Building The Burrow!

apple_muncher

You're still here! And still well! Yay! Happy 2016 to you both xx

misscousinitt

Hi PM

Happy New Year!

Just catching up - will be up to speed with you soon.

MCI

Pearla*Merle

Thanks Apple It's so strange having more energy, every day I'm managing to actually tick off random little tasks instead of collapsing in a heap - joy! Feels like things are properly moving forward now :T

Hello MCI! :wave: Looking forward to catching up with you too!

Happy new year to you both! xx

Pearla*Merle

Ok, some plots and plans!

Had a meeting at work today... looks like things are changing, I need to think about how I move on from here (get new job entirely? cut hours but make up money elsewhere i.e. freelance/generate pennies from other sources?).

Immediate term I reckon I'll cut hours & generate cash elsewhere. Luckily council tax-free months are coming up which should help.

I'll see how things are looking after the holibob and go from there (shall keep a good eye open for job opportunities henceforth though).

Urgh, wish things were settled but hey ho. Feeling very lucky that I have savings and that my salary isn't vital for the household. Thank goodness for MSE or I wouldn't be in that position! :money:

Reflections on 2015 and fun 2016 budget chat to follow...

Pearla*Merle

2015 in a nutshell:

Finally got to the root of weird health nonsense & fixed it. :T

Got to a point where I managed to save circa 40-50% of my salary every month. :T

I've tested the waters with working in a) a lower income/less responsibility job and b) full time and c) with a big company (had always worked for myself/small companies before). I wanted to do this to get a better work/life balance; to see what working for a big company was like and to try out having a random job while giving myself time to work out what I wanted to do. I do feel like I've learnt a tremendous amount about myself and how I work (i.e. I'm a very dedicated worker and definitely need to be careful about getting sucked in) and how I can manage a better work/life balance. I know I can work full time if I need to, but I also know that ultimately part-time is a much better option for me.

I've got a much clearer idea of how I want my self-employed stuff to develop - I've let A LOT of plans go which took time to come to terms with but ultimately it was a much healthier thing to do and makes going forward easier (and should make incoming money flow faster - which is ultimately what this is all about!)

Truly settled into living down here, both Mr M & I are earning more than we did before (though obviously that may change shortly for me ) yet have managed to stay frugal and clever with our pennies and have avoided lifestyle inflation (apart from a few more holidays but since we hadn't been on anything fancy for years I think that's allowed?! )

So, the old and useless has been stripped away and new foundations have been laid - bring on 2016! :T

Pearla*Merle

Finally, the fun stuff - budgets!

Basically I work on a Spend No Money If Possible And Constantly Plot To Spend Even Less ASAP budget.

Obviously this isn't always fit to purpose, so I've got a back-up budget to keep me on track. I'm keeping this the same as last year (I lost track a bit when I was ill but it pretty much worked out over the course of the year). I'll review mid-year in case it needs tweaking as I do want to do things a little different this year (i.e. spend more time seeing friends).

I use a piggybanking method. What I do is to track my spends in a spreadsheet each week (tagging them with a budget category below), and at the end of the week add them up and subtract them from that particular category fund*. Every week I add the extra monies (i.e. £5 to Clothes onto the existing clothes fund - so it rolls over for weeks where I may spend more etc). Does that make sense?!

*Spreadsheet would something look like this:

1.1.16 Toiletries £1.50 Shampoo NB: 50% off!
2.1.16 Clothes £25.00 Shoes NB: 75% off!

END OF WEEK 1:
LEFTOVER TOILETRIES: £3.50
LEFTOVER CLOTHES: -£20.00

8.1.16 Toiletries £1.00 Lipstick NB: £5 off with voucher!

END OF WEEK 2:
LEFTOVER TOILETRIES: £7.50
LEFTOVER CLOTHES: -£15.00


It's more so I can keep on a track with a budget I'm happy with over the year and so I'll notice if I've gone wild with clothes spending etc.

The more money not spent the better - this is all piled into my savings pot.

Most purchases are made on 0% card, currently paid off in full each month but I'll be stoozing asap when I get a new card. Monies will then be put into high-rate interest accounts until it needs to be repaid.

So, the budget for this year. These are per week figures:

£5 Toiletries
£5 Clothes
£5 Gifts
£20 Travel & Holidays

£2 Stationary Fund (letters to friends etc)
£10 Fun & Games (frivolous buys/days out etc)

So that's just over £2k a year for everything I think I need. I do need to invest in some clothes and things this year, but lets see how close to that I can get...

apple_muncher

Awesome!

I like your approach!

(But am scared by your spreadsheets...)

Pearla*Merle

:rotfl: Apple... if only I still have access to Microsoft Office, then they'd be really scary (and colourful!)

Pearla*Merle

All my plans for today have fallen by the wayside, managed to eat something super dodgy last night and had a hideous reaction. Stomach feels too strained and sore today to let me do many household bits or anything much else today.

Have decided to cut down on my work hours, makes the most sense considering how things were going (i.e. I would have been working for mere pennies due to certain factors! Really not worth it when I can make up the difference by being at home), so in the first instance I'll generate cash elsewhere (something I was hoping to get started today, alas) and then I'll start doing some serious batch cooking. :j

With any luck I'll be more with it tomorrow, and can get eBaying and suchlike. Have tried to tidy a bit so I've got space to work on some self-employed bits as well.

Applied for another job last night, but since I was feeling dodgy I don't think my application was much good. Shall really crack on with such things when I get back from holibobs. In the meantime do some researching/thinking about places I'd like to work and see about putting together a list of potential places to send my CV.

At least with cutting down on work I don't need to buy any work clothes/shoes I thought I would need. Almost saved what I've lost out this month already right there. :rotfl:

Must try and get back into the habit of posting every day, I forget all my money-saving wins when too much time passes.

Pearla*Merle

Slowly managed to get a bit more done this evening :T

:www: MFW Wonderment: getting back into looking for freebies - received perfume sample the other day, found free Covent Garden soup via HUKD this evening.

O2 has a few good offers on at the mo (free drink at Neros tomorrow & free Millie's cookie). Onepolled and YouGovved. Dug out box I've had sitting around for ages full of things destined for Music Magpie.

:coffee: Simple Pleasures: much watching of TV today, under a cost blanket. Stayed fairly highbrow with War & Peace (love it, BBC period drama back on form!) and watching Russian-related documentaries on iPlayer.

:heartsmil Burrow Building: deflated airbed in spare room so I can actually get in and about there now. Gathered some eBay bits together - going to have a proper sort through as some may just go to charity shop.

Nice to have some time off to get the house in order, tbh. Starting to do the bits I'd planned to do when we first moved here (but I got a job much sooner than expected which put paid to that).