£35k to £245k to £0...

pinkteapot

Yep, sounds like us, except I eke our cars out to the bitter end. We could have gone for no holidays at all last year but I'd be miserable. We don't go abroad as I don't like flying, and we self-cater and spend our days hill-walking (free) so don't spend much beyond accommodation and petrol.

I need to work out our target MF date and have it clear in my mind. I think I said half the term when we moved to the big house, which would be 2028. Still on track for that I believe, but I need to play with my spreadsheet and double-check where we're at.

Flower1976

Hi pinkteapot
Well done on your achievements last year. You are off to a great start. I would have loved to see the pictures of your house !
Flower

lee111s

Great inspiration! Have you tried switching to Aldi/Lidl for your shopping? We have and we save between 20-35% compared to when we only shopped at Tesco!

pinkteapot

lee111s wrote: »

Great inspiration! Have you tried switching to Aldi/Lidl for your shopping? We have and we save between 20-35% compared to when we only shopped at Tesco!

I keep thinking I should, but I'm lazy.

Tesco is a 2 minute drive from home, and on my way home from work. I do a weekly shop on my way home on Friday nights. Aldi is 20 mins away and Lidl a bit further. From an MSE perspective I know fully well that a once-a-week shop in a single supermarket is the worst possible way to shop, but I just don't want to spend the extra time going to more shops (or even going to/from Aldi!). My motivation to save that money isn't high enough to make it worth my time, if that makes sense. We have too many hobbies and spare time feels too short as it is.

I am however trimming my Tesco spend - switching to more own-brand stuff (we have a fair amount already) and trying all the value lines (some items are fine from the value option, some are a bit manky but at least we've tried!).

I'm also trying to spend a few minutes longer in Tesco. I meal-plan and go with a shopping list, and can whip round quickly just buying exactly what's on my list. I spot some offers but not all so I'm vowing to keep my eyes open and do more stocking up of stuff we buy regularly when it's on offer. Now we're in the big house, we have loads of spare cupboard space in the kitchen.

I'm also saving up my Clubcard vouchers and using them sensibly. So instead of frittering them on cinema trips and days out, using them when we need something. Eg just before Christmas I needed a part for my bike, so I converted Clubcard vouchers to Evans Cycles vouchers and got it for 'free'.

Baby steps and, as I said, I know I'm not a shining example compared to many on this board! But saving something is better than saving nothing I figure. :money:

pinkteapot

OK, so, as I've mentioned on the 2015 MFW thread, my budgeting system isn't really complete, as we don't budget monthly for a few annual costs:

• Summer holiday
• Car annual costs (MOT and service, insurance, breakdown cover)
• MrTeapot's golf membership (we'd be selling the house before this got given up! But he plays enough to get his moneys' worth and only joined once he played enough to make it cheaper than doing pay and play each time)

At the start of January I make a list of the above costs for the coming year, add it up, and we spend the first couple of months of the year putting our savings/OP money aside for the above. Then we start saving/OPing around March.

As I mentioned in the 2014 roundup post, we've cut our holiday spend significantly over the last few years. I used to earn a lot more and we went away quite a lot, including a few times a year to a fairly expensive hotel. That's gone, and our self-catering breaks remain.

We're only planning one holiday this year, albeit for a fortnight. Off to the Lake District and we want to go in the summer to have the best chance of good hiking weather. Unfortunately, due to a variety of work commitments, we're having to go in the first two weeks of the summer holiday which has put the accommodation price up compared to last year. But, after paying for accommodation and fuel, we spend very little. We self-cater and don't spend a lot more on food than we do at home, and days spent out on the fells are free but my favourite thing to do in the world.

Car costs and golf membership can't really be trimmed. I'll haggle and shop around for the car insurance as usual when that comes up, but when I budget for it at this stage I always put it in for the same amount as last year, to ensure we have enough to cover it. Anything we save will go on OPs.

In some good news, when I came up with the monthly budget for the big house I had no idea what gas and electricity would cost us. I looked at the EPC which gave an indication but I thought it was on the high side, and ended up putting £200/month down. This was double what we spent at the last house but still not as much as the EPC said we'd spend on gas alone!

Looks like I've well over-budgeted here. We moved in in Feb last year so are almost up to the one year point. We pay gas/elec by quarterly billing, not DD. We are yet to have the big winter gas bill, but we've got £1,400 sat in the account where our £200 for gas/elec goes monthly.

We still have one month of elec to pay as that just billed, but even in winter that won't be more than £60. Last gas bill was in Oct so we've got four months of gas, but that can't be more than £600 (our May bill was £250 for three months where we had heating on to start with and turned it off partway through). I'm thinking that, having paid a years' worth of bills, we'll still have at least £800 left over (out of £2,400 put aside) so we 'only' spent two-thirds of what I thought we would.

Once we've had a full year of bills I'll put the leftover into savings and reduce the amount we put aside each month. The leftover will be a great chunk towards the holiday/car/golf fund and will help us start OPing that bit earlier. :beer:

pinkteapot

p.s. Will save money on meat for a bit. Cooked for 10 at Christmas and overdid the turkey. We have a kilo of cooked turkey meat in the freezer. :eek:

Defrosted some last weekend, microwaved it briefly to warm it through and had it with roast spuds and covered in gravy. Instant roast without having to actually roast the meat.

Busy_Mee

Hi Pinkteapot - fab name!

I am enjoying reading your thread - I was attracted because we too moved from a relatively small mortgage to a much larger one. The difference for us is that we are older than you and our time left to work is much shorter which has started to focus my mind.

I notice we budget in a similar way too. One question though I notice you have been using high interest savings accounts - I am guessing you are higher rate tax payers so have you done the tax return for the interest and how easy was it ? I have been sticking to ISAs to avoid this but don't know if it is worth considering. Hope you don't mind me asking

pinkteapot

MrTeapot is a higher rate taxpayer but I'm not (I used to be but no longer!). One of the reasons we used to only OP and use ISAs was to avoid tax returns, but we gave up dodging them in the end. They're actually really easy to do if you keep decent records.

You can ask your bank(s) for an interest statement for the tax year (it's a standard request they'll be used to). They send you a letter stating how much interest you earned during the year and how much tax they took. You put these numbers on your tax return and HMRC work out if you owe any extra.

If you've got these numbers to hand, filling it in takes very little time. You only fill in sections relevant to you. If it's just some savings interest then it'll take 20 mins a year max once you're used to how to do it.

Yorkielass

Lovely diary pinkteapot don't know how I missed it before.

I need to look at our budget again, we put money away each month for holidays, gifts & annual spends (which is car tax/mot/service/insurance, home insurance and my gym membership really) I got a bit slack at keeping on top of things in 2014 - I need to go back to how I was a few years back when we didn't have as much money to 'play' with.

Will read your diary with interest.

pinkteapot

Yorkielass wrote: »

I need to go back to how I was a few years back when we didn't have as much money to 'play' with.

I arrived on this site in 2004 (am on my second username) with a few £k of credit card debt, a 100% mortgage and no savings. Started on the DFW board and got in the habit of having a budget and doing line-by-line transaction accounting during the month.

I can't stop doing that, even though my situation is now completely different! I wouldn't trust myself not to. I can still have a tendency to fritter money if I don't keep a note of what I'm spending.

EDIT: I've been using MSE for TEN YEARS!!! :eek: