs to replace - all done except 2 in the hallway that would need new light fixings to turn them into very low energy ones (they're halogen linears).

Ha, a PH term creeping in there

Brogden

I have sooo benefited from the MSE community and am enjoying being here so very much . Life isn't always completely free of stress and with a (sometimes) clouded mind I have misunderstood warm and well intentioned communication and responded with an 'ill thought-through, knee-jerk response' risking loss of friendship and support from the people who have been good enough in themselves to offer this. Its a new year tomorrow and a more 'considered' and 'laid back' Brogden has to be at the top of the list of resolutions .

There are many great people and inspirational diaries on this site but yours is 'right up there.' You are an example to us all as to 'how to do it' with a bit of feeling and wicked sense of humour thrown in for good measure !!

If my clumsy, blokey words spur you on then I am absolutely made up :):) Your words spur lots and lots of us on :A.

I am going out the front now to clean both my car and DD2's (she who must be obeyed :rotfl:) and I almost have a skip in my step!!

I have to get my serious macro and mini plans in place for the new year over the next couple of days and I hope you won't get me under copyright if they start looking increasingly Ali-esque .

Please come over to my thread in the New Year to see how I'm doing ..........I will have the tea bags out and the kettle boiling !!

I wish both you and DS absolute maximum success happiness and of course health for the New Year.

Brogden x

Igamogam

Just dropping in to wish all........... Blywddyn Newydd Dda

Ali-OK

Wonderful to read (and try to pronounce) in Welsh - thank you Ig

Did someone mention tea bags and kettle...see you there :D

So New Years Eve was meant to be a totally chilled out, not getting dressed or doing anything day. Until I remembered I had to go outside and read the electric meter as that needed submitting by close of play today. Did the gas whilst there. Elec use still lower than last year, gas has gone up compared to last year. Might be all the hob cooking rather than the heating though.

And we had our rubbish collection today, so needed to bring the bin back in too.

Last minute plans saw SIL bring Mum over for a ride out and to collect some of DS's thank you cards, so a rush job to help DS tidy up the lounge and open curtains :eek: More tea and biscuits consumed.

I've managed to do 16 mins/5 miles on the exercise bike today and found some free mindfulness downloads to try out. I'm sure these new pills I'm on are causing a frequent dry hot to go through the whole body and are close to setting off a panic attack - I've been on the pills for 2 weeks now and things should settle with them soon I hope. Will bring it up with GP on 13th if they don't.

Financials:
- bank account checked. Use and pay off monthly CC has rolled over so full payment set up for 19th January
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar card at £24.84
- Inbox Pounds at £3.62
- Qmee - 11p added, now at 24p in the pot

A No Spend Day to end the year on.