Changing digs and coming out of my cave... for a wee while atleast :)

Habibiboo

edinburgher wrote: »

Remember that paying off debt is the other side of the saving for retirement coin. Every penny of debt repaid is a penny (sometimes several pennies, in the case of a mortgage!) that you won't need to save for in future

Optimising the balance between debt interest and investment return is an important consideration.

:wave:

I like this, thank you Edinburgher. Mr Hbbb and I have real pension issues due to our past lives / marriages and it's great to have a reminder that the hard work going into the mortgage now will also help with the pension pot too.
It's hard to look up and see the whole landscape at times when you're struggling to put one financial foot in front of the other. Your words are a timely reminder, which is appreciated.

Karmacat

I suspect the very late/early posting was poor El's shift work reasserting itself hope thats true, El, and not anything worse ... no, hold on, didn't you knock shiftwork on the head?

xxx

skint_spice

I thought it was work too. El where are you? Hope you are ok, you've got us worrying now.

elantan

Hey all, not had time to post as yep Kc you got it right have been working all weekend, last night shift tonight thankfully

I can't knock shift work on the head for a wee while yet sadly, but as soon as I do believe me I will be partying

elantan

tattycath wrote: »

You seem to have your head screwed on with the financials El.
I'm so pleased you have turned a corner with the house. :j
Every little does help.
I need to get my rear in gear re exercise too this year.
I haven't had a smoke for over 4 weeks now either! :j

thats very well dont tatty, how are you feeling being smoke free?

Karmacat wrote: »

I like the idea of experimenting with Mr El's spends - thats your lot till next payday! Makes me think of my mum and dad - she took care of the money, like you, and when he brought his pay packet home, she'd give him two halfpennies, so he had coins in his pocket!

yeah we used to work that way Kc, he would hand everything over and i gave him spending money, then we agreed to use the spending money for something and never got it back lol ... this time its our kinda date money though

Butti wrote: »

Well done Tatty on the smoking....or lack of. My !!!! is SO not in gear it virtually needs its own passport!

but you have it now :T:T:T:T:T

elantan

Alchemilla wrote: »

Hope you are ok...saw you posting in the wee small hours.

ahh thanks Alchemilla sadly i am still working nights at the moment, not something i enjoy or fancy, but it does give me some time to catch up with the online stuff ( just a little bit not too much time) so i can be seen randomly posting at various times throughout the day depending on if im working or not

Habibiboo wrote: »

:wave:

Same here El, you either had a very late night or an extremely early morning!

Hope you're able to get some kind of rest as you finish off putting the house back to rights and that you get a bit of gentle garden time in too!

Have you made a final decision about uni yet or is this tickling the back of your mind whilst you're meant to be sleeping?

Here's wishing you an easy Sunday if you can

Hey HBBB i have decided to go back to uni, i am not sure if its what i want or need, but the thought of staying where i am till i retire is killing me, if i had got into uni when i first started looking for a job ( did uni instead of job hunting) i wouldve been out and qualified by now, as it is i am still working away and having to think of uni to get out so ....

Karmacat wrote: »

I suspect the very late/early posting was poor El's shift work reasserting itself hope thats true, El, and not anything worse ... no, hold on, didn't you knock shiftwork on the head?

xxx

nope sadly still have shift work for a while yet, the idea is to knock it on the head as soon as i can though

elantan

hey everyone,

been having a wee think whilst working nights, looking more into this dark tax/debt payment stuff... it's all quite exciting and most deff something i want to achieve,

had a conversation with my dentist yesterday about it, it was quite an interesting conversation in that he stated he did not have a clue about finances and had accepted that he will be working till he reaches at least 70, i was quite surprised as he earns way way way more than me ( next year if my wages dont change i will be tax free... possibly even this year when i go to uni) he is most deff in the 40% tax bracket so has way more money coming in that me, but he states that he doesnt have an idea how to sort it out, now he could ofcourse have been lying, i mean after all you dont share you financial business with just anyone you randomly have in your dentist chair, but we wernt talking figures, we were talking very broadly on things like do you think pensions worth while etc, do you see yourself paying your mortgage for the full term? he said that he has plenty of accountants in his family and he lets them sort stuff for him ... i thought well yeah thats a good idea, but wouldnt it be better if you could do it yourself?

Anyway, so whilst i was sitting in the chair, my mind wandered ( as it often does) to what money we have managed to save etc through simple things, i remembered that last year i started a wee savings app on my phone and had put in the amount of £1,000 thinking if i managed to save £1,000 over the course of the year it would be the equivalent to a £1,300 wage rise and i would be happy... i had to bin the app around about the end of March, end of April or something as we had surpassed the £1,000 barrier and i was happy

So there i was sitting in the dentists chair thinking how much could we save this year so far, and i worked out once again the mortgage savings, now last year sometime we were at £150 a month, we are more than that now but roughly say £2k a year... add the tax national insurance etc required to be able to pay £2,000 extra per year on our mortgage and we have effectively given ourselves a £2.6k payrise, without having to go without, without me having to work all the hours under the sun, in fact i have done no overtime for my main job since february ( have done 3 shifts for the new job)

If i was to take this further and add in all the savings we get through simple things like 5% discount from Asna 10% discount from Q&b , the reciept money i get from the inlaws who just buy what they want ( and good for them) but are not interested in receipt checking ...the money we save with gas and electrcity the money we get back from bank accounts ... it really must mount up over the year, my measley £10.5k wage must come in somewhere closer to £15k at least... only i only pay tax on the £500... so £100 a year in tax ( obviously not taking into account any overtime i may do)

Well it got me smiling anyway

tattycath

I feel so much better now I'm not smoking El. I just need to get fit now.
I've just been looking at your last post re. savings. I've never really thought about it like that! Definitely given me food for thought. :j

elantan

think of the wage rise you've gave yourself by giving up ...money for things to enhance your life

i think for me it was more the fact i have not had a wage rise in over 5 years, and i get paid quite rubbish anyway, Mr El gets paid a not too bad wage, possibly just less than the UK average but enough to help us have a comfortable living, for a long time i have felt guilty about the fact i earn so little, Mr El pointed out to me that in a way i earn much more than my wage income as i am the one that tends to get the bargains etc, which have allowed us to have a slightly better standard of living, he says its like a wage of love rather than a wage of slog

he has a way with words lol

elantan

Well it's been an interesting sort of day, gas and electricity is doubling for us, boss has handed in her notice, and I got to spend some me time in the garden